A Merry Little Christmas

Chapter 26

Merry

Cole helped Merry onto the couch in the antenatal room while they waited for the midwife to join them.

‘Comfy?’ he asked, after lifting her feet up onto the bed.

‘Comfort is all relative at the moment,’ Merry puffed, tugging down the waistband of her jogging bottoms. ‘As is my fashion sense.’

‘You look gorgeous.’ He pulled up a stool and kissed her tummy. ‘You have never looked more beautiful to me, and I mean that, darling.’

‘In that case, I …’ She stopped herself from saying that she must have looked horrendous on her wedding day if this was her most beautiful moment. Let people compliment you , she recalled Astrid saying once, learn to accept praise with grace . ‘Thank you, darling, that’s very sweet.’

Cole, unused to her replying without a witty comeback, looked surprised. ‘You’re welcome. Weirdly, it’s quite an ego boost for a man, you know, to see his wife so big and …’ He made a ball shape with his hands.

She snorted with laughter. ‘You should have stopped at “beautiful.”’

‘Whoops.’ He smiled sheepishly. ‘Thanks for suggesting I come with you today. It’s nice to be involved and I can’t wait to hear the baby’s heartbeat.’

‘I’m glad you’re here.’ She stroked his hair. She rarely asked him to attended regular check-up appointments with her. She didn’t need accompanying and knew he was busy so didn’t want to disrupt his day. Last night during their heart-to-heart, he’d admitted that sometimes he felt as if his presence wasn’t welcome and that she wanted her privacy. She’d felt awful about that and reassured him that wasn’t the case and there was no one she wanted with her more. She’d then gone on to tell him all about her row with Nell. Cole had asked her what she was going to do about the shop if Nell was serious about not coming back. She’d admitted that her maternity plans had always been fluid and that without her friend to take the reins, running the business was going to be a nightmare. With that, she had started to cry again. She still needed to tell him how worried she was about becoming a mum, but she’d made progress last night and it felt good; today their bond was tighter than it had been for weeks.

‘Later on I’ll go and fetch the kids and do something with them,’ he said, scratching his jaw thoughtfully. ‘I suggested a visit to Santa, but they both looked at me as if I was mad. Even Freya.’

The schools were closed due to teacher strikes. Their mum was at home with them this morning but had asked Cole to help while she went to a meeting.

Merry shook her head in dismay. ‘That’s sad, she begged me to take her last year. She’s growing up fast.’

‘They all do,’ said Cole, pressing his lips to her bump. ‘So we have to treasure each day.’

‘I need to go into the shop straight after this appointment, but we could take them to Meadow View later,’ Merry suggested slyly. ‘They might like to have a look at the progress on their rooms.’

‘We?’ he said with a grin. ‘You mean you want to look at progress.’

She gave him an innocent shrug. ‘Maybe.’

‘Let’s see if you get a good report from the midwife first.’

‘I’m fine! And if you’re driving, what’s the worst that can happen?’ Admittedly, she had been working more than was ideal and had a row while up a ladder yesterday, and her blood pressure wasn’t perfect, but as her father had passed away last night, that was to be expected. Which reminded her: Olek must have told Nell the sad news by now. ‘Odd that Nell hasn’t been in touch to say she’s sorry to hear about Dad.’ She checked her phone for the umpteenth time. She couldn’t help but feel hurt about the radio silence.

‘There’ll be a valid reason,’ said Cole. ‘Are you sure Olek will have told her?’

‘He said he’d tell her if he saw her first and he will have done by now.’ Merry’s stomach flipped with an awful thought. ‘Maybe she’s resigned from being my bestie as well as my business partner. It was a bad row yesterday. I’ve never seen her so angry.’

Presumably Nell hadn’t gone in to work this morning. She wondered if Nell had asked Woody to work in the shop on his own, or whether she was so annoyed she hadn’t bothered to do anything. Merry had no way of contacting Woody because Nell had handled his Airbnb booking. It felt very odd to be so removed from the business that she wasn’t even sure whether they were open or not.

