They walked together to the end of the street, making conversation about the city and its highlights, until Cleo went one way and Teresa the other.
Greenwich Village
The scentof the Norway Spruce she’d had delivered last week filled her apartment, and Cleo turned up the thermostat, hoping the place would soon be cosy. She switched on the laptop and as it warmed up, turned on the Christmas tree lights and the fairy lights strung around the windows. She stood beside the tree and looked at the myriad of decorations adorning the branches, some she’d brought over from England, others she’d collected over the last four years. Her fingers reached out and touched the rich, deep green needles and she leaned in to smell the scent more deeply. It never failed to send nostalgia cascading through her: the mornings she’d woken and wondered if Father Christmas had been, the long walks they’d taken when her mother was still alive, racing back to the house and the smell of the turkey in the oven, the last few Christmases out in Connecticut with Grandpa Joe.
The tree had red and silver baubles, beads in the same colours, and an angel at the very top with a fairy light strategically placed behind her to give her an ethereal glow. On some branches were pine cones decorated in sparkly silver glitter; on one there was a Father Christmas with a sack full of presents on his back. There were woodland creatures dotted about, pretend candy canes, and everything else from snowmen and snowflakes to a hanging snow globe with her name on it that her dad and Teresa had posted out to her last year.
But there was one decoration she treasured the most and it had pride of place at the front of the tree, nestled between fairy lights and a sprig of holly and ivy tied into a neat bundle. When she was little, her mum had given her the keepsake that hung now from a branch by its original red ribbon. In cherry veneer, it had three handprints embedded into its surface: Cleo’s, her mum’s and her dad’s, all next to each other, with A Jones Family Christmas written in an arch over the top.
Cleo patted the ornament, smiled in acknowledgement of Christmases past, and went over to the laptop. She’d dimmed the lights so the tree lights and those around the window would be the main feature, but she could still see the computer as much as she needed. She was probably harming her eyesight, but right now she didn’t care. She wanted to soak up the Christmas feeling as much as she possibly could.
First task was to deal with Kaisha’s missing wages. She never usually dropped the ball on such things, but her mind had been all over the place. When that was done, she reordered the correct worsted, triple-checking the order this time. The first lot of vicuña had yet to shift in the store but it would eventually, and if not, maybe she’d treat herself and knit the most exquisite scarf she’d ever owned. She finished off by ordering some more haberdashery: vintage needles and cute little knitting bags; a selection of buttons: Santas, snowmen, trains, strawberries, and took a deep breath when she leaned back in her chair. The Little Knitting Box had been her saviour for a long time and it was hard to think of it ever being any other way. Still, she supposed she had a few months of this lease and then the year’s extension, which was ample time to make up her mind and firm up some plans.
She checked her emails and deleted junk, skim-read a supplier newsletter, and just as she was about to close down the laptop for the night, another email pinged into her inbox.
It was from Aaron.
Weirdly, she wasn’t too surprised. Since her Dad had mentioned bumping into him and how he hadn’t seemed all that happy, she’d half expected this. Tentatively, Cleo opened up the message.
She hadn’t seen or heard from him in forever and at first it was nice to receive a chatty email from someone she’d known for years, loved once, and still cared about. You didn’t spend years with someone and manage to turn your feelings off at the flick of a switch. And maybe they’d left things unsaid, unexplained, or at the very least unresolved.
Her feelings were getting more and more complicated by the second and by the time she got to the bottom of the email, Cleo was shaking her head.
Her relationship with Aaron had been like a snowball rolling down a hill, gathering speed, being weighted down with more snow as it hurtled towards a crash finish. It was a finale that had culminated in Aaron cheating on her and moving in with his new girlfriend. And now here he was saying he thought they’d given up on their marriage too quickly. He wanted to know whether it was too late for them to try again.
Cleo cursed out loud several times. Her fingers went to the keyboard, then came away, went back again and hovered there waiting for some kind of sign to tell her what to type.
