Erin: Christmas Day

Tuesday 25 December

10.32am

'Girls, what do we think, the Scarlet Fever or the Red Hot Rio?'

'Gram, they're almost identical I can't see the difference,' whined Alexis.

'Oh honey, believe me, there's a difference.'

'I'm with Alexis,' called Rick from his position peeling sprouts in the kitchen. 'Nail varnish colours all look the same to me.'

'Erin, what do you think?' Martha held out a handful of small red polishes to her. Erin's mother had only ever worn pale pinks and simple clear manicures from time to time. The reds all looked marginally different, but she couldn't envision what they would actually look like on. She had an idea.

'Rick, can you come help us?' Putting on a show of reluctance, Rick put down the small paring knife and scrubbed his hands on his 'Head Chef' apron.

'Put your hand here.' She pointed to the table. With a quizzical look, he placed his hand on the table, palm side down. Quick as a flash Erin pulled off the lid and brush from the closest polish and with a grin swiped it over his middle fingernail.

Martha's and Alexis's faces lit up.

'Wait, what's happening?' Before he could pull his hand away, all three had pinned him down, Martha having reached for his other hand.

'Great idea, Erin!' squealed Alexis as she triumphantly painted the next finger, this time the red a darker, deeper shade.

'But, but, the sprouts,' he protested. Erin laughed. He didn't seem to mind that much as he slid into a chair as he continued to pout and object. As she was painting a third nail another shade, Kate hopped by. She still had crutches but avoided using them indoors, preferring to lean on furniture.

It had only taken a chat with Rick to put a pin in the fury Erin had felt towards Kate. The fury had suffocated her, making her snappy with Kate, irritable behaviour she hated that she couldn't control; eventually it had exploded when teased but it had continued to hold its grip on her. The last thing she wanted to do was sabotage this living arrangement but the notion that Kate could have prevented another loss had lodged in her core and until she shared it with Rick, it wouldn't budge. There was a disarmingly mystical quality to how with just one chat he could melt her anger.

It further helped that Kate's explanation for her behaviour made sense too, surprising as it was to learn that she too was nervous around her, worried about upsetting her. It was a relief that she didn't have to spell out to them that she was indeed frightened of being left alone again but that also didn't mean she wanted everyone to be so careful around her; she hadn't liked it when Kate had admitted she was scared that she wouldn't want to stay.

Since that conversation, Kate looked so much better: more energised, brighter, even her hair had regained its lost lustre. Her boss had made her stay at home for an extra week and Erin was glad. Unable to go to school for the last few days of term, which wasn't at all fair as the other girl hadn't been suspended (but she knew she could hardly argue, she had hit someone), being at home with Kate was at least a little less boring. After their conversation at the swings when her mother had told her she wants to officially be her mother again, they had been easier in each other's company. There was a new openness that hadn't been there. Without fear of reprisal, both she and Rick had challenged Kate when she started to add exercise to her recovery. Kate hadn't simply acquiesced to their request to slow down but she did explain the benefits of yoga, and her injury was something they could discuss without her getting defensive.

It had been more than a relief, it had been a dream come true to hear Kate state so clearly her desire to keep her, but she was still dumbfounded by Rick's wish to adopt her too. He was so much fun, willing to play in a way she had never experienced from another adult. But he was more than just an adult child. When she had spoken to him the previous week about her anger with Kate, he hadn't told her off, he had assessed the situation in an unpatronizing way, making her feel like they were a team. No wonder Alexis was so protective of him. What would Alexis think about him adopting her? All week she had been trying to decipher his motivation – was it genuine paternal feelings for her, or was it more to do with his feelings for Kate? - but she was no closer to a conclusion.

Rick had explained that being a cop was part of who Kate was and she had begrudgingly accepted it. As the week had unfolded and Kate's concussion had cleared up, her restlessness became obvious. Whilst it was comforting to watch movies with her in the middle of the day, she could see what Rick had meant. There was something missing. Kate wasn't the same as when she would come home from work, tired often but satisfied. With every yoga stretch and lifted barbell, it was as if Erin could see on Kate's face every criminal out there that she wasn't putting behind bars. Erin felt a frisson of guilt that she was getting her all to herself but realised she should treasure it while she had her. And she felt something else: pride. Her parents' jobs hadn't interested her at all, they were just a boring scientist and a teacher. Kate, however, was a hero, and Rick was a rich famous author.

