Christmas Miracle on Their Doorstep
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Ann McIntosh
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CHAPTER ONE
NYA ADEMI TOOK OFF her seldom-used reading glasses and blinked rapidly. Normally she didn’t have to put them on immediately on arriving at work but waited until the afternoon, after a day particularly heavy with paperwork. But this morning she’d woken up with scratchy eyes and gummy lashes, as though she’d been crying during the night. Unable to go back to sleep, she’d come into work at a ridiculously early hour.
She couldn’t remember her dreams but it was possible, of course, that she’d shed a few tears. After all, the day before had been an emotional one, although she wouldn’t classify it as sad, really. There had been times when she’d even laughed.
Like when the wind had pushed her along the pavement, and she’d clutched the shiny balloons by their strings so they wouldn’t blow away in the blustery autumn weather. She’d been using her body to shield the flowers in her other hand, worried all the petals would be blown off if she didn’t protect them. It would have been ridiculous to arrive with just a bunch of stems, rather than the bouquet of lovely red roses.
The thought of it happening had made Nya snort, knowing Jim would find such an eventuality infinitely amusing. She could so easily picture him doubled over, his deep barks of laughter echoing through the air.
‘Just stems,’ she’d imagined him wheezing, tears gathering in his gorgeous brown eyes and laugh lines turning his face into a landscape of mirth. ‘Not one flower left, after that heap of dosh you spent on them.’
She’d giggled, then, and had still been chuckling to herself as she’d turned into the cemetery then made her way to his grave.
Now, pinching the bridge of her nose, she allowed a sensation of unreality to wash over her.
Jim’s fiftieth birthday.
His being gone for almost twenty years.
Although Jim was always in her heart, most days she was fine—going on with her life with a smile—but even now waves of grief and loss could bowl her over. No longer as fresh as they once were, but heartbreaking just the same.
Yesterday, however, had been planned and she’d expected to feel far worse than she actually had. She never went to Jim’s grave on Remembrance Day. On November eleventh she went to the cenotaph here in Carey Cove to pay her respects to all the men and women who’d served. Jim’s day was always December first.
His birthday.
And enough time had passed that she didn’t need to go every year, so now she kept her trips to Andover to milestones. His fortieth, and forty-fifth. Yesterday, his fiftieth.
During her time there, alone beside his grave, she thought about him in a way she didn’t allow herself to the rest of the time.
Remembering his smile, his laughter and tenderness. The way he’d cared so deeply about her and his family. About the plans they’d made, oh, so long ago now. Sometimes she’d even allow herself to slip into a fantasy where he hadn’t been killed in combat, and those plans had miraculously come to fruition.
Perhaps it wasn’t surprising, then, that while she hadn’t really felt sad yesterday, the agony of loss had crept up on her last night, while she slept.
Pushing her glasses up on her nose, she determinedly forced her attention back to the schedule she’d been working on. As Head Midwife of the Carey Cove cottage hospital, she had to evenly distribute the workload, which just now took some fancy footwork. She had a newish midwife—Kiara—who was working out well, and a trainee—Lorna—who needed her supervision. With another midwife—Marnie—out on maternity leave, and her replacement delayed for another two weeks, Nya had to juggle to keep the midwifery centre and maternity ward running efficiently.
When someone knocked on her office door, it was almost a relief to be interrupted, but she was surprised when her mother, rather than one of her co-workers, came in.
It was at moments like this, when she saw her mother unexpectedly, that she realised why one of her friends from nursing school had compared Mum to an orisa. With her wonderfully straight-backed posture and dark skin beautifully set off by her intricate green, gold, and red headwrap—a gele today—she looked the epitome of an African goddess.
While Nya had inherited her mother’s smooth complexion and plump, curvy figure, she knew she didn’t have the older lady’s regal bearing.
‘Mum. What are you doing here so early?’ she asked, glancing at her watch as she went around her desk to kiss her mother’s cheek. ‘It’s just gone six.’
‘I was on my way to Penzance for the textile seminar but wanted to see you,’ her mother replied, in her usual crisp tones. ‘I stopped by your cottage and realised you weren’t home, so came here. You really should lock the front door when you’re here alone this early.’
Nya wrinkled her nose.
‘This is Carey Cove, Mum. Not exactly a dangerous place.’
Iona’s raised eyebrows spoke volumes, but she didn’t pursue the discussion. Instead she said, ‘I wanted to show you this.’
She’d been unbuttoning her hunter-green coat as she spoke and, when she opened it, Nya gasped, then clapped as she saw her mother’s sweater.
‘You got it finished,’ she exclaimed. ‘It’s lovely!’
Mum smiled, glancing down at the garment in question. ‘Just in time, too.’
