Make A Christmas Wish: A heartwarming, witty and magical festive treat. Julia Williams

pats me warningly on the arm; I think he can tell I’m boiling up again, and there’s an awkward silence before Mum says brightly, ‘Mary, could you give me a hand in the kitchen? I think we could all do with some tea and Christmas cake.’ Dad meanwhile gets Anthony going about the inadequacies of Tony Blair’s leadership, which distracts him beautifully – it’s a subject close to his heart. It’s such a British reaction. No one is prepared to acknowledge the elephant in the room. Part of me thinks it’s ridiculous and we should talk about this, but that’s just not Adam’s family’s style.

      Eventually my in-laws are mollified, I calm Joe down, and an uneasy peace settles over the afternoon. But Anthony and Mary make their excuses early and Mum and Dad aren’t far behind, so I know that the day hasn’t been a success.

      Adam is furious when I’ve shut the door. ‘Thanks for that. Didn’t you see how upset Mum was?’

      ‘What about how upset I am?’ I say. ‘I’m livid. Your dad more or less accused me of being too soft on Joe, when if they hadn’t given him that sodding toy none of this would have happened.’

      ‘I know,’ says Adam looking uncomfortable. ‘But you know what Dad’s like, he doesn’t really understand.’

      ‘How can he, when he got rid of your brother as soon as he could,’ I say bitterly.

      ‘Livvy, it wasn’t like that,’ says Adam. ‘Harry lived with them for a long while before they couldn’t manage any more. Things were different then.’

      Harry: the unspoken secret in Adam’s family. I’m not sure Adam even knows where he lives, though I’ve tried to get him to find out. I think they should have a relationship, particularly because of Joe, but he doesn’t want to upset his parents.

      ‘Not that different,’ I say. ‘If they loved your brother, they’d never have sent him away. I could never do that to Joe.’

      ‘And I would never ask you to,’ says Adam. ‘I’m sorry about what Dad said, but please don’t be so hard on him. He didn’t mean to upset you.’

      I’m not so sure about this, but I can see Adam is trying to make up. Still, I can’t forgive him for taking his parents’ side. Adam should have supported me, and he hasn’t.

      ‘I’m putting Joe to bed,’ I say, a process that can take some time on his best days. ‘He needs to stay calm after what happened today.’

      ‘Whatever.’ Adam looks defeated, and I nearly go to him then, and tell him it’s all right. But it’s not all right. My illusion of a happy family has been well and truly shattered today.

      When I come back downstairs, I sit down next to Adam and give him a hug, and say, ‘The new baby thing? Let’s leave it for a while longer, yeah? I think we’ve both got enough to deal with right now, don’t you?’

      ‘I suppose,’ says Adam.

      I pour us both a glass of wine, and we sit in front of festive TV as the fire burns out in the grate, and we don’t talk for the rest of the evening.

       Chapter Four

       Twelve Days to Christmas …

       Emily

      Emily woke up with a stinking hangover, relieved she’d decided to take the day off to finish her Christmas shopping.

      Adam presented her with a cup of tea and a kiss before heading off to work.

      ‘What did I do to deserve you?’ she said, kissing him back.

      Adam hugged her again and left, leaving Emily to doze until later, when, feeling a little less grim after a shower, she got dressed and went to the shops.

      Despite the hangover, she was enjoying herself. Emily loved Christmas shopping. She revelled in the excited bustle of the shoppers, the cheesy Christmas music, and the festive lights. It made her feel nostalgic for her childhood, when Mum had always taken her to their local shopping centre to see Father Christmas. One day she hoped she’d be doing that for children of her own, although there was a lot to get through with Adam first. She’d never imagined getting to her mid-thirties and not being settled down with kids. But then she’d never imagined inheriting a 17-year-old stepson either, let alone one with Asperger’s who’d just lost his mother. To her relief, Joe seemed to accept Emily and like her, but despite him asking if she was his new mum Emily worried about how he would really take it if she did move in with him and Adam. Then she decided she couldn’t worry about it now. She would spend today focusing on the good stuff.

      Emily loved the expectation and the thrill of finding something you knew the person you were buying for would like. She’d already bought her dad a new set of gardening gloves and a mat to kneel on for when he was tending his allotment. Despite being the youngest-behaving 65-year-old Emily knew, Dad had recently started to complain about backache when he was digging, so she hoped he’d appreciate the present. She was also on the lookout for some military history books for him, as he was an obsessive history buff.

      Emily had agreed to cook Christmas dinner for Adam, Joe and Felicity this year, which neatly avoided the annual how-to-cope-with-the-latest-new-woman-in-Dad’s-life dilemma. Although Emily didn’t begrudge her dad his girlfriends – he had been on his own for a long time and she knew he got lonely – his tendency to entertain a different woman every year could get a bit exhausting. And it was often excruciating for both of them watching him behave like a lovesick teen, particularly as Emily knew, but his lady friends tended not to, that it wasn’t going to last.

      So instead of Emily going to visit her dad, he was coming to them for an early Christmas the following weekend. Adam had suggested inviting Felicity too, to break the ice between her and Emily before Christmas Day. He seemed to think having a third party around would mean Felicity would have to be polite to Emily. Emily wasn’t totally convinced by the wisdom of this idea, particularly if Dad turned his silver-fox charm on Felicity, but at least it would give her a chance to get to know Felicity with an ally by her side.

      She wandered into Waterstone’s where a group of small children was sitting around on bean bags entranced by a storyteller reading ’Twas the Night Before Christmas, and found what she was looking for. She also picked up a book on astronomy for Joe, who was obsessed with stars. Emily had never met him without having a long conversation about dark matter, the big bang theory and whether alien life existed. Adam had also set him up a little observatory in their loft, and it was not uncommon for Joe to drag one or other of them up there to see some obscure star Emily had never heard of and could barely make out. But it made Joe happy, and she loved Adam for going out of his way to do that for his son.

      Emily mooched around for a bit, picking up a thriller for Adam, and a couple of picture books for her friend Lucy’s little girls, an adorable five and three. Lucy had been Emily’s best friend since their teens, so it seemed like a no-brainer to move near her when Graham had ditched her. Thanks to meeting Adam, despite all they’d faced in the last year, it had been one of the best decisions of Emily’s life. Particularly in the long lonely months after Livvy’s death, when Emily wasn’t sure that she and Adam even had a future any more, it had been great to have Lucy on hand offering support and wise advice.