Make a Christmas Wish Read online

  I think it was that first Christmas with Joe when I finally realized something was wrong with him. Always a difficult baby, at nearly a year old he still wasn’t sleeping through the night, and I found it difficult to bond with him. He was often fractious when he was awake and I was exhausted with the effort of looking after him. I felt guilty – after the miscarriages I should have been thrilled with my new baby – but when I mentioned it to Adam, he told me I was imagining things.

  ‘All babies cry,’ he said. Like he knew anything about it. He was working really hard to pay off our crippling mortgage, spending long hours away from home, frequently away on business. It wasn’t his fault; he just couldn’t see how hard it was for me.

  ‘Yes, but not like this,’ I said.

  Adam didn’t listen. No one listened. My nearly retired doctor, who was kind, but overworked, had I think dismissed me as a neurotic mother. Not difficult after those early weeks when I cried all the time and was eventually diagnosed with postnatal depression. My mother always thought I looked at the cup half empty. My friends thought I just had a difficult baby.

  But that Christmas it all changed, at which point even Adam had to believe me.

  That Christmas was when Joe started banging his head every night. We’d put bumpers round his cot as we were told to do, but it didn’t seem to make a difference. I’d put him in bed every night and, thump-thump-thump, it would start. It was distressing to watch, but if I tried to cuddle him or take him away he cried. I sometimes felt as though my touch was toxic to him.

  Then there was the way he didn’t seem to respond to his name, or smile very much. I felt so sure it wasn’t the way he should be developing, I started looking things up, though Adam told me I was looking to find something that wasn’t there. But he had to admit things weren’t right when we were unwrapping presents after Christmas dinner and Joe completely freaked and threw himself on the floor, screaming. Nothing would console him. Not Adam, who could normally calm him down, nor my mum, who prided herself on her perfect touch with babies. And certainly not me. How could I not feel useless?

  At first no one could say what was wrong, though I stuck to my guns and kept asking. All anyone could tell us was that Joe wasn’t developing the way he should. He had only just learned to crawl, and wasn’t making any attempt to stand up. As he grew towards toddlerhood, he reacted even more badly to my touching him. It broke my heart to hear him scream when I went to hug him, and I was covered in bruises where he lashed out at me. It was as though he were locked in his own little world.

  I began to avoid mother and baby groups, unable to be sure that Joe would play nicely or kick off by throwing toys, hitting the other children or banging his head on the ground. As the babies in my antenatal group grew, it was becoming more obvious that Joe was different. I’d lost my first two babies, and now this. Maybe I wasn’t cut out to be a mother.

  It wasn’t until Joe was nearly three, after months of consultations and meetings with experts, that we found out why.

  ‘Asperger’s? What’s that?’ Adam asked, looking pale.

  So they explained as kindly as they could. How Joe found it difficult to interact socially, how he wouldn’t have the emotional and social cues that other people did, which could make him appear unsympathetic and different to the other kids. How it was likely he wouldn’t last in the state system at school.

  ‘Oh shit, shit,’ said Adam.

  ‘But how? Why?’ I wanted to know.

  And then Adam told me about his brother. The one no one ever discussed and who I didn’t know existed till then. He lived locked away in a home because Adam’s parents couldn’t cope with their secret shame.

  I was flabbergasted. I should have known this sooner.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Adam said over and over again, his face pale with distress, ‘I should have told you, but – Mum and Dad, they never want to talk about it. And I’ve never felt able to either.’

  What did it matter either way? Would it have made anything different? I’d have still chosen to have Joe; after all Adam’s turned out OK. It’s a lottery. And we just lost.

  Malachi jumps up next to me. ‘Don’t give up so soon,’ he says with an unexpected kindness in his voice. ‘Listen to me and everything will work out.’

  ‘Listen to you, how?’ I say, unconvinced.

  ‘Let me take you on a journey,’ he says. ‘There’s a lot you need to learn.’

  Chapter One

  Adam

  Suddenly all the lights in the house begin flickering on and off, as if someone is maniacally flipping switches. I have a vague sense of unease about it and go to check the circuit breaker, but none of the fuses have blown and all the light switches seem to be working.