Aaron had split up with the other woman, Serena, and had moved back into the house he’d originally bought with Cleo. In the divorce he’d agreed to take over the house in his name and Cleo had been glad to walk away. But now, memories came flooding back of the home she’d fallen in love with. The place in the country with its wood burner in the living room, the cold flagstone kitchen floor in the winter, the range cooker, the snuggly bedroom at the top with low beams and the classic Victorian bathroom suite. She’d given the front door a fresh lick of paint so it was policeman blue, they’d put up a trellis, and she’d planted raspberry blush climbing roses that would grow up and around the door. Every summer since then, she’d found herself wondering what those roses looked like now. She imagined their scent beneath the English sunshine, the silky petals that would move ever so gently in the wind.
Aaron had been the one who cheated on her, the one who’d instigated the ending of their relationship, but Cleo had pushed him away and dismissed what he wanted because she was so determined she knew her own mind. Sometimes emotional turmoil in a relationship was just as bad as a physical mistake. She still stood firm that she never wanted children and he knew her reasons, but she’d never thought about how it must have made him feel to know there was no room for negotiation within their marriage. He’d said they’d talk, work through it; her having a baby wasn’t the only way. He’d pleaded with her. He’d mentioned surrogacy, adoption. He wanted her, he wanted the life they’d planned. But she hadn’t wanted to listen to any of it. She’d shut him out completely and couldn’t blame him for finding solace elsewhere.
Cleo stepped away from the keyboard now and perched on the windowsill, looking out across the street at illuminated windows dotted about the brownstones opposite as people turned in for the night, sat down with loved ones to watch programs on the TV, enjoyed a meal together. She wondered whether any of their lives were this complicated. She bet somewhere inside those beautiful old buildings lurked plenty of people who felt the same way she did, muddled and unsure of which way to turn.
Cleo knew one thing for certain, and it had dawned on her the day she got the letter about the termination of her lease for the Little Knitting Box: she was lonely. As much as she had a stable job, an income, a place to live, she was still missing something. Or someone.
When she’d seen Dylan at the Christmas market the other day, her heart had soared. Her stomach had flipped over in a different way to how it had reacted to Aaron’s email. Both men were complicated. Aaron was her past and maybe he should stay that way. Then again, he knew her, he knew her issues and was willing to work through those if only she’d listen. And they’d been good together for a time. Dylan, on the other hand, had children already and so she could get involved with him and not have to worry he’d want her to have a baby somewhere down the line. He’d done his bit and she doubted he’d want to revisit sleepless nights and dirty nappies.
She frowned as she thought of the added complication Dylan came with. If they became involved, she’d become an instant stepmother figure, and from personal experience, it wasn’t a role she’d ever wanted to play out. Maybe Aaron getting in touch was a sign. She’d told Dylan to go back to his ex-wife, be a family, and perhaps it was time Cleo walked away from him completely to let him do just that. Perhaps then she’d know what she wanted for herself.
Cleo felt the cold glass of the windowpane against her cheek. It was only when the flakes passed the golden glow of the streetlamp on the corner that she realised it was snowing. She smiled. There was nothing like New York in the snow, when the streets were muted with the soft white blanket and quiet surrounded them in a way that was impossible in the heat of summer.
But this year she felt loneliness and trepidation as much as the excitement and the magic, and she had no idea which direction her life was about to go in. All she was certain of was that she wanted someone to share her life with. She wanted the closeness of a partner, the unconditional love that developed with respect and time.
But she still didn’t want a baby. Not ever.
If she had a baby, it could end her life.
16
22 REDCLIFFE PLACE, STAMFORD, CONNECTICUT
Dylan had installed a gym in his first house with Prue. He’d started exercising at her suggestion, but it hadn’t been long before he’d become addicted to the rush it gave him. It made him feel alive, as though he could tackle anything.
In the second sitting room at his parents’ house, he’d set up a gym a year ago, and today he’d already pounded several kilometres on the treadmill, lifted free weights, and was giving the rowing machine a thorough workout to target his lower body powerhouse: his glutes, hamstrings, and quads. He was concentrating so hard on smashing his last split time out of the water that he hadn’t heard Prue come in, and it was only when he finished, sated and out of breath and he heard her voice behind him that he registered her presence.
‘I didn’t hear you come in,’ he puffed.
She threw a towel to him and he caught the drips coming from his forehead.
