Chapter 12
Part of it all seemed mad to Dawn that they were going to go against the odds and try to have a decent Christmas. She had not thought she was going to be in the mood but it seemed Sally was desperate to put them there even if they not want to be and once they got there they found the tree was still bare.
"I thought I would wait until we were all here to dress it." Said Sally.
The truth was until Sophie had mentioned it, she had been so focused on getting the dinner right she had not had much of a chance to think about getting tree and dressing it.
If it was a normal Christmas then she knew she would have got Kev to go out and get it. But if she had wanted it that year she had had to go out and get it herself. It was just another way which her life had change of late and she knew she was going to have to do a lot more for herself from own but at the same time that did not have to be a bad thing.
"That is such a lovely thought chuck!" Said Hilda as she sat on the sofa.
She was tired already but she did not think she had been that happy in so long. She had every one she cared for about her who would be about her. She had sent cards to Trevor and Irma before she had left for Weatherfield and she had put letters in them explaining what had gone on of late.
If she was honest then she knew it was a good thing that she had her make shift family for herself.
She and Stan had had four babies and yet none of them were about her in her old age.
She was not even going to try and say they had been great parents because she knew it was a lie but she had thought in her old age they might have forgiven or come back to her but she had not been that lucky.
That did not mean she was not grateful for what she did have, and as she watch Dawn come down from upstairs she was going to be bunking in with Sian while they were there, she did not think she would want to be anywhere else in the world. No, if she did have a child then it was her Eddie and if she had a favourite grandchild then it was her Dawn. She seemed to be herself more of late.
"It is. Because we're were coming up here Mrs. Webster we did not bother getting one this year," said Dawn as she took the coke that she had been given when she come in and sat down by her grandmother, leaving the space on the sofa for her dad. "If we did not help you with yours then we would not have got to dress one at all this year."
She had got in the mood when she had got there. Christmas had always begun for her when she and Marion had put up the tree. Her dad had helped when she had been a young girl but he had sneaked off duty more and more as she had got older. She knew he was probably sad for that fact this year as the year before he had not known he was missed his last opportunity to do it with both his wife and his child.
"We'll start as soon as Rosie gets back from Jason's." She said as she went to the phone. "I am going to give her a call," said sally.
She did not want to wait any more now. She couldn't wait and was a child herself once more at that moment. An odd, unexpected excitement seemed to becoming over the lot of them.
"We have to wait for Emily and Rita as well remember!" said Sophie as she perched off the breakfast bar with Sian standing at her side.
To their great delight after she had been so against the two of them when they had told her, Emily had since the train crashed it seemed come round to their relationship. There was a lot to be said for a bit of good old fashioned perspective.
Once it had happened she had seemed to take on a bit more of a relaxed attitude to them. Of all the years she had lived there, she had seen so much that once she had got used to the idea she had come round a little and while Emily did not think it was ever going to sit well with her Christianly, she did love Sophie as a kind of surrogate grandchild. When she had come to her and they had spoke about her faith it had been a wonderful moment for them but not quite as good as when she had been asked to be her godmother when she had chosen to get baptised.
She had been so proud of her and she did not want to break that bond.
So she knew she was just going to have to except her warts and all and she knew she could do that.
She was not a saint and she had made plenty of mistakes in her life. She had no right to judge the girls.
And she did not want to lose their friends. They had all lost so much that even if you were not hurting for someone you knew then you were hurting for a friend of a friend.
She was not going to bring about any more pain.
Not now.
She couldn't.
Rosie came back quickly when her mum ask her. She admitted to herself she felt close to Sally as well as Sophie and Sian. Ever since she had been young there had always been a reserve for her about her dad. The way he had had the affair when they had been young had built a bridge between them they had not yet been able to knock down and she did not know if she was even going to want too.
The fact was even though she did love him it was not as if she needed him.
She had Jason and she had her sister and her mum – and she did not want her mum to show herself disrespect by taking her back.
They had had enough of trouble in their family and the fact that they were having trouble again surely seemed to suggest it was time for her mum and dad to call it a day.
But then it was not going to be her choice was it?
The only thing she was not so sure on was this Christmas. She did not know why her mum was doing this to them. It was as if she just could and would not accept their life was so broken. It was and yet she was putting on the ridiculous facade.
But if it was what she wanted them she knew she had to at least try and give it to her. She had had such a rough few years; the only thing her mum wanted was a bit of peace which apparently she was going to find in chaos.
But it was so ... not her.
When she got back to the house she found the others were all there.
Yet it struck her that she knew well only the four people who she lived with. It was not as if she was close with the others.
She looked at two new comes with disdain and Hilda as well. She knew her sister was most taken with them but she was not.
The red head, Dawn, was her name; god she looked so dowdy. She was not her sort of girl at all. She had bagged jeans and a hoodie on and did not look at all as if she was up for a good time.
As she had been reminded by her own mum, the girl had lost her own mother but if that was a bad enough excuse for those clothes!
As for the man, well, if she did not want her own father having about then she was not going to want someone else's to be there was she?
She rolled her eyes...
This was all so stupid, but she was going to do it for Sally if this was what she wanted.
Picking up on the mood her daughter was in, it was not long until Sally found that she was saying sorry for the way she was acting to Eddie who she was trying to get to know a little better herself.
It was not only for her sake she was trying to do so but his. She got the feeling that due to the bond the pair of them, he felt he had to get to know her for Hilda and he wanted to know she was ok when she was with them.
It was strange how the relationship he had with Hilda changed as they had got older and the elements of it had changed. Eddie remembered how when he had moved he had very much been a partner in crime simultaneously to Stan as well as Hilda, though perhaps more so to Stan. While the two of them had been plotting go to make a bit of money or how to get out of work in Stan's case, he had also been trying to stay on Hilda's good side by getting Stan in to work.
And yet he had known he was the junior partner in both relationships. He had felt as if he had been very young – it really had been another shot at being another child for him and he did not think he was ever going to be grateful enough for that.
Had it not been for the pair of them, then he never would have got that.
He had felt when they had worried for him and while he had not wanted to be a burden, he had been wise enough to know they had only worried because well – not that any of them would have said it of course – but they had loved and cared for him as their own.
But the older he got, the more he begun to worry for Hilda and the less she worried for him. It was a true role reversal and not one he wanted to happen to him and his daughter, though he did not think he was going to be able to stop it for it had already begun.
"I know we do not know one another well but I am glad you are here. I could do with a few friends about me, and well – I wanted Hilda here. It has been a long time since we have been in one another's lives and I did not want to leave it so long again. "
"I think if I were you then I would feel the same. Not a lot odd people seem to see it but she is a very special lady." He said quietly.
"I think she is worth a lot more credit than she is due that is for sure." She nodded.
While they were talking they stood together in the kitchen and there was a wall between them. They had not meant it to be there but Marion's death and Kevin's cheating had put it there before they had had a chance to met. After all it was not normal circumstances in which they were meeting was it? They didn't have a choice in it, but each was holding back.
"I do think she loves to feel needed though. All the time she was with Stan he needed her and yet when he was gone so was that feeling there was!"
He knew he was saying too much and at that moment, it related too much to the two of them as well as Hilda to say the words.
"I know what you mean and all the same, I am glad I have got the chance to get to know you at last. When I was living with her and Kevin all I got was my Stan this or my Eddie that," She said with a sad laugh but it was not really funny.
With it all becoming far too heavy far too fast he wished he was able to get over to the pub.
If only Stan was there, he could have found a way.
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