Iona had been working on a new knitting pattern, using two African fabrics—aso oke and kente—as the inspiration. Nya knew just how much work she’d put into trying to get it finished in time for the special presentation at the university, given by a visiting expert on African textiles and weaving.
‘Now I want one,’ she said.
Mum laughed and shook her head. ‘You know how bad I am at writing patterns, but if you want to look at my notes and try for yourself...’
Nya couldn’t help giggling at the thought. Mum’s handwriting—normally perfectly legible—somehow turned to chicken-scratch when she was designing a new knitting pattern, and that fact was a longstanding joke between them.
‘I’d need an interpreter to do that,’ Nya replied, still laughing.
Mum clicked her tongue, as though in disapproval, but was still smiling as she sat down in the visitor’s chair. Then her smile faded and Nya was the recipient of a sharp, penetrating look, along with a nod of her head towards Nya’s chair on the other side of the desk. It reminded her why Iona Bradford’s university students had been terrified of their professor of English literature and African studies. Retirement hadn’t softened that steely look.
Taking the less than subtle hint, Nya went back around to her own chair and sat down, wondering what to expect. One never knew with Mum.
Raising a hand to touch her gele, Mum asked, ‘How did yesterday go?’
Nya hadn’t said she was going to the cemetery, but wasn’t surprised that Mum guessed where she’d been. What did surprise her was that her mother had brought it up. For the last five years, ever since they’d argued about Nya’s apparently unwillingness to get involved in another relationship, they’d avoided talking about Jim.
‘I don’t mind if you’ve decided not to have children, even though I feel you’d make a marvellous mother,’ Mum had said back then. ‘But you’ve locked yourself—your heart—away, and it’s not healthy.’
That Mum had spoken about Jim, and Nya’s trip to the cemetery, now felt a little like a minefield.
‘It was good. Even had a bit of a giggle.’
As Nya told her mother about the flowers, and what she thought Jim would have said, her mother nodded.
‘I can imagine his reaction too,’ she replied, a small smile pulling at the corner of her lips. ‘He did have an amazing, if quirky, sense of humour. Such a zest for life. I don’t think he was afraid of anything.’ She hesitated, as though about to say something more, then glanced at her watch. ‘Well, I must get going or I’ll be late for the seminar.’
Nya rounded the desk again to receive her mother’s goodbye kiss, and another of those penetrating looks. ‘I’ve been invited by the bursar to stay on after the seminar and have dinner with the faculty and Dr Agyapong, but I can come back instead and meet you at The Dolphin, if you like.’
Nya gave her mother another hug, and said, ‘Of course not, Mum. I’m behind on my paperwork here, so it’s probably best I stay late this evening and get it done. We’ll have our usual dinner next week.’
Not exactly true, about the paperwork, since although she had been behind, she was almost completely caught up now. But her mother’s visit, and the fact she’d asked about the trip to the cemetery, had Nya on high alert, sensing there was something more Mum wanted to say, but hadn’t. It was probably better to let a few days go by before they had that talk, whatever it entailed.
The last thing Nya wanted was to argue with Mum again.
Hopefully, by the time her mother came back to Carey Cove, she’d turn her mind to Christmas, and the small mountain of half-finished gifts still in her yarn bag. Iona kept a small bedsit in Penzance, as well as a cottage in Carey Cove, splitting her time between the two. Often once she got to Penzance and started socialising with friends and old co-workers, she ended up staying a few days.
After walking her mother out to the vestibule and going back into her office, Nya couldn’t help thinking back on the conversation—and the long-ago argument too.
She’d never been able to understand Mum’s attitude.
It was as though she’d completely forgotten the fact she never remarried after Nya’s father died. Why, then, was it so difficult to understand her daughter’s choices? They’d both mourned, long and hard, and turned to their professions as a source of solace and meaning.
Nya hadn’t had the chance to have the babies Jim and she had talked about, but helping other women bring healthy children into the world gave her the greatest satisfaction.
Besides, she thought as she pulled her chair closer to her desk again, even if she were interested in a relationship, it wasn’t as though Carey Cove was overrun with eligible men. And she hadn’t come back here in the hopes of finding love in her childhood village—just peace and a modicum of happiness.
She’d achieved that, and more, she reminded herself stoutly, pulling the schedule closer.
And she was absolutely content.
Dr Theo Turner drove through the still-quiet streets of Carey Cove, trying to jolly himself out of his sour mood. The world seemed intent on making him miserable just now, and although the last year and a half had been extremely difficult, he refused to allow unhappiness to become habitual.
Hard not to, though, when everything felt so incredibly unsettled and he was trying—and failing—to adapt to a new normal.
