Daisy shared with Carrie how Fern had bought gingerbread men from the Lantern Bakery every day for a month.
Fern felt herself flush. ‘I wanted to recreate therecipe myself, at home.’
‘You should make some this Christmas,’ Ginny suggested.
‘I wouldn’t even have the recipe,’ said Fern. ‘And I’d need it because it took forever to perfect.’
‘You did experiment,’ said Ginny with a grin. ‘And we did eat, oh yes, did we eat.’
‘There were no complaints from me,’ Daisy called over her shoulder before turning back to the table and concentrating on runningthe rotary cutter along a piece of material to make a triangle she was teaming with the other two pieces she’d already cut to size. ‘Come on, Fern, you must. Carrie hasn’t tried them yet.’
Carrie smiled over at her as Fern recited all the little tips and tricks to get the gingerbread just right. ‘You mustn’t over-beat the sugar and the butter, you shouldn’t over-knead the dough once it is formed.Then there’s how long to let the dough rest before cutting the shapes, whether it should be rested in the fridge overnight.’
Could she still remember how to make them if she really put her mind to it?
‘They were soft on the inside and crisp on the outside,’ Ginny recalled as she cut out the snowman she’d stencilled onto a piece of white fabric. The black silky scrap was beside her knee readyto cut and use to sew on a hat and buttons. ‘And now my mouth is watering.’
‘Mine too.’ Carrie smiled.
Fern waited for her turn to use the quilt measurer and scissors and as she waited, knowing she’d check her measurements three times, as twice didn’t seem enough for her, she watched Daisy and Carrie getting stuck in with designs, Ginny’s look of concentration as she focused on her own work.Loretta was sitting on the same sofa Fern had cuddled up on with her sisters and their dad on movie night. It was still in the same place it had always been, its upholstery tired but loveable. The coffee table they’d moved aside still had the dent in one of its legs where Daisy had once rammed her little trolley filled with wooden blocks as a kid. One of the tiles on the fireplace surround had achip Fern had made when she’d accidentally knocked it with the poker one evening as she got the fire going in the open grate.
Fern would’ve given anything for her dad to be there with them right now, sitting with his newspaper, pretending to read but really watching his girls pulling together something that would certainly be colourful. Something special, something to treasure.
