Chapter 1.10

 

"When are you getting married?"

"Me?" Finn laughed, the lines around her mouth deepening into crescents and dimples. "I'm not getting married, darling. I don't even have a special someone I might be attracted to."

"I'll marry you. If you're not married by the time I've grown up."

"That's very kind of you, but you'll find someone who loves you for everything you are." She chuckled again. "In my case, it's a cat, but I'm sure yours will be a person."

"As long as it's not a boy. Boys are horrible."

"They are when they're immature. Trust me, they get better when they get older. Some of them are even genuinely nice."

"Like my dad?"

"Mostly." Finn patted her on the shoulder. "I'm very fond of your dad, but he has his faults and leaving you and your mum was one of them."

"He had to." she dipped her brush into the green ink and added some grass for her horse to eat. "He'd have gone stark, staring mad otherwise."

"Is that what he told you?" Finn crossed to a window-sized painting on a large easel and picked up a palette and brush. "I think your mum would have gone mad if he'd stayed, as well. "It's probably just as well they split up. You were probably too young to remember but they used to argue about everything. But your dad was always like that. I swear he used to wind people up just to see how far they'd go." She turned, suddenly aware of the sudden silence from the table. Her ward was shedding silent tears onto the paper, distorting the ink and blending colours until the turned a muddy brown. She put down the palette and crossed to the table, pulling out the only ither chair and sitting so they were on a similar level and almost eye to eye. "What's the matter? It is what I said about daddy?"

"No." She sniffed and wiped her arm across her nose, leaving a glistening trail of tears and snot along the fine hairs of her forearm. "It's my fault they got divorced."

"No, darling, it's not." Finn put her arm around the child's shoulders, almost daubing her cheek with the oil paint on the end of her brush. "Nothing is your fault. They both love you very much, and neither of them would think their splitting up was anything to do with you."

"You don't understand." She took several shallow breaths and gave out half a sob. "I asked for it."

"How?" Finn shook her head. "What makes you think that?"

"I sat on Santa's knee and he asked me what I wanted for Christmas."

"Okay. What did you ask for?"

"I asked him for two Christmases. So now I have one with mummy and a second one with Dad."

"I absolutely promise that's not why they split up. It had nothing to do with you at all, and certainly Santa wasn't responsible for it. Santa doesn't do things like that, especially not to mummies and daddies."

"No. You still don't understand." She wiped the tears from her face, leaving a streak of green ink from the bridge of her nose to  the curve of her jaw. "Even if Santa didn't make Daddy go away, God hears everything, and He can perform miracles."

"Like two Christmases, you mean?"

She nodded, sniffing back the snot bubbling at her nostrils.

"Isn't Christmas the birthday of Jesus? There's only one Jesus, so God wouldn't want to give him a second birthday, would he? God is a divine trio, Father, son and spirit, so if Jesus had two birthdays, he'd have to give himself two as well, and then two more for the Holy Ghost, so that makes six birthdays! Six! I don't think anybody is allowed six birthdays. Not even God." She gave the child a nudge with her elbow. "Besides, if Jesus had two birthdays, then everyone would have two Christmases, and I'm pretty certain nobody else has two Christmases. Imagine how long the shops would be shut. Also, I think you'll find that your two Christmases are just one Christmas each for your mum and dad, and it only feels like two because to get to open presents twice. Is there ever any other presents on different days? Like when your grandma visits or when I give you one when I see you in the new year. That's like having another Christmas again, isn't it? Only with fewer festive things on the telly and no mince pies."

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