As she felt Kate sweep her hair back from her face, tucking it under her shirt at her back and then pat it between her shoulder blades, she pushed away any thoughts of her parents. Kate's touch no longer made her flinch, instead any contact would leave a warm imprint that she could still feel hours later. The contact was more frequent: a brush of fingers as they cleared the dinner table, a playful slap on the arm when responding to a joke. She knew that Kate wanted more, that her arms would lift imperceptibly, ready, and her body would tilt towards her. But she couldn't do it. She couldn't hug her. If she let herself embrace her, she might never let go.

'Babe, it's fine, I can finish the sprouts.' Kate moved along to Rick, bending down to kiss him on the mouth and scrub a hand through his gelled hair to which he jokingly jerked his head away. Alexis caught her eye and together they mimed a vomiting motion. Secretly, though, Erin loved their affectionate and tactile behaviour. Her parents had never been demonstrative even at home, and she wondered if they had ever been as giddy as these two sometimes were. It must be the newness of the relationship, she supposed. She hoped that they would always be like this with each other, it gave her a warm buzz inside. Not that she would ever tell them that, that would be so embarrassing.

Would they still be like this when they eventually had more children? She had used her conversations with them last week to probe their plans and neither had seemed alarmed by the idea. Babies would be nice, she decided. She had always wanted a brother or a sister. Her parents had been adamant that she fulfilled their every child desire, and they liked their family just as it was. When she had met Kate, she had been relieved to discover, however, that she didn't have any other children; she wasn't sure how she would have handled the jealousy. Would she be jealous of Kate's future children, the ones who would stay with her after they were born? It amazed her that no, she wouldn't, because she would have had something they would never have: Niamh and Daniel. And now she had Kate too, and Rick if she accepted him, and she would have siblings; her cup truly runneth over and she didn't know if she deserved it.

xxx

13.39

The ridiculously enormous turkey had been roasting for an hour and wouldn't be ready for another two at least; the apartment slowly filled with its meaty scent, making her mouth water. Once they had chosen their favourite polishes – they used every one of Rick's fingers to make their choices – they had taken it in turn to paint each other's nails, Erin feeling honoured that Martha would let her paint hers. Rick tried to encourage them to help peel potatoes but in unison they waved their sticky fingers at him and ruefully shook their heads. After removing the varnish from Rick's nails, Kate had donned an apron too and the two of them had whispered and giggled as they prepared the banquet of vegetable side dishes.

Martha and Alexis had taken Erin shopping earlier in the week, Martha having pronounced that as this was their first Christmas together, and Jim Beckett would be joining them, they all needed a new dress and that just because they were staying in, they couldn't dress as if they were going out. It seemed a frivolous excuse, but Erin was learning that Martha's desire for the theatrical had no limit, and the glitz of the shopping experience had made it difficult to avoid being seduced. Erin hadn't dared look at the prices. Her parents hadn't been poor, but neither had they frequented the designer shops of Fifth Avenue and 57th Street.

Kate had declined the offer to go with them, earning Rick's approval for accepting her limits. Nonetheless, Martha had insisted they buy a dress for her too and together they had selected a sleek backless silver gown. Erin's own dress was deep burgundy, Alexis having chosen it. It still felt strange 'dressing up', it wasn't something she had ever really done before, and she couldn't help squirming slightly as she entered Kate's bedroom to show her.

Kate had showered but was still in a white bathrobe sitting at the vanity doing her makeup. After making Erin do a twirl, she patted the padded bench next to her, sliding along to make room. A bowl of grapes, infuriatingly Kate's favourite snack, stood amongst the make-up. Her ears ringing, she rummaged through the various tubes and palettes and then innocently placed the bowl on the floor, beyond Kate's reach. Erin sat entranced as she watched in the mirror Kate expertly apply smoky-eye eyeshadow and extra-long eyeliner wings – she too seemed to have embraced Martha's extravagant expectations for the day.

For all that they had opened up to each other, there was so much that Erin couldn't express. The guilt, for one. Kate had said to her, more than once, that she wished she could take away her grief and that she knows she can't replace her parents. But what she didn't seem to understand, Erin thought as Kate applied mascara, is how much she had imagined her growing up. She had almost revealed it to Alexis, but not quite. That whenever she had had an argument with her parents, not often, but they happened, she would lie in bed and angrily think 'my real mother wouldn't have done that' and then she had hated herself for it. And when she thought about her parents now, the excruciating grief of losing them alongside the regret of ever dreaming, however fleetingly, of another life without them made the bile rise in her throat and she swallowed the memory of them back down with the bile.

