Just One Last Night

The children’s case histories were dire and there was no doubt they regarded all adults with deep distrust and, in the boy’s case, a great deal of pent-up anger, but from the moment Melanie saw their small, wary faces she loved them. They came to the house a couple of days before Christmas and on Christmas Eve Melanie sat on the boy’s bed and told him a story of a little girl who had been in care and who felt abandoned and alone. He listened with hostile eyes until the moment she told him she had been that little girl, and then it was clear she had taken him aback.

It was the breakthrough she had prayed for. From being surly and suspicious he began to ask her question after question and in so doing some of his own traumatic history came out quite naturally. The rest of the children were fast asleep, waiting for Santa to fill their stockings, and Melanie spent two hours talking to him before he settled down to sleep.

When she joined Forde downstairs, he reached out a hand to her, drawing her towards the French windows and opening them so the crisp, biting air caressed their faces. A few desultory snowflakes were beginning to fall on the sparkling ground, which was white with frost, and the trees surrounding the house looked breathtakingly beautiful in their mantle of white. ‘A fresh new world,’ he murmured softly, drawing her tight into his side. ‘And that’s what I want for these children, Nell. I crept up and listened at the bedroom door while you were talking to him and I know you’re going to transform his life.’

‘We both are,’ she said softly, emotion making her voice husky.

‘But you most of all.’ He smiled, kissing her hard. ‘We’re going to have more Christmas miracles, Nell, and our family is going to grow in a way I hadn’t thought of but which is perfect. Because of you, my love. All because of you. What did I ever do to deserve you?’

‘That’s what I think every time I look at you,’ she whispered. ‘You didn’t let me go when I walked away. You came after me. You will never know what that meant.’

‘We won’t let these little ones go either.’ He looked up into the pearly gray sky from which more and more snowflakes were falling. ‘This is going to be another wonderful Christmas, my darling.’

And it was.