Chapter Five
Loretta
Joshua had insisted he help Loretta get the Christmas tree into its stand while Rhys went back to his truck parked outside and got on with delivering trees to the rest of the residents in the village just like he did every year. He was still in the shop now, helping her get the tree properly straight.
‘I’d better not decorate it until Daisy’s with me, I’ll be in trouble.’Loretta grinned. They finally had the tree in position and while Joshua held it, Loretta bent down to fix it into place with the screws against the base of the trunk.
Over the last few months Loretta had noticed a definite spark between Joshua and Daisy, but for whatever reason, Daisy kept insisting she wasn’t interested. Loretta had no idea why she wouldn’t be – he was local, gorgeous, trustworthy… in fact the Abney brothers were exactly the type of men you wanted to join the family. Then again, didn’t daughters always resist the men their mother thought were perfect for them?
Joshua’s older brother, Lucas, had dated Ginny for seven years until he ended things and took a job in Florida. Ginny had been so upset, but deep down Loretta had been glad Ginny didn’t announce that she was movingto America with him, because what if they’d stayed over there? What if Ginny had started a whole new life overseas and never returned? It wasn’t that she, as her mother, wanted her to forever be clinging onto the apron strings, it was more that Ginny might never have rekindled the relationship she’d once had with her sisters. And to Loretta that would’ve been heartbreaking.
Ginny had visitedButterbury on and off since she moved away, but she’d never once bumped into Lucas who had been back in the village for a few years. Lucas had come into the shop when he first returned to Butterbury, faced Loretta as though she was about to haul him up in front of a judge and a jury for dumping her daughter, but she’d embraced him in a hug because once upon a time he’d been like a son to her. AndGinny had used her heartbreak to her advantage. She’d channelled her energies into something new and got her life on track with work, with travel, and found her happy place right there.
Loretta stood back to admire the tree, already planning in her mind how it would look with ornaments and lights. But she’d have to resist doing anything to it, because she’d meant it when she said Daisy wouldnot be happy if she decorated it without her.
Somehow all three of her daughters were strong-minded and although proud of that fact, Loretta still felt guilt creep up on her now and then at how she’d been when Harry died. The girls had shouldered their grief and when Loretta should’ve been the tower of strength for all of them, some days she’d found it difficult to even drag herself out of bed.And more than that, she was ashamed that in the weeks and months following their loss she’d never sat down and talked about it at length with any of them. Loretta wondered, had she managed her grief better, would the sisters still be close? The best of friends? She’d missed something along the way, the root cause of their problems, and now years later unearthing it felt impossible.
‘How are Fernand Ginny?’ Joshua asked as he circled the tree once more to check it was definitely positioned properly. He reached up and adjusted the uppermost branches on one side where they’d tangled around one another.
‘They’re well.’ Joshua was also polite, another tick on Loretta’s approval list. ‘And they’re both coming home for Christmas.’
He didn’t hide his surprise. ‘All three of them, here together?’It seemed the Chamberlain girls had got into such a habit of not coinciding visits for any length of time that others in the village had noticed. Neither Fern nor Ginny ever stayed long and they spent part of their time visiting their grandad, which meant they didn’t have to hang around Butterbury very much at all. Fern and Ginny seemed to have put a distance between the village and their newlives, and all three girls, more disturbingly, had put a distance between themselves.
‘Well hopefully I’ll see them both around,’ said Joshua.
‘You might well do. They’re staying for a few weeks.’
He whistled through his teeth. ‘I never thought we’d see the day your three were back together.’
Loretta hadn’t either, and she wished it was as simple as his words suggested. She’d love to see allthree of them sharing stories with one another, discussing their woes, giving each other advice.
Joshua buttoned up his heavyweight khaki jacket and pulled on his gloves ready to brave the outside. ‘Perhaps I’ll see you at the tree farm soon. I’m doing a stint in the grotto.’ He lowered his voice when a local father came in with two toddlers in tow. ‘I’m the Father Christmas up there this year,a few times a week, swapping evening shifts with another volunteer. I’m Father Christmas at the bookshop too.’ He put a finger across his lips.
‘Your secret is safe with me,’ she whispered in return before waving him on his way.
If only Daisy could see what Loretta saw in this man with a heart of gold, a man who knew what was important in life.
Loretta also had a chance to make a start on theChristmas window in between serving customers. She positioned the wire tree at the very edge of the bay window, waving to Jeffrey the postman who walked past with his very pregnant wife heading towards Lantern Square. She opened up a cardboard box to an array of colour and, one by one, took out the pompoms that acted as baubles, remembering how one winter when Ginny was fifteen she’d had the fluand even after a week in bed was still too weak to return to school. For something to do, Loretta had had Ginny sitting out at the back of the shop making these coloured pompoms of varying sizes, in the brightest of colours as well as traditional Christmassy reds, golds, silvers and ice blue. They’d threaded each one with matching cotton and that year Loretta had made this wire Christmas tree uponwhich to hang them, and it had gone up every year since. She hung the baubles, only pausing to source cotton for the few pompoms that seemed to have lost theirs, or serving customers as they came into the shop.
By the time Daisy returned, Loretta was positioning the wooden bedhead that just about fitted in the raised platform of the window and on top of two cardboard boxes next to one another.Across the boxes she draped a Christmas quilt that showed off some of her favourite festive quilting fabric with a snowy playground scene and a house with a chimney and Father Christmas on the roof, his sleigh and the reindeer waiting. Every year people would be enticed into the shop by the festive window and Loretta would point them in the direction of readymade quilts she had in stock or the materialsto make their own.
Daisy was by the stunning Fraser fir, safely in position. ‘I’ll never grow tired of the smell.’ She pulled off her gloves and put a hand to the tips of the branches, her fingers inspecting the needles. She inhaled deeply and smiled. ‘Actually, I’d better have a word with Rhys about a tree for the house.’
‘Perhaps I should’ve thought and ordered them both at the same time,’said Loretta. She’d picked up a stocking decoration for the window display and hung it on one end of the bedhead. ‘I remember you girls choosing a tree every year when you were younger.’
Daisy took off her coat. ‘Who are you trying to kid? It was me and Dad who chose the tree, us who carried it home. We didn’t have a Rhys back then, we carried it between us. Ginny and Fern would’ve turned theirnoses up at putting on wellies and traipsing up and down to find the perfect tree. And Fern especially would’ve complained about the mud. You know what she’s like, she’s always dressed immaculately, her hair is always styled.’
‘You are indeed very different girls, nothing wrong with that. And your sisters always loved the tree when it was inside the house.’
She conceded. ‘They did.’
Was sheagreeing because that’s what she thought Loretta needed to hear? Sometimes Loretta found it harder to read her youngest daughter than she would’ve liked. Although she was pretty sure Daisy hadn’t been going to the second-hand shop earlier. She was up to something and it made Loretta uneasy. ‘Maybe we could head up to the tree farm together after closing. I know they’re open late. I could choose somenew ornaments, you could check out the trees, you always had a good eye for them.’
‘Let’s do it,’ Daisy agreed. ‘We could take Busker up there too.’
‘I’m not sure that’s a good idea. We might lose him among the trees and it’s too cold to be looking for a dog in the dark. You know how much he loves to explore.’
‘I gave him a long walk this morning, I suppose,’ said Daisy.