Erin had always known she was adopted. They hadn't talked about it often but on one rare occasion Niamh had told her that 'your momma gave us the best present: you'. From then on, she had thought about her birth mother as 'your momma'. She knew she had been young, a teenager still, and she had pictured her in many different scenarios. Unencumbered with a child, she imagined the adventures she had undertaken: she was an explorer or an astronaut. Sometimes when feeling down, she would imagine she had a family, more children. She fantasised what it would be like to meet her one day, how they would have a special bond that no one else could understand, that she would just know her like no one else knew her.

When Katherine Beckett waltzed into her world, she had shattered that fantasy birth mother. Suddenly she was real, and all those secret feelings transferred to her. As did the guilt. So, when at first Kate had tried to touch her, she had resisted, because any physical acceptance of her maternity would be a betrayal of her parents, the parents whose voices she struggled to remember. It was confusing: not only had Mom died, when her 'actual' mother appeared so had the fantasy 'momma' died. And as she had revealed to Alexis, love had exploded inside her. When Kate stared at her in the interview room at the precinct, she had known instantly who she was; she had just known, like it was a truth she had always known, a revelation of who she was supposed to be.

As she looked at their reflection, the similarity between them jolted her. Being adopted had never brought her problems at school, unlike the Vietnamese girl adopted by white parents. The seemingly benign yet endless questioning of her heritage by a clique of white schoolgirls had been a constant reminder of her status, her difference. Erin's colouring had been like Niamh and Daniel – both dark haired and fair skinned but they both had blue eyes. Sometimes she had compared her features to her parents, looking for small details that were the same: Daniel's nose was small like hers; Niamh had long slim fingers too. Kate's golden-brown eyes, however, they were unabashedly hers. The sameness was undeniable, a sense of rightness she couldn't ignore. She had imagined looking like her birth mother, but the reality was far more powerful.

Kate's mother's ring dangled from its long chain in front of the bathrobe. Of all the things she had imagined, that her grandmother had been murdered had not entered her mind, that her mother had suffered such grief. She felt a protectiveness towards Kate that she had never felt towards her parents. But it was becoming clearer to her that Kate didn't want her to feel that. While she was relieved that Kate hadn't had more children it was dawning on her that Kate had no experience of being a mother, and that as she was adjusting to her new role she didn't want to be mothered by her own child. It had been a long time since she herself had been properly mothered and it was an uphill struggle to accept it. She felt a kinship with Kate; she did indeed understand what it was like to lose a parent suddenly, but they were not friends. They may both share the grief of their lost mothers, but it was up to her to let them inhabit their natural roles, and, despite her guilt, to let Kate be her mother now.

Kate held up a small eyeshadow palette, studded with sequins.

'Would you like to wear some eyeshadow? A touch of glitter would add to the dress.'

Erin closed her eyes and leaned forward knowing Kate knew none of what she was thinking and that she wasn't sure if or when she would tell her, the stroke of the brush over her lids sending tingles across her scalp.

xxx

16.16

'Rick, that was wonderful, thank you,' said Grandpa, sitting beside her.

'Another slice of turkey?' A tuxedo-dressed Rick held out a slice with a spatula, offering the meat around the table. Rick had pulled out all the stops and the meal had undeniably been one of the best she'd ever had. Martha, Alexis and Kate all waved him away, huffing and patting their stomachs, defeated.

'No, no, I'm fine, really,' he said politely. He turned to her and gave her a quiet smile. 'Have you had enough, Erin?' he asked gently. She held up a hand too and shook her head. She liked him. He was such easy company. Never having had grandparents, it was straightforward to call him Grandpa, it simply suited him, and it didn't feel strange. He was so different to Kate. She often caught Kate watching her, studying her as if trying to unwrap her, but Jim, Grandpa, didn't seem to need to try, he had a natural magnetic pull. He didn't ask questions, instead he would suddenly start an anecdote, a tale, often of Kate, or Katie as he delightfully called her, as a child, and she found herself listening, enthralled. He would speak so only she could hear.

