‘Stop treating me like one of your hopeless work case studies.’
‘They’re not hopeless; actually, the kids are a whole lot like you.’
‘Well I’m not a project you get to succeed or fail with.’
‘I know you’re not, you’re my nephew.’
She let Kyle work while she finished her drink. At least he was talking, although he’d probably finished his drink so fast so he wouldn’t be stuck having to talk to her for too long. ‘I’d better get back to the knitting stall.’
‘Bye.’ He didn’t look up.
One last effort. ‘What do you say to getting a tree for our apartment?’
That got his attention. ‘It would feel more like Christmas.’
‘Exactly. And we can buy some ornaments – nothing too fancy, just enough that it’s not bare or really sad. I’m sure we could get some bargains if we search hard enough.’ She watched him, happy to see him so relaxed when he didn’t have his guard up. It showed a hint of his little-boy charm, which she knew was still there deep down, it was just that sometimes you really had to delve to find it.
*
The next morning Amelia woke to the smell of Christmas in their apartment even before the heating system kicked in and although it was bare, having been delivered by Mitch only late last night, the tree was still magical to see. She’d messaged Cleo to ask whether she knew the best place for cheap ornaments and she’d told her not to buy too much because Darcy had plenty for her own guests with more to spare.
‘I’ve sorted some ornaments, which I’ll pick up later this evening,’ she told Kyle as he came out of his room to make a cup of tea. ‘But I’m still going out to find some of our own, perhaps a few we could take home to England for souvenirs.’
‘I’ll come.’
‘You don’t have to, you go back to bed for a bit if you like.’
‘No chance. I want to make sure you don’t choose anything too hideous.’
She ruffled his hair before he could escape and she wished Connie could see the way he was when he didn’t have everyone on his back, when he was away from the norm. The vodka hadn’t been a very good example, but the way Kyle was now, offering his company without having to be begged, was something Amelia knew her sister had forgotten. All this talk of throwing him out of the house if he didn’t change was because Connie didn’t see how badly he needed help. Connie had let Amelia swoop in to the rescue more and more lately, as though she was tired of parenting, and Amelia hated seeing the way Kyle and his mum’s relationship was heading. They’d end up estranged for good at this rate.
Her mind back on the holiday and this magnificent city, Amelia and Kyle set off with a map of the stores they wanted to go to and a budget in mind. Amelia wanted to choose a few extras to make the tree theirs. They’d collect more decorations from Darcy tonight because they’d both been invited over to the Inglenook Inn for drinks. Kyle had said no at first until Amelia assured him it wouldn’t just be women. There would be a male cohort including Mitch, Kyle’s temporary boss, whom he got on very well with, and Myles, Darcy’s husband.
It didn’t take long to find what they were looking for and back at the apartment they sifted through their selections. They’d picked up New York baubles in midnight blue with the golden skyline of Manhattan and Santa in his sleigh crossing in front of the moon. Kyle had picked up a box of hundreds of twinkly lights, Amelia had found a set of gingerbread ornaments, each one unique – one held a rolling pin, another had a pinny on, one held a candy cane.
She lay the ornaments out on their tissue paper on the side table in the lounge area as she suspected Kyle would want to do the tree tonight, no matter how late they returned from the Inglenook Inn, and she unwrapped the one he’d chosen of a firefighter uniform, helmet, boots and axe attached. ‘What made you choose this one?’
‘It’s very New York.’ He did his best impression of a native accent.
She knew there was more to it than that, but it would take time for him to open up to her, if he ever did. Over the years he’d never quite managed to talk about his dad in the way she knew he needed to. She hoped that unlocking all that grief might be a way to move forwards.
They soon left the apartment and spent the rest of the day sightseeing rather than shopping. They saw the Flatiron Building, which really did resemble an iron, and Kyle bought another pair of gloves for the temperatures he described as arctic, even managing a smile when she suggested it might snow soon given the frost on the roofs when they’d woken this morning, the wind biting at your cheeks and the temperatures that were set to plummet in the lead-up to Christmas. They walked for miles, they hopped on and off the subway so they could pose for pictures on the Brooklyn Bridge, outside the Supreme Court. Lower Manhattan was as busy as they’d anticipated but Kyle was keen to visit the 9/11 Memorial Museum and Amelia agreed to go on the condition he ice-skate with her in Central Park tomorrow. She didn’t think he’d go for it in a million years but he surprised her when he said yes. The mood then turned sombre with a visit to the museum, contemplative silence enveloping them when they emerged into the Manhattan mayhem once again.
As they walked Amelia said, ‘I’m surprised you wanted to go in.’ She got a shrug in response. ‘I never thought you would. It’s quite confronting.’
He said nothing as they headed on towards the apartment to get ready for tonight, just upturned the collar of the coat that probably wasn’t enough to tackle a New York winter. She let the silence settle until he eventually admitted, ‘I wanted to go in because I knew it would remind me of Dad, in a good way. For his bravery, you know.’
She stopped in the street and apologised to the man behind who’d been walking head down and nearly collided with her. Now she was getting somewhere. It was the most Kyle had said about his dad in years. He usually avoided the subject. How did she not make the connection between the museum and Kyle’s own journey? In her job she prided herself on being switched on but now she felt blindsided.
Kyle’s dad was a firefighter, had been ever since Amelia met him when her sister introduced her to her “hot firefighter boyfriend”. As a little boy Kyle was into anything to do with his dad’s profession. He had his dad play fire drills in the back garden, whereby they’d use the hose pipe and run it along the length of the grass before tackling the fence at the end as though the entire thing was going up in flames. Kyle had loved the game; his dad had turned the hose on him once, soaked him through, leaving Connie rather unimpressed given Kyle had only just got over a cold. Kyle had slept in a fireman costume for weeks until Connie had insisted they finally wash it. It did smell – Amelia had given the little boy a hug when she arrived and it must have been the winced expression on her face that finally sent Connie over the edge. There’d been tears, tantrums, and the second it was dry he’d put it on again. Whenever his dad came home Kyle exhausted him with question after question about his day, things he’d seen, any heroics.
And then one day, Stuart didn’t come home. He’d been at the station, it had been an easy day, but out of the blue he had a heart attack in the car as he drove home. No health problems before that, not even a family history to contend with, just one of those things, they’d been told. Connie couldn’t make sense of it. She kept talking about how fit he was, how healthy, she’d asked Kyle if he wanted sausages for dinner that night, in shock, business as usual being her coping mechanism. But when Amelia put her arms around her sister, Connie fell apart. Amelia would never forget the wailing, the pain, the tight hold of Kyle and his mother as they huddled in the kitchen until the full moon dared to push its way through the darkened sky.
‘I think about him all the time,’ Kyle said now, shivering on the side of the street. ‘I still dream about him.’
‘You never talk about him.’
‘Sometimes I open my eyes in the morning and the dreams feel so real that I’ve leapt out of bed and opened my door because I think I hear his voice.’