One where he lived the life of a divorced man, battling loneliness by working as hard as possible, and even considered leaving Carey Cove—a place he loved, but no longer felt he belonged.
A light mist lay over the picturesque village, giving the landscape a ghostly air. As he approached the main road, he saw a car go past towards Penzance, and recognised Iona Bradford by her colourful headscarf, but was too far away to wave. Once he got to the centre of the village, he glimpsed Avis Mitchell on the green, training one of her German shepherds.
She glanced up as he passed, but didn’t acknowledge him.
Colin Duncan was making his way towards his small shop and post office. The older man waved and smiled, and Theo lifted a hand in return, yet found himself wondering if Colin’s greeting came from friendliness, or just familiarity.
Strange to have such thoughts when he’d lived in Carey Cove for twenty years—had felt completely comfortable up until Femi, in the midst of an argument, had accused him of being a visitor in his own home.
‘You come and go as you please. Spend more time in Falmouth with your patients than at home with your wife and children. TJ and Gillian hardly know you, much less the people here in Carey Cove. You might as well set up house in the blasted hospital. You probably enjoy being with your co-workers best anyway.’
Highly unfair, he’d thought at the time, and still did. Yes, his profession made a lot of demands on his time. Mothers and babies didn’t adhere to schedules when they went into distress—a fact he’d explained to his children as soon as he thought they were old enough to understand.
Femi had taken exception to that too, accusing him of trying to avoid his responsibilities by sloughing all the daily graft off on her, and getting the children onboard with it. Pointing out it had been her decision to give up her clinical psychology practice and become a stay-at-home mum hadn’t gained him any brownie points. And his suggestion that she hire help so it didn’t all fall on her only caused another row.
But he’d been determined to give his children everything he hadn’t had as a child.
Stability.
A father who was a responsible member of society and could provide them with whatever they needed.
And he’d also done his best to be there for them as much as possible. They’d had uninterrupted days out, family holidays, and he’d spent umpteen hours on the touchline of rugby games, at piano recitals, and all their other activities. Intellectually he knew, despite what Femi intimated, that his relationship with his children was solid, but the seeds of doubt she’d planted had flourished.
He now felt a stranger in his own life.
Usually by now, at the beginning of December, he’d be getting excited about Christmas. Planning surprises for his children, even though they were both grown—Gillian already out of university and working in London, TJ in his second to last year at Cambridge. Thinking about getting a tree, and taking dedicated time off to decorate it and the cottage.
Femi had put paid to any enthusiasm he might have had, by the expedient method of shutting him out of the holiday festivities with his children.
‘Devi and I are having a big family get-together,’ she’d said on the phone last night. ‘I’ve already told the children that they’re expected on the twenty-third, and that they’re to stay as long as they like. Gillian said she’s due back at work on the twenty-seventh, but TJ will stay until it’s time to go back to uni.’
Theo’s heart had sunk, and he’d been trying to find the right way to express his disappointment when Femi had continued, in the acidic tone he knew all too well.
‘Please don’t harass the children about coming to see you. It will just upset them. Besides, I’m sure you’re glad, since that lets you spend as much time as you want at St Isolde’s and you don’t have to think about anything but yourself and your patients.’
He hadn’t told her that the powers-that-be had forced him to take time off, since he’d been working non-stop for the last eighteen months. Femi was, in his opinion, having more than enough fun at his expense.
And he hated feeling so bitter about it all.
Even the sight of the holiday decorations all along the streets and in shop windows did nothing to buoy his spirits. In fact, they seemed to mock his dreariness and make it worse.
At least he had his office at Carey House, where he could go and hide out and, unless he told them he was there, no one would notice. After all, only if there was a patient on site would anyone be at the cottage hospital this early, and he didn’t plan to go near the maternity ward. Staying alone in the house one more day could potentially drive him insane. On his office computer were at least six months’ worth of medical journals and studies he wanted to read but hadn’t had time to get to. They would keep his brain busy, hopefully stopping these depressing thoughts from bombarding him all day.
Once on the hospital grounds, he drove around to the side of the building and parked before climbing out and retrieving his briefcase from the rear seat.
Still deep in thought, he approached the front door, keys in hand, ready to let himself in, when he spied something on the doorstep and hesitated for a moment.
It looked like a long package of some kind, covered with a blanket, and as he strode closer his heart rate picked up. As soon as he got to the door, he put his briefcase down on the stone step, and bent to lift the edge of the blanket.
From the basket beneath, a pair of unfocused blue eyes blinked up at him, as though trying to figure out who he was. And then, almost in slow motion, the baby’s little face grew wrinkled as he or she began to cry.