  ‘Must be a power surge,’ jokes Emily. ‘Everyone’s probably turned their lights on at once.’

  I’m not so convinced.

  ‘Maybe there’s a problem with the wiring,’ I say. ‘I’ll call an electrician in the morning. We must get it sorted before Christmas.’

  The lights seem to settle down, and the wind too, so I dismiss my unease as the product of an overactive imagination. But later when I go into the kitchen to start dinner, the back door blows open. I go to shut it and stare out at the night. It’s stormy and cold, and the wind is howling in the trees. I shiver. It’s not a night to be out in, and yet I could swear there’s someone there, in the back garden, who is exuding menace and anger.

  ‘Is anyone there?’ I call, but no one answers; all I see is a mangy black cat which runs in front of my path.

  It must be the stress, I think. What with stress and guilt, I’m losing it. With one last glance at the garden, I shut the door and go back inside. But my sense of unease lingers on.

  Emily

  ‘OK, Joe, how do you think that looks?’ Emily smiled at Joe as they surveyed their – well mainly Joe’s – work decorating the Christmas tree. Over the past few months she and Adam had been spending more time together and slowly letting Joe get to know her, but she still fretted that they were taking it too fast. Joe was such an enigma, and Emily found it hard to know what he was thinking. Apparently Livvy was the only person who understood him intuitively. Whatever her faults, Joe had been very close to his mum. Adam was still finding little notes he’d written to her around the house.

  ‘Joe needs a routine,’ Adam kept telling Emily, ‘and at least he knows you from swimming. That helps a lot. Besides, he likes you.’

  That was a huge relief. It was so hard to tell.

  Funnily enough it was Joe who led Emily to Adam two Christmases ago. When Emily had lost her husband, Graham, to a girl in the marketing department, she had been devastated. At her friend Lucy’s insistence, she’d moved from North to South West London to start a new life, part of which had involved Emily taking up swimming, and it was at the Monday swimming club where she first spotted Joe.

  Up and down. Up and down. He swam decisively with certain strokes, driven by some inner compulsion that Emily recognized. In her own way she swam just as obsessively as he did.

  Adam came later. Emily was vaguely aware of a man who swam in her lane. Occasionally they’d bump into one another and mumble watery apologies. That moved to quick smiles as they lowered themselves into the water, and the occasional comment about how cold it was. They’d just moved to a shared joke of how much better it was when you got out when Emily ran into him in a café in town, having coffee with Joe. It had been late December two years ago and Emily had been mooching disconsolately around the shops, feeling her single status acutely. She was going to Lucy’s annual Christmas bash that night and knew she’d be one of the few unpartnered people there; while she was glad to be shot of Graham, she sometimes wished someone new would come into her life.

  She had noticed Adam immediately because he looked as lost and bereft as she did. Although she didn’t recognize Joe straight away, there was something about the still way he sat which seemed familiar. And Emily’s eye was also caught by the fact that he was repeat
edly arranging his cutlery in order.

  ‘Hi,’ Adam said, with a smile that lit up his face and dispelled the look of gloom that had settled over him.

  ‘Hi,’ Emily said a bit dubiously, wondering why a complete stranger was accosting her in a coffee shop.

  ‘It’s Adam,’ he said. ‘From swimming.’

  ‘Ah,’ Emily said, recognition dawning, ‘always better when we get out.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Adam said, with a disarming smile.

  An unfamiliar warm tingle spread over her. Apart from her best friend Lucy, Emily didn’t know anyone locally, and it was lovely to have someone recognize her for a change. And Adam was far more handsome than she had so far noticed, with fair hair, just turning to grey, and bright blue eyes that sparkled when he smiled a crinkly smile. Emily took in his smart jeans and casual attire. She’d already clocked his lean body in the pool, but not the rest. Funny how you didn’t appreciate how good-looking someone is when they’re practically naked.

  ‘I didn’t recognize you with your clothes on,’ Emily blurted out, then blushed profusely. He’d think she was a complete idiot. But Adam laughed and invited her to join them.

