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“Didn’t he just.”
“How on earth did he organise all this?”
Samantha started to reply but Beth cut her off.
“I helped.”
She sliced through a sprout and popped half into her mouth.
“You did?”
They had to wait until Beth had finished chewing. “Someone had to click where he was pointing on Amazon.”
“I didn’t know you’d been to see him in the care home,” Samantha replied. She drained the rest of her drink then set down the glass, sliding it dead centre on the mat and letting her fingers linger on the stem.
“Well, I have. Three times so far.”
“That was good of you.”
“I know. It’s almost as if he’s my father too.”
“I’ve sat in the car park once and then driven home,” Carly said, low enough that the girls didn’t hear. The rest of the table did. She’d taken the heat off Beth, which was the idea. She hadn’t expected the looks.
Samantha’s mouth tightened. “And you wonder why I feel like I’m doing this all on my own.”
She pushed out her chair and walked to the end of the table with the bag of gifts. From inside, she pulled out a package the size of a shoe box and fumbled the label over. When Beth told her it was hers, Samantha scowled, set it on the table, and reached for another.
“Carly’s,” Beth said, glancing up from the meal she’d resumed eating. She did the same with each gift, until Samantha reached her own. She was allowed to read that one from the label.
Samantha stared at it for longer than a name warranted. Then she snatched a tear from the corner of her left eye and busied herself making sure the girls had eaten their vegetables.
“When are you next going?” Carly asked, pushing the food around her plate.
“New Year’s Day. We’re at my sister-in-law’s from tomorrow, same as every year. I’m taking Dad lunch when we get back.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“I’ll come. If I’m invited.”
“Of course you’re invited.” Samantha looked at Beth. “You too. We’ll all go.”
The silence that followed was different. Less loaded. Mostly tired. Samantha picked up her fork again, Beth reached for the bottle she had rescued from certain ruin, and Carly’s brother-in-law asked the girls whether Grandpa had remembered the batteries for anything this year.
Lunch limped on. There was pudding, then coffee, then the complicated extraction of overtired children from cardboard packaging and wrapping paper while Samantha stacked plates with a briskness that suggested the dishwasher had personally wronged her. Carly helped. Beth dried beside her, mostly in silence, and for once Samantha didn’t tell her where anything lived.
It was almost civil. Not warm, exactly, but there were shared jokes about the girls’ new karaoke machine and only one pointed comment about gravy on the tablecloth. By the time Carly collected her coat from the hall, she’d stopped clenching her jaw.
Beth followed her out onto the driveway, carrying the wrapped bottle in both arms. There was frost on the car roofs, and someone had a fire going.
“That could have been worse,” Beth said.
“The family motto.” Carly unlocked the car. “Along with don’t mention feelings until someone cries over sprouts.”
Beth looked past her, through the front window where Samantha was crouched in front of one of the girls, fixing a new tiara into slippery hair. “She’s frightened.”
“I know.”