Her mother seemed to have a variety of names. Everyone around the table had their unique way of addressing her: Grandpa called her Katie, Rick called her Beckett and sometimes Kate, Alexis had insisted on calling her Detective Beckett though she seemed to have at least dropped the detective and Martha called her Katherine. She had stuck to 'Kate' as she had suggested but if she was to accept her as her mother that was going to start to sound strange, she wanted a name for her that was just hers. There was no way she could call her Mom: she already had a Mom and she already felt guilty enough at the idea of somehow 'moving on'. Niamh had called her 'your momma' but that too felt like a name that belonged to someone else, albeit a fantasy. What would Kate think of Mama? Too childish?

'Well, you'll all have to find some room as Erin is responsible for dessert,' he announced, clearing the table.

The dazzlingly dressed group with incongruous paper cracker hats on their heads turned to look at her. Earlier in the week Rick had taken her to one side and asked if there was any special tradition that she would like for Christmas, while also acknowledging that she didn't want to talk about the past. One thing came to mind that she thought she would be able to enjoy without getting upset. She had never made it before, and it had been fun finding out with Rick how to do so.

Once the plates had been stacked into the dishwasher and the many dishes of meat and vegetables were decanted into tupperware boxes, Erin, standing at the head of the table, explained: 'In England, we used to spend Christmas with English families and they always had a Christmas Pudding.'

'Oh, like a figgy pudding,' piped up Martha.

'Oh yes, like a trifle,' said Grandpa, knowingly, at the same time.

'A trifle, Dad?' said Kate. 'I don't think so.' She shook her head, bemused.

Erin laughed uncomfortably, not liking the look Martha was giving him. 'No, she's right they're different. But they do have trifle too at Christmas – that's like sponge, jelly, and custard and cream. A Christmas Pudding is …well…' She gestured to Rick who now appeared beside her holding aloft a steamed fruit pudding, a stick of holly on the top, alight with a blue flame, inciting a chorus of oohs and ahhs.

'They soak it in bottles and bottles of brandy,' Erin rolled her eyes at the exaggeration, 'and then pour heated brandy over to light it,' explained Rick, both appalled and impressed.

'And you eat it hot with brandy cream or rum butter,' added Erin, pointing at the bowls on the table.

'No wonder the English have a reputation for being drunkards,' said Alexis, lifting a spoonful of cream to her nose and sniffing it suspiciously.

'It's really good, I promise.'

Thankfully they all seemed to agree, polishing off their bowls; Martha even asked for seconds and groaned with pleasure at the melting rum butter. Kate gave her an encouraging look; she met her eyes and Erin felt something unspoken being shared, an understanding of something from her past being brought successfully without ceremony into the present.

'Well, when I was a child, after lunch we used to play parlour games.'

'Oh yes, Martha,' Kate clapped her hands, 'we'd love that.' She aimed her beaming smile at Erin, and she felt her love like a tidal force. Kate had so much love to give; it was just there, and she could take it. Erin had accepted her offer of, what, re-adoption - she didn't know what to call it, adoption didn't seem the right word – without hesitation. If only she could feel it guilt-free; every time she wanted to return the smile with the same level of uncensored enthusiasm her deceased mother and father's sad faces would pop into view.

She looked around the table. Rick was clearing the plates and arguing with his mother about which game to play first – Martha wanted charades, but Rick said she had an unfair advantage as an actress. Alexis suggested 'Who Am I?' and disappeared to the office to find the box. The rapidly growing kittens had appeared and much to Martha's chagrin were playing with the debris from the Christmas crackers that had fallen to the floor. Grandpa looked wryly amused by the commotion and sipped his espresso.

Since Kate had told her that Rick also wanted to adopt her, she hadn't mentioned it again. Kate had told her once that she would never be able to meet her real father. It was strange: growing up she had briefly thought about him, but it was her birth mother who had more frequently occupied her imagination. When Kate had told her the facts, it hadn't been as heart-wrenching as she thought it might have been. She accepted that he would forever be simply her imaginary father and there was a freedom to that, a secret part of herself that could remain untouched by anyone. Yet, accepting Rick's offer felt like another confirmation that she would never know her real father, as well as a final acceptance that her parents really were gone.

