‘Daisy, for goodness’ sake,’ Fern scolded. ‘Don’ttake everything so personally, don’t always assume the worst.’
Daisy dropped her end of the quilt. She at least left the torch when she took the ladder too quickly for Ginny’s liking. She was glad to hear the thud of her footsteps once she reached the safety of the landing.
‘She really needs to learn to chill,’ Fern muttered as she and Ginny carefully folded the quilt and slotted it back inthe bag to take downstairs.
‘Were you hinting?’
‘Not you too.’
Ginny put a hand on her sister’s arm. ‘No, not me too. I believe you.’
They locked eyes for a moment. ‘Thank you.’
When they heard the front door slam shut as Daisy presumably returned to the shop, Ginny and Fern put the last of the boxes back until Fern went to pick up the one with Ginny’s sewing machine. ‘Where do you want this?’
‘Back where it came from?’
‘You don’t want it?’
‘Nope.’ She closed the box herself and slid it across the floor to the edge. She moved another, lighter box to the farthest point and slid the box with the sewing machine into the space it vacated. ‘Come on, I think I just saw a beetle run up the rafter.’
That did it. Fern needed no convincing and no longer wanted to examine the whys and whereforesof Ginny no longer using the machine.
After they’d taken the calendar down to the laundry and popped it in the washing machine, they went into the kitchen and Ginny flicked on the kettle.
Fern sighed. ‘I really wasn’t hinting at Daisy’s mistakes when we were up there in the loft.’ She fussed Busker, who seemed glad of the company, around the ears. ‘She always takes things the wrong way. Andwe’re all devastated that the quilt went missing, it was special to all three of us.’
Ginny poured boiling water onto coffee grounds. ‘Daisy is likely fixated on the both of us really going off at her when we realised the quilt had gone. I mean, it wasn’t even really her fault.’ A look shared with Fern told her that her sister knew she was right. ‘Things get lost over the years, it’s a fact oflife.’
Fern nodded. They’d both apologised to Daisy back then for their outbursts but the damage had been done. And now, it appeared, Daisy still couldn’t let it go. It felt to Ginny a bit like the stubborn stain on her bedroom carpet from the night she and Lucas had drunk mulled wine in there the first Christmas they were home from university – he’d tickled her, sending the drink slopping overthe edge. The stain had been scrubbed at plenty of times, it had faded, but deep down it was still among the fibres. It was only ignored because it was covered over by a sheepskin rug these days, although Ginny had run a hand over the stain last night. Down on her hands and knees she’d thought about Lucas, about seeing him again after all this time, about how she’d almost been transported backall those years to when they were together, when they thought they would be forever.
‘Perhaps this Christmas we could try to make Daisy realise that it’s not two against one.’ Ginny put the suggestion out there for the first time in years.
And Fern looked at her and smiled. ‘I think that’s a really good idea.’
Ginny had always been the bridge between her youngest and her eldest sister but beingback here in Butterbury all together was already making her realise how easy it would be for them all to fall back into their roles. Fern had always had a tendency to sound as though she thought she knew best, Daisy had a habit of being on the defensive, and Ginny had been the mediator.
This year maybe it was time they changed things a little. And having Fern agree that Daisy shouldn’t be feelingas though it was her against her older sisters was a step in the right direction for all of them.
