Page 38 of The Cotswolds Christmas Fair

Amy and Lottie were the last two in their class, waiting with their teacher, whose pregnant belly poked out of an open coat. She smiled when she saw Jen, and Amy skipped over.

‘Can Lottie come to play?’ she asked.

Jen was about to refuse – she wasn’t really in a position to be offering childcare in her sister’s home. But then Michelle arrived, with baby Max in a sling, looking pale, her nose red and sore.

‘Sorry, sorry,’ she said, scrabbling in her pocket for a tissue and blowing her nose loudly as Lottie ran to her. ‘Bit under the weather.’

Clearly an understatement. She looked as though she needed to spend a few days tucked up in bed with a steady supply of Lemsips.

‘Amy’s just asking if Lottie can come and play? I could give her some dinner and drop her back to you later?’

‘Pleeease, Mummy, please can I?’ Lottie asked.

Michelle threw Jen a grateful look. ‘If you’re sure?’

Jen nodded, already taking each girl by the hand.

They were gleeful as they ran up the street to Railway Cottages, holding hands and giggling as they skipped ahead, while Jen carried book bags and lunchboxes. The house was quiet when they arrived, Julia and George still sleeping and Dan working, so Jen took the girls outside to make a snowman.

They shrieked with laughter as they ran around, rolling a great ball until it was almost as big as Amy.

‘OK, OK,’ Jen said, laughing. ‘That’s enough, leave some snow!’

They had left very little for the head, and so it was tiny in comparison to the body, creating a distinctly odd-looking snowman, but the girls didn’t care. They stood on tiptoes together to balance it on the body, giggling when it fell off and rolled a little way along the ground.

‘Come back, head!’ Amy cried as she ran after it, bending and stretching out her arms.

‘Naughty head! Come here,’ Lottie said, giggling.

The second attempt was more successful, and they soon completed their creation with Jen’s scarf, the smallest carrot she could find and a couple of raisins for eyes.

‘Oh no!’ Lottie said. ‘I should have bringed Mildred to use for a hat.’

‘What’s a Mildred?’ Amy asked.

‘It’s the cat Train Lady gave me.’

Amy nodded, as though that made perfect sense. ‘I’ve got a cat,’ she said.

In the end they borrowed a little bobble hat of George’s; anything else would have swallowed the head whole.

The girls held hands and gazed in admiration at their snowman.

‘He’s actually the best ever, isn’t he?’ Amy said, her voice soft with awe.

Lottie nodded. ‘The bestest,’ she agreed.

And, as the girls wrapped their arms around Jen, she allowed herself to sink into the moment, drinking in their joy, without letting herself think of all she’d lost, and what might have been.

Chapter Seventeen

She made the girls and George, who had emerged from his nap red-cheeked and rumpled, her signature macaroni cheese; one of the few things she could cook, but it was good. They proceeded to cover it in ketchup, and she decided not to mind.

Just as they were finishing there was a knock on the door, and she opened it to find Marnie and her daughter standing there with a wheelbarrow wrapped in colourful fairy lights. It was lined with a red fleece blanket and filled with little gingerbread houses.

Amy and Lottie squeezed past Jen to see who was there, and as soon as they saw the contents of the wheelbarrow they began jumping up and down in excitement and talking over each other.

‘Ooh goodie, I knowed you were going to bring us the houses again, Marnie!’ Lottie said.