When her parents had died, the Past had closed up behind her, like an impenetrable island fenced off from the world, and she had been thrown out into the open wild ocean. From the early days of numb shock, leaving her home with barely any items, to the Children's Home and a new unfriendly school she had been stuck in the Present. There had been a brief moment of hope when she was fostered but that had quickly ended in acrimony and had ultimately resulted in an escape to a grey changeless sea of Manhattan concrete and tarmac, one foot trudging after the next. Those six weeks alone had been day after day of endless present, of survival, no future or plan on the horizon. Libraries had provided some respite, where she could escape to Narnia, or The Shire, or Hogwarts but those worlds ended the second the book was closed.

Even when she had found herself in Rick's Soho loft, it was like she had stepped into a boat tethered by a long rope to shore. At least she was no longer swimming with sharks. With their patience and their sympathy, Kate and Rick had slowly reeled her in. She had put everything into making it work, to giving the school a chance (Alexis had been right to encourage her to go, it was the best one she had attended, despite the recent hiccup), to getting to know them and being the child she thought they would want that she still hadn't thought about the Future. And now here it was, the future a glittering coastline sparkling behind them as they held out their hands to her, with their offer of adoption, to step off the boat.

She had never thought about what had happened to the things inside her home, she assumed they were long gone, like her parents. Thankfully she hadn't been asked to visit the lockup, the idea made a vein in her temple throb. Since she had arrived, she had inexplicably feared her two worlds colliding but there had been no apocalypse when Kate stood amongst her parents' things. She had felt as if Kate was prying on a past that didn't belong to her but now that she had seen some of it for herself, and on the same day that she had lost her temper at school, she knew it wasn't that past, the childhood with her family, she needed to keep hidden. It was the purgatory that had come after.

She had had to be tough to survive – and she had chosen to survive: she had run away when she realised the danger fearful, after the way the foster family had behaved, that no one would believe her - but she never wanted Kate to see that side of her. She did want to protect her from the knowledge of those experiences, of the kind of person she had had to be, of the people she had been shocked to encounter; ignorance was bliss, right? She could see Kate's distress that her child had ever been alone, and she could protect her from the full truth by boxing it up and forgetting it had ever happened. Besides, it was all over now, she could relax.

What was she doing? Why was she still harbouring doubt? The beacon of love that Kate radiated told her she had been wrong to ever think she could be disappointed in her, that her love had any conditions. She was so tired, but she didn't have to carry the weight of looking after herself anymore, she could let it go, let them catch her.

She looked at Rick now, stretching out a name tag to her, shaking his hand for her to take it. In his eyes she saw that his affection for her too was genuine. This family: Alexis, Martha, Jim, Rick and Kate wanted her to join them; she was not just another statistic to them. The why didn't matter, only that they were willing to let her in. If Niamh and Daniel knew what the last 18 months had been like, they would be sad; they would want this future, this happiness, for her. They wouldn't want her to feel guilty. For the first time since her parents had died, she felt safe. She hadn't known until they were ripped away that she had always felt safe with them. Kate's accident had shaken that safety but as Rick had said and as she knew, there really is no such thing as true safety, just the illusion. Why not embrace the illusion?

Yes. Yes, she would do it, she would step off the boat and accept Rick's offer. As if the sound had been turned off and all she could hear was her own breathing, she accepted the name tag. She had to do it now. But she couldn't say it out loud. They had not yet exchanged presents and the small independent grocery store next to the building would still be open even though it was Christmas Day. It had an eclectic range of products, including a small stationery section. She would run down quickly to make a thank you card. It would be the perfect present.

'Kate, is it okay if I go downstairs to the store? I forgot something for the presents. I'll just be a few minutes.' She had become used to asking permission to leave the loft by herself even though she thought it was unnecessary. She was pretty sure Rick had never told her mother about the time she went for bagels on Kate's birthday, and she didn't want to inspire any fussing. It had been a long time since anyone cared where she was or where she went and whilst it ostensibly irritated her, it comforted her too, like a proverbial blanket.

'I'll come with you,' said Alexis, pushing back her chair.

'No, it's fine, honestly, thank you. I'll just be a sec.' She laughed at the tag on Alexis's head: ET, The Extra Terrestrial. 'You'll still be guessing when I get back.' Her pulse was racing, and she didn't want Alexis to cotton on to her excitement and start quizzing her.

As she pulled on her jacket and gloves, shoving her phone and purse into her pockets, and held open the front door, she looked back at the family laughing and pointing at each other around the table. The Christmas tree was reflected in the window which then seemed to double back and reflect again creating a hall of mirrors of endless Christmas trees, a runway of Christmases of the future. She shut the door behind her.