Page 16 of A Christmas Wish for the Village Midwife

‘Oh,’ Fern said. ‘I… sorry. You haven’t been with Alex that long, have you?’

‘There’s plenty of time, yes,’ Zoe said, squirming inside at the lie. There wasn’t plenty of time. In fact, there was practically no time at all, but Fern and Maisie didn’t need to know that.

‘I should have been more careful,’ Fern said after a moment of consideration.

‘But then you wouldn’t have Benji, and you wouldn’t have met Maisie,’ Billie said.

‘Or you,’ Fern said to Zoe.

‘I do believe everything that happens to you is for a reason,’ Zoe agreed. ‘Even if it’s one you can’t see yet. Imagine where this path might lead you.’

‘I might be a midwife!’ Fern said. ‘And I wouldn’t have even thought of it if I hadn’t met you.’

‘Exactly.’

‘Even the really bad things?’ Billie asked quietly. Zoe turned to see her expression had darkened since the hilarity had come to an end and the conversation had become far more philosophical. ‘Even when people you love die? That happens for a reason?’

Zoe’s forehead creased, the right words failing to come.

‘Sorry,’ Maisie said into the gap.

Billie scooped Louisa up. ‘Forget it. What’s the point? Whether it’s true or not, it doesn’t change what happened.’

‘Zoe lost her baby,’ Fern said.

‘The difference is,’ Billie fired back, ‘Zoe never knew her baby.’

Fern and Maisie both stared at Billie, who flushed under the weight of it, seeming to realise how cruel her statement had been. Zoe tried not to be hurt. It was natural that Billie would have Luis in her mind more right now than normal after spending a week with his family and visiting his grave. She tried to believe that Billie hadn’t meant to be hurtful – just that she was hurting and it was the only way she knew how to deal with it. Billie shot her a look that told Zoe she was sorry. But she didn’t say a word because that wasn’t how Billie worked. Since Zoe had known her, she’d barely heard Billie apologise. Certainly when she did, it was of note because Billie never said sorry with words, though somehow Zoe always knew when she was.

‘I think,’ Zoe said, rallying, ‘we should order in. My treat. Burgers, milkshake… whatever you like. We can’t have a housewarming with booze and partying, but we can celebrate your new home. Maisie – can you pull up the takeaway menu for that place in town?’

As Maisie went to get her phone, Zoe painted on a bright smile and hoped that the atmosphere would recover soon. It might have been her imagination, and it was perhaps too soon to tell, but she was beginning to feel that Billie’s visit to Luis’s parents had changed something. What that would mean if it were true, only time would tell.

3

Alex was cooking when they arrived back at Hilltop Farm, the kitchen fogged by steam and the air scented with overcooked vegetables.

‘I know.’ He grimaced as he went to open a window. ‘I got distracted.’

‘Don’t tell me,’ Zoe said. ‘Reading about that rewilding stuff. It’s a good thing we’ve eaten already.’

Alex turned with a frown. ‘You have? But I’ve done all this now! Can’t you manage any at all?’

‘Only a small plate then,’ Zoe said.

Billie nodded. ‘Don’t put much out for me either.’

‘You knew I was making something,’ Alex grumbled, and Zoe went to kiss him.

‘Sorry. I got caught up in wanting to mark Maisie and Fern moving into their new house, so I treated everyone to a takeaway. I didn’t think you’d be going to so much trouble, but now that I can see you have, we’ll eat it.’

‘I don’t want to force it on you.’

‘You wouldn’t be, and what we can’t eat I’m sure will keep so we can have it tomorrow. It’ll save me cooking after work.’

Billie went to the table and picked up a book, idly inspecting the blurb on the back. ‘I don’t know why you’re bothering with all this conservation stuff after Victor told you what he thought about it. He won’t like it if you start doing it on our land.’

‘If it’s on our land and not his, I don’t know why he would have a problem.’ Alex wafted a cloud of steam from a pan. ‘It’ll be next door for one, and secondly, I would have thought it would benefit everyone in some way in the end. It’s fascinating actually, how the eco system was meant to work when the land was in its natural state before farming started here. It’s the farming that’s the problem… not that I’d want people to stop farming, of course. But if we take back even a bit of the land, it would make a huge difference.’