  ‘Who are you?’ Joe looked suspicious.

  ‘You know this lady,’ said Adam. ‘She goes swimming. This is … actually, I don’t know your name.’

  ‘It’s Emily.’

  ‘Adam,’ he said, and again that lovely smile, which made Emily melt a little at the edges. He seemed kind and friendly, and it was nice to interact with someone other than the girlfriends she saw occasionally.

  ‘Hello Emily from swimming,’ said Joe, rearranging his cutlery once more.

  ‘You’re a good swimmer,’ Emily said cautiously.

  ‘I swim a hundred lengths,’ said Joe proudly.

  ‘That’s amazing,’ Emily said. ‘I can usually swim sixty.’

  ‘I swim a hundred lengths,’ said Joe again. ‘Every week.’ Then he retreated into folding and refolding his napkin.

  ‘Joe’s got Asperger’s,’ whispered Adam.

  ‘Oh,’ Emily didn’t quite know how to respond to that; she’d never met anyone with Asperger’s, but Joe seemed very sweet if a little insular, so she smiled encouragingly at him, and hoped she’d got it right.

  They sat in the café for ages, drinking coffee after coffee and chatting away as if they’d always known each other. Joe sometimes joined in, sometimes not. It was a magical couple of hours and Emily felt the warm glow deepen as the minutes ticked past. Here she was, spending time with a lovely man who seemed genuinely kind, friendly and interested in her. It was Christmas – maybe things were looking up.

  All too soon for Emily, Joe started tugging at Adam’s sleeve.

  ‘Eleven forty-eight, Dad,’ he said. ‘We have to meet Mum at twelve thirty. And have lunch. Lunch is at one p.m.’

  Oh. Mum. Stupidly, the fact that Adam and Joe were always alone had prompted Emily to begin to hope Mum might be out of the picture.

  ‘Yes,’ said Adam. ‘We’d better go.’ And a little of the sparkle went out of him. ‘Lovely chatting to you, Emily. See you next week.’

  They left and Emily felt bereft, firmly back in the land of singledom. Just her luck the nicest man she’d met since the Graham debacle would be married; they usually were. After what Emily had been through, she had no intention of destroying a marriage.

  But as it turned out that was exactly what she’d done. Emily never set out to seduce Adam, nor he her. It had been a gradual process: of chats in the changing room before or after swimming; of the occasional drink with the swimming club and making sure she always sought him out; and then eventually of running into him one night when she came home from work. He was frantic. Joe had gone walkabout and Adam had no idea where. Emily automatically offered to help, and they tracked him down to a school friend’s house, where Joe was sitting rocking back and forth, saying, ‘Mum wouldn’t talk to me.’ That was Emily’s first glimpse of the hell Adam and Livvy were living in.

  ‘It’s as much my fault as hers,’ Adam had explained to Emily later. ‘I’ve always tried to support Livvy and Joe, but she seemed to cope so well with Joe when he was little, sometimes I felt she didn’t need me. Joe came first, which was natural, but it seemed that he was all she wanted. Somewhere along the line we stopped communicating, and I don’t think I quite appreciated the toll looking after Joe took on her.’

  It wasn’t long after that they had kissed for the first time and from that point onwards, Emily’s relationship with Adam had changed and deepened, and then they were in too deep to get out without hurting people. It wasn’t what either of them had intended.

  And then, a year ago, Livvy had died and everything had changed. Adam had been in a state of profound shock and Emily couldn’t help him. She had had to sit on the sidelines wondering whether she’d ever see him again. For a while she’d wondered if that was going to be it; whether the love affair which had made her heart sing would be snuffed out just as surely as Livvy’s life had been.

  But a few weeks after Christmas, Adam had started to call her.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘I’m going mad here. I have to talk to someone. And you’re the only person who understands.’

  At first Emily was wary, not sure if Adam even knew what he wanted; not sure if the love she felt for him was reciprocated. She had deliberately avoided going to swimming, because seeing him there was just too painful, but one blustery February day she’d taken herself off for a walk down by the river, and suddenly there was Adam, standing before her. The weeks of frustration and anguish melted away and they were in each other’s arms before they knew it.