She couldn’t imagine working at Merry and Bright without Nell anymore. And she certainly didn’t want to imagine life without Nell outside of work; she needed her more than ever. Nell made everything fun, she took the stress out of situations and even though she hadn’t been there when Max was a baby, she had always been confident in her role in his life. Merry needed to borrow a bit of that confidence in the coming weeks. She loved Emily of course, but no one could replace Nell. She’d been her closest friend for more than half of her life.

‘She’d never do that,’ Cole said. ‘You two are as tight as family; it’ll take more than one argument to break up the dream team. Perhaps she’s just got a hangover.’

‘Possibly.’ She wasn’t so sure; he hadn’t seen the look of contempt on Nell’s face last night.

‘Call her,’ said Cole gently. ‘Just call her.’

Merry pressed her lips together and said nothing. She couldn’t bring herself to call Nell. She knew she was being stubborn, but if the situation was reversed and something happened to one of Nell’s family, Merry would put her own sensitivities on hold to be there for her closest friend. Nell should be the one to call and check up on her.

‘Good morning.’ Pip entered the room, shut the door and washed her hands. ‘How are we?’

‘Not bad,’ said Cole, stretching his arms above his head. ‘It’s always busy in December, of course, everyone wanting to move in to their new home for the New Year.’

‘Your own wife included.’ Merry gave him a stern look.

‘Whoops,’ he muttered, ‘touchy subject.’

One of Pip’s eyebrows hitched up a fraction and she locked her gaze onto Cole. The last time she’d done that was when Cole had declared that the fathers should be given gas and air to help them cope with the stress of seeing their partners in pain.

‘I meant,’ said Pip, pointedly, ‘how are Merry and baby? How Dad’s doing is beyond my remit.’

‘Of course.’ He scratched his head and moved quickly out of the midwife’s way so she could pop the baby heart rate monitor onto Merry’s stomach.

‘I’m going to say this quickly and I don’t want to talk about it. My dad passed away yesterday,’ Merry blurted out.

Pip paused from wrapping the cuff of the blood pressure monitor around her arm. ‘Message received. And you’ve got people around to support you, as well as rushed-off-their-feet builders?’

‘I have.’ Merry swallowed. ‘My sister is coming over to help.’

‘Good.’

For the next couple of minutes, Merry relaxed and let Pip do her work.

‘Baby’s heart rate is fine,’ she said, packing away the heart rate monitor. ‘Your blood pressure is high but not worryingly so. Baby growth has slowed up, I’m going to watch that. You can sit up now.’

‘Thanks.’ Merry was supremely grateful for Pip’s no-nonsense manner; anything too cuddly and she’d have dissolved in tears.

Cole and Pip both hooked an arm under hers and helped her to sit up and she swung her legs over the side of the bed.

‘I can’t stress this enough,’ Pip said, helping her down. ‘Delegate, delegate, delegate. Understood?’

Merry nodded. Although whether she still had someone to delegate to at Merry and Bright was another matter altogether. Leaving her business in the care of an Airbnb guest seemed a bit flaky, even for her.

As Cole went to bring the car up to the porch of the clinic, Merry’s phone buzzed. She grabbed it and her heart bounced when she saw Nell’s name flash up. She’d sent a voice note. Thank goodness. Her relief, however, was short-lived.

Olek has left me and it’s down to you. How could you have told him about my termination? It’s not enough that you’re having a baby when I can’t and that you’re constantly moaning about it, now you’ve come between Olek and me too. You and I are done, Merry. So just to confirm, I’m resigning from Merry and Bright and the way I feel at the moment, I’d rather not hear from you for a while.

Bile rose in her throat as Nell’s words sank in. No condolences, no checking up to see how she was or whether she could do anything to help. What sort of friend did that? Merry was numb with shock. She had been so looking forward to this Christmas, but, suddenly, the festive season had never looked so bleak.