Page 82 of The Christmas Letter

‘Well, it’s easier to have someone to blame,’ Emma said quietly. ‘I was still the one driving. I . . .’ But she glanced at Holly, and swallowed whatever she was going to say.

I was still to blame, was that it? But if she was to blame, then so was Holly.

‘And maybe it would have panned out differently, if there was someone else behind the wheel.’ The lines around Emma’s mouth tightened. ‘I’ve replayed the scene often enough, wondering.’

Holly was staring down at her lap now, trying to breathe slowly. She shouldn’t be the one to cry here. She needed to hold it together. This was not the time to think about her own crash, about Lily. This was about Emma.

‘I’ve dealt with the whole thing horribly,’ Jack said, still in that same strained voice. ‘And now—’

‘You’ve dealt with it in a way that got you through it,’ Emma said, and though she was clearly trying for her usual matter-of-fact voice, there was a gentleness there that Holly had only heard occasionally. ‘And I should have tried harder,’ Emma continued, tiredness creeping into her voice. ‘I shouldn’t have let you and your mum turn me away.’

Holly peeked up to see Jack frowning at Emma. ‘What do you mean, let us turn you away? You never tried to get in touch, afterwards.’

‘Of course I did. When you left, I was constantly ringing your mum, wrote her a few letters for good measure. But she said she didn’t want to see me, and she said you didn’t want to see me, and I could hardly blame either of you, so I . . .’ She trailed off at the look in Jack’s eye and Holly found herself holding her breath.

‘She said you wanted space. She never said . . . I thought you’d given up. I thought you didn’t want to see me.’

Holly couldn’t stand it, the way his voice sounded like it was about to break. She reached out, laid a hand on his. He flipped his palm, linked his fingers with hers.

Emma followed the action with her eyes, but she didn’t comment. ‘I always wanted to see you,’ she said. ‘But maybe I did give up.’

‘I tried to get in touch, about the service I was holding for Dad. It was just before Christmas, nearly four years ago now. I wrote to you about it. You never came.’

Emma’s eyes were shining with tears. ‘I was in the car, driving there. But an accident had happened in an intersection along the way. I couldn’t get by, and the crash looked pretty bad.’

Holly’s heart started to thud. Christmas, nearly four years ago. Jack in the café because he was headed to the memorial. A crash that happened not far from there.

She pulled her hand away from Jack’s. ‘Where?’ she breathed, and both Jack’s and Emma’s gazes snapped to hers. ‘Where was the crash?’

When Emma named the road, Holly stared at her. Did they hear it, that ringing? ‘You couldn’t get past?’ Holly repeated, and her voice was shaky.

‘No. And not just that . . .’ She swallowed, and the action looked painful. ‘I had to get out – I had to see if there was anything I could do. I called the ambulance and they told me not to get too close, because it might be dangerous, but I waited, to make sure. I saw them get everyone out of the cars and into the ambulance. It was ok, though, in the end,’ she continued, her tone reassuring, clearly having clocked something in Holly’s expression. ‘They were all ok – I called the hospital to check.’

‘You called the ambulance?’ The thudding of her heart felt painful now. The ambulance had arrived so quickly. It was something she’d heard her mum thanking the hospital for.

Jack was watching her. ‘Holly, what—?’

‘It was my crash,’ she whispered. ‘That’s why you didn’t get to the service. It was because of me.’

Chapter Twenty-seven

Both Jack and Emma were staring at her.

Holly licked her lips, her mouth dry. ‘The crash I told you both about,’ she said, and now her palms felt sticky. ‘The one with Lily.’

‘I know what you mean,’ Emma said, the no-nonsense tone back. ‘I’m just . . . processing.’ She stared at Holly for a good long moment. Holly’s ears were ringing, the noise almost deafening. Her heart was thudding, sending little bolts around her body. So many threads, pulling them together – the connections between her and Emma and Jack. All of them had had accidents in the past, had all lost something because of that. It was the reason she had been drawn to Emma, the reason she felt such kinship. And now this . . .

Fate, fate, fate. It chanted around her mind, Lily’s voice and her own merging together. Stop it, she told herself. There’s no such thing as fate. Because what purpose would fate serve? Why would fate send that driver swerving around the corner? Why would fate cause Lily to lose her baby, her chance at motherhood? Why would fate rip her sister from her, and why would it bring Emma into her life, just as Emma was dying, so that she’d have to lose someone she cared about all over again?

Holly got to her feet, backed away from the bed. ‘I need some air,’ she said, and it was no more than a scratchy whisper.

Behind her, Emma was saying something, and she registered Jack’s low voice in reply, but she couldn’t hear properly over the thudding of her heart, that damned ringing in her ears. She walked quickly to the door, yanked it open and fell into the corridor, letting the door shut behind her and leaning back against the nearest white wall. Her brain was whirring, trying to make sense of it all, but she couldn’t untangle the threads. It was too much, all too much.

The door opened again, and Jack stepped out. Seeing her slumped against the wall, he took a step towards her. Was it her, or was it very careful, that step? He kept a distance between them, too – was that deliberate?

His dark gaze met hers. ‘Are you ok?’

She hesitated. ‘Are you?’