Page 82 of One Last Gift

“You spending Christmas in Wales?” Clearly batting for small talk, then.

“Yeah.” It had felt right, to spend it there this year. He’d felt like he needed to be away, because last Christmas here had been so shrouded in grief. He wasn’t running, and he remembered what Jessica had said: running toward was not the same as running away. And so it seemed right, to be spending this Christmas and New Year’s somewhere where he was starting something new, making a new path in life, as his mum would say. She’d gotten it. And actually, she and Linda were going out to spend New Year’s with Claire in Bordeaux. Linda seemed determined to make a little friendship group there, though why now, he had no idea. Maybe it was Tom. Maybe it all came back to Tom. His mum hadn’t mentioned Cassie’s name, so he supposed she wasn’t going, though what she was doing for Christmas and New Year’s, if anything, he had no idea.

His dad was still looking at him, shifting from foot to foot. “I just came to see if you fancied getting a coffee or something, before you leave.”

Sam hesitated, then shrugged. It was going to take both of them working at it, after all, for anything to change. “Yeah. All right.”

He continued to his car, assuming that his dad would get in his own, follow him. “Sam, wait.” He turned back. His dad hadn’t moved. “I should’ve stuck around more before now,” he blurted out.

Sam raised his eyebrows. “Yeah,” he agreed. “I suppose you should’ve.”

His dad gave him a slightly sheepish look. “Your mum, she told me to be honest.”

“Did she now?”

His dad looked down at the ground. “I never really found what I was looking for. Or if I did, I didn’t fight hard enough to keep it.” He looked up. “I loved your mum. I did. But then we had you and I…” He shook his head. “I was scared I’d fuck it up. A kid, big responsibility, that.”

Sam flinched. A big responsibility, yes. One he should’ve stuck with. But then, he thought of Tom. Of how Tom had panicked when he’d found out Amy was pregnant. How he wasn’t sure he could go through with it, be a father, not yet. Sam thought he would have come around. He was almost sure of it. But even so, Tom, the best person he knew, had panicked and bolted at the thought of it. It was easier not to judge when it was your best mate, not your dad. But still.

“It was better,” his dad continued, “to not do it at all than do it badly. And then, well, I got scared to come back, because you were growing into this person I didn’t know. And I was worried about letting you down if I stayed.”

Sam nodded slowly, not sure what to say to it all. It wasn’t like they had a precedent for these kind of chats.

His dad took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, all right? It doesn’t mean I wasn’t wondering, all this time, how you were doing. When I heard you got that fancy lawyer job in London, I couldn’t believe it. It just made it harder—no way you’d want to know someone like me, not when you’d turned out so much better, actually made something of yourself.”

Sam ran a hand across the back of his neck. “Well, I’m no longer a fancy lawyer, if it makes you feel any better.”

“Never liked lawyers,” his dad said quickly, and Sam laughed, something in him loosening.

“Any reason we’re having this conversation in the cold? Or shall we go and get that coffee?”

His dad followed behind him in his own car to the nearest coffee shop. As he drove, Sam couldn’t help replaying the conversation. One part in particular stuck out. I didn’t fight hard enough to keep it. And Sam knew, that was him. That was what he was doing, with Cassie. And yes, maybe she didn’t feel the same. Maybe she really didn’t love him. But if he didn’t even try, if he didn’t fight for her, then how would he ever know?

Chapter Thirty-Nine

“Ready?” Hazel looked at Cassie and Josh, all of them sitting around a white-clothed table. “On three.” She counted, and they all pulled their crackers at the same time. Cassie, sitting in the middle of the two of them, was left with the straggly silver-and-gold ends of both of theirs. Hazel handed Cassie her extra one, and they all took out the contents.

They were in a Thai restaurant in central London, one of the chains—a smaller chain with really good Thai food, but still a chain. It wasn’t exactly ideal for a Christmassy lunch, but Cassie and Josh were both broke, and had needed to come somewhere cheap: Cassie, because she was spending time getting the house event-ready, and consequently living off savings and earning no money, and Josh because he’d left the hotel too, claiming that it was unbearable without Cassie there, and was concentrating on his master’s instead. Hazel had offered to pay for them both and take them out for a “proper” Christmas lunch, but they’d refused on principle. So there they were, ordering rice, noodles, and Thai green curry on the twenty-third of December. The restaurant had made an effort—crackers on the tables, tinsel in the window, and a little Christmas tree at the register. It was a slightly odd yet somehow great combination.

Following Josh’s and Hazel’s lead, Cassie put her red paper Christmas hat on, then cleared her throat as she extracted the little slip of paper from the cracker. “What did Adam say the day before Christmas?”

Hazel rolled her eyes. “It’s Christmas, Eve.”

Cassie put it down. “Yeah. Well, I don’t think it’s that obvious,” she said, feeling oddly defensive of her joke despite the fact she hadn’t come up with it.

“Hey, I wouldn’t have got that either,” Josh said, “so don’t worry. OK, do mine. What’s the most popular Christmas wine?” He didn’t pause for either of them to guess. “But I don’t like Brussels sprouts! Get it? Whiiinne,” he added for effect in a whiny voice.

Hazel wrinkled her noise. “My favorite wine is Malbec.”

Cassie prodded her in the ribs. “Your turn.”

She flapped a hand at Cassie. “No, I don’t want to tell jokes, I want to hear about Wales. Is it devastatingly moody? Is the house looking gorgeous now? Are you incredibly content and feeling very smug? Come on, make us jealous.” She settled back in her chair, clasped her hands together in front of her, like she was settling in for a good story.

“But not too jealous,” Josh added, moving his paper crown so that it sat a little crooked on his red hair. “Like, have a heart for those of us stuck in London running in and out of temp jobs too.”

“Or those of us in advertising meetings where you spend forty minutes discussing which blue color scheme to go for.”

“Right, so, like, maybe it can be eighty percent brilliant and twenty percent not?”