Christmas at the Edge of the World

Now she wondered if Abby had resented her, for having to be taken care of for so long. Or had she resented their father, for not doing it?

Why hadn’t he filled her Christmas stocking, or bought her a birthday present, or made dinner once in a while? Of course, Laurel knew why. Her father had never done those things. He was a blokey bloke, a police officer who was the son of a police officer, and he hadn’t done those things when her mother was alive—or dead. He wouldn’t even consider doing them. So Abby had.

“Still, it’s a bit much to just drop you in it, isn’t it?” Soha said with a snort. “I mean, after all these years…”

“Actually,” Laurel said quietly. “I don’t think it is.”

After she’d finished the call with Soha, assuring her she’d be back in York in the new year, Laurel went through the rest of the shop, chucking things into the trolley with determined abandon. Mince pies, fairy lights, a CD of Christmas carols which, they could play if she could find Eilidh’s old CD player, and a few stocking stuffers she hoped Zac might enjoy—a table tennis set he could use on a kitchen table, a harmonica, a Rubik’s cube.

She winced a bit at the bill, but told herself it was worth it. When it was all in bags she lugged them over to the café where Zac was sprawled on a chair, thumbs flying.

“What are you doing?” Laurel asked with as much cheer as she could. “What’s the latest app for teens these days?” Zac gave her a scathingly incredulous look, and she could hardly blame him. She sounded as if she were about eighty. Why didn’t she just call him a whippersnapper while she was at it? “Snapchat?” she guessed “YouTube?”

“Why do you care?”

“I’m just trying to make conversation, Zac. I’d like to get to know you.” She decided to try a different tack. “What’s your favourite subject at school?”

“I’m not in school anymore, am I?”

He really liked to make this hard work. “When you were in school, then.”

Zac shrugged. “Maths.”

“Maths, really?” She grabbed onto it with obvious desperation. “That’s cool.” Zac raised a single, sceptical eyebrow. “I was more of an English lit girl myself.”

“Cool,” Zac said in a tone that indicated the opposite. Clearly this wasn’t going anywhere.

“Shall we go pick out a Christmas tree?” Laurel said finally, admitting defeat.

“Fine.” Zac slid his phone into his pocket as he rose from the table. Laurel put her shopping back in the car before they headed over to the outside area where a few dozen Christmas trees were set up.

“What do you think?” Laurel asked as they walked along, inspecting the various options. “Nothing too big obviously, but I can’t stand small trees. You’ve got to mean it, you know?”

“I guess.”

She pointed to a lanky tree at the end of a row. “What about that one?”

Zac eyed it for a few seconds. “It’s got a wonk branch in the middle.”

“So it does.” One of the tree’s branches had a funny kink in it, making it look a bit as if it had a broken arm. Somehow it made Laurel like it more. “I don’t want a perfect tree,” she explained to Zac. “One that’s got attitude. I can’t stand arrogant trees.” Belatedly she realised she sounded like Archie, talking about tempestuous taps and ornery cookers. But trees were different, surely? They were alive, at least.

“Yeah, I get you,” Zac said, surprising her. “If we don’t pick that tree, no one will.”

“Exactly.” Laurel beamed at him, heartened by this small bit of understanding. “Someone’s got to love that tree, right? It might as well be us.”

“Yeah.” Zac nodded. “But it does have a seriously wonk branch.”

“That only makes me love it more,” Laurel said staunchly, and Zac rolled his eyes, but with more humour than she’d ever seen before.

An hour later they were back at Bayview Cottage, struggling mightily to put the tree up in a corner of the sitting room. Unfortunately Laurel had not had the foresight to buy a stand, so she’d rigged up a wash basin from the kitchen and some bungee cords from the car, but it meant the tree was both precarious and lopsided.

“Do you think it will fall over?” she asked Zac as she stood back to inspect their dubious handiwork.

“Yes,” he answered. “Really, it’s just a matter of when.”

“Zac.” She rolled her eyes at him, and he gave her the barest flicker of a smile, which made her feel ridiculously happy. Finally, finally, her nephew was starting to thaw. Here was the miracle, fledgling as it was. All it had taken was a shabby cottage on the edge of nowhere, a bunch of cheap baubles, and a crooked tree. “Shall we decorate it?”

He shrugged his assent, and Laurel put on the CD of Christmas carols she’d bought at the shop. Both of them jumped at the sound that came out of Eilidh’s dusty old CD player.