  ‘I’m so sorry for not seeing you,’ Adam had said when they went to a bar to sit and chat. ‘I made a mess of everything with Livvy, and I really don’t want to make a mess of it with you. I have to think about Joe. You do understand that, don’t you?’

  ‘Of course I do,’ said Emily. ‘What happened has happened, and we have to deal with that. Let’s just see where this goes.’

  It was clear that whatever they had begun just wasn’t going to go away, and so they started things up again. Slowly at first, and gradually. They had a few dates while Joe was at his grandma’s. One Saturday they managed a whole wonderful day in town, visiting the Millennium Wheel, and ending up with a show and a meal, and a night in a hotel. It was like starting all over again, like a proper couple. Emily began to feel that they were on surer ground, that this might settle into something permanent after all, just like she’d always hoped. After a few months, Adam began to invite Emily round to the house for short periods, letting Joe get used to her being there. They’d tried not to rush things for the sake of Joe, who though he barely mentioned Livvy clearly still missed his mum, but he seemed to tolerate Emily, so much so that Adam had recently dared to start asking Emily to stay over occasionally.

  If anyone had asked Emily she wouldn’t have chosen it this way. Adam still had a lot to deal with, and she worried about the responsibility of Joe, and how she would cope if she ever became his stepmother properly. Joe was lovely, and she was very fond of him, but frequently felt out of her depth. If she were to be with Adam permanently she’d have to take that on. It was a big ask, but Adam made her happy. And she made him happy. That had to be worth something, didn’t it? If only things didn’t have to be quite so complicated …

  And then, today, Joe had dropped his casual bombshell. He had looked at her so calmly and said, ‘Will you be my new mother?’ and Emily had felt floored. His old one had found it so difficult it crucified her marriage. She wanted Adam for always, but Joe? How could she possibly be up to the task?

  Livvy

  I am really confused about why I’m still here. Malachi seems to think that by showing me what went wrong with me and Adam, I’ll be able to pass over sooner; at least I think that’s what he intends. He’s a cat of very few words. But can that really be it? I know we had our problems, but I’m sure we could have sorted them out. Is Ma
lachi trying to make me let go? Well, I can’t do that. If I’m not here, how will Joe manage? Adam does his best, he always has, but Joe needs me. I want to be there, to see him through college, to know that he’s going to be all right. It doesn’t seem fair that I cannot.

  And I want to make Adam see me; to hear me; to feel my pain. I loved him – still love him – and he seems to have forgotten about me, instead intent on playing happy families with this new woman. Yet I know from his reaction after I died, and the pain that I could feel emanating from him at my funeral, that deep down, Adam hasn’t forgotten me. Emily is clearly just a blip, someone to help him through the bad times.

  Adam and I, what we had was special. I knew it from the first moment we got together properly, after a night in a club in Manchester. I’d clocked him before; a gorgeous fair-haired boy, always on the fringes of our group, who seemed too shy to talk. So I made the first move that night. We got chatting and never stopped. He walked me back to my halls of residence, and as it was a beautiful summer’s evening we ended up talking all night on the little patch of green outside my room. We lay flat on our backs looking at the stars, picking out star constellations for one another. His was Perseus and mine was Cassiopeia. It’s something we introduced to Joe when he was little. It was a wondrous evening, and I knew that I was destined to be with this man for the rest of my life. We were meant to be together: two halves of the same whole.

  True, things didn’t turn out the way we planned. Life ended up tougher than either of us could ever have imagined on that halcyon perfect evening. But we loved each other, and we were together for twenty years; how can this Emily compete with that? And yet looking in on them, it’s as if I’ve never been. The thing I can’t bear is that now Joe seems to want a new mum. That’s a bitter pill to swallow. Somehow I have to get back so they both know that what they need and want is me. Malachi is wrong. I’m not ready to pass over yet because my life is unfinished. I have to make sure my boys are all right.