family | Janey L Foster

In her mind she organised the day, hid little treats around the house, his favourite things and she baked. Tiny cakes and tiny biscuits as though they lived in a magical world. She iced everything with silver letters, anagrams of their favourite words and she watched him as he ate. One letter after another, sugared syntax on his tongue and he was happy.

She loved to bake, she liked to feed him and later she set up the annual treasure hunt. Clues were presented in unusual places and the more he searched the younger he became.

And the younger he became, the more they merged. Together, hand in hand they moved back in time until he caught her eye by the school gate and she looked down. And up. She looked back up at him and smiled. They walked towards the bottom end of town, to the park by the swimming pool and round the back, under the bridge, in the shadows he pulled her into him and kissed her. It was the most obvious thing and somehow as their lips collided it shuddered through the years as though she was an older woman looking back.

They walked on, arms linked, talking nonsense, laughing. And at the turning for her road he said he’d meet her in morning, he might be a little late.

‘Wait here for me?’ he said. And she nodded, ‘I’ll be waiting,’ kissed his cheek and turned to go then stopped.

‘Oh, I made lemon drizzle today in food-tech, got loads, d’you want some?’ and she pulled the tupperware out from her bag, flicked the lid off and gave the cake to him, soft and moist, sugared in tiny stars.

She pushed it into his mouth with pen stained fingertips, it melted on his tongue and he swallowed.

‘Pretty good,’ he said. ‘Yeah, pretty good,’ he smiled, and it was and she was and they were.

Then.

And now.

And always.

There was a girl wandering round the town centre, yet not really a girl, more a young woman. And if you looked closely, there were sparkles left by her feet.

It would be late in the day on the eve, the eve of Christmas and she’d search. She’d search for the perfect gift and wishing the best of all things to every shopkeeper in her path, she would make her way out of the town.

And her father would have been waiting in the car at the base of the hill. She’d bundle herself back in, bags and boxes, packets and tales of her trip and they’d leave.

At home her mother was swaddled in the smell of baking and the pastry would melt in her mouth.

And this young women was the girl tucked up in bed, was the wide eyed child listening out for bells. And later she’d wait for the rustle of bin bags and her father laying out gifts.

It was this girl who’d push open the frosted lounge door on Christmas morning, to the settee packed, bursting with bright paper and symmetrical delights.

Years later that woman chewed on carrots and hid a sleigh bell under the tree. And their son would find it in the morning and his giggles filled their world.

And then now.

Now it’s the woman on the settee with a candle, holding tight to the girls in her mind. The carrots lie beneath a smaller tree, a motif tree, not the magnificent trees of childhood or marriage. But a just-enough-tree in the corner, still bringing light to her world.

It would be bedtime soon for the woman and the candle. Curling up once more, she’d hold all her Christmases tight in her arms.

And in the morning they’d parade around her, spinning, twirling, laughing in delight.

But for now she would blow out the candle, and watch the endless sky.

Maybe, just maybe she’d see something dart across it, a flash of light, a sparkle like the footprints that she left. The girls who lived in the woman, the woman who was made of the girls, who still believed.

Bed time, sleep time, they whispered to each other. Nearly time to put on the show again.