Christmas at the Edge of the World

“After all this time…”

“A little road trip,” Laurel encouraged. She felt, deep down, that it was the right thing to do. That Abby wouldn’t feel truly at peace until she’d confronted their father, until she’d confessed her guilt and then let it all go. “We could all go together, if you like. I haven’t been back to Scarborough in a while, and I only live an hour away!”

“Don’t you want to get back home to York?”

“Not really,” Laurel admitted. She was surprised at how unwelcome the thought of her cosy cottage and old life was now. It all felt like a pale imitation of the real thing—a cluttered farmhouse in Orkney. A half-barmy sheep farmer with the loveliest eyes in the world.

“Why don’t you?” Abby frowned and then leaned forward as if she could peer into Laurel’s soul. “What are you not telling me?”

“Nothing,” Laurel said, so half-heartedly that Abby just made a scoffing noise. “Nothing much,” she amended, and then, because she knew her sister would get it out of her eventually, and also because she wanted to tell somebody, she started at the beginning and told her everything about Archie.

“He sounds lovely,” Abby said when she’d finally finished, sniffling and trying not to feel heartbroken all over again. “You could have moved to Orkney.”

“After knowing someone for a week?”

“More like ten days.”

“Still, it’s a bit much, isn’t it?” Laurel protested. She felt a bizarre need to justify her choice, a panic that she’d done the wrong thing. “It’s not like he even suggested something like that. Besides, Orkney is the back of beyond. The edge of nowhere. Miles and miles from civilisation. The nearest Starbucks is over a hundred miles away.”

“It’s not nowhere if your heart is there,” Abby pointed out, and Laurel let out a laugh.

“I never thought of you as a romantic.”

“When it comes to other people’s lives…”

“Archie made it pretty clear,” Laurel said in a tone of dismal finality. She couldn’t forget that. “In the end, it was just a kiss.”

“Some kiss.”

Laurel nodded morosely, and they sipped their drinks in silence for a few moments. “So,” she finally asked, trying for an upbeat tone. “What about Scarborough?”

*

They left the next day. Zac was surprisingly amenable to another road trip, and Abby had been seized by an almost grim determination to see this through.

“I think you’re right,” she told Laurel. “I need to talk to him. To tell him things. And if he won’t be honest with me, or doesn’t care, then at least I’ve said what I needed to say.”

It was Laurel who rang her dad and asked him if she could visit, not mentioning Abby at her sister’s request.

“

Of course you can, love,” her dad answered, affable as always. “I don’t mind.”

Living only an hour away, Laurel had visited her father once a month or so, usually coming for dinner, a takeaway in front of the TV. She ended up giving the kitchen a good clean, hoovering the downstairs, and putting a load or three of wash on, because her father had never really learned how to keep house, even after eighteen years on his own. Sometimes she even braved cleaning the toilets.

They never spoke much, but the silence had felt comfortable, like something frayed and faded but still wearable. Laurel had long ago learned not to expect anything more from her father.

Now, as they drove up the M1 towards Scarborough, she wondered how that relationship, or lack of it, had affected her over the years. Her mum and Abby had given her a fear of abandonment and a terror of commitment, all without realising it until recently. Had her father given her a self-protecting determination to have low expectations? To choose dreams over reality, because they never disappointed? They just didn’t come true.

Inevitably Laurel’s thoughts moved to Archie. He’d had his fair share of hardship—his brother dying, his mother leaving, his father’s illness. What had he learned? To fear being left, that it was safer on his own? Was that why he’d backed off so quickly? Should she have tried harder? Dared more?

Everyone had baggage, Laurel acknowledged, no matter what their background. The best they could do was learn how to carry it, distribute the weight. Eventually, perhaps, they’d be able to shuck at least some of it off. Was that what Abby was doing now? Could she do it?

The slightly shabby semi-detached house on a suburban street on the outskirts of Scarborough looked like it hadn’t changed at all in thirty years. The cars in the drives were newer models, and a few houses had a brighter lick of paint, but other than that Laurel felt as if they were stepping back in time.

The feeling was even more pronounced when her father opened the door and they stepped into the little foyer with its cabbage rose wallpaper and cheap wooden furniture bought from MFI circa 1980.

“Hey, Dad.” She smiled at him and did the sort of half-hug that they always did, but in the middle of returning it, her father stared slack-jawed at Abby, and then at Zac behind her.