“George is okay.” Dad nods as if he means it.
“So why don’t we ever have Christmas together, then?” mutters Elsa with irritation.
“How do you mean?”
“I thought you and Lisette never came to us at Christmas because you don’t like George.”
“I have nothing at all against George.”
“But?”
“But?”
“But there’s a ‘but’ coming here, isn’t there? It feels like there’s a ‘but’ coming,” mumbles Elsa.
Dad sighs.
“But I suppose George and I are quite different in terms of our . . . personalities, perhaps. He’s very . . .”
“Fun?”
Dad looks stressed again.
“I was going to say he seems very outgoing.”
“And you’re very . . . ingoing?”
Dad fingers the steering wheel nervously.
“Why can’t it be your mother’s fault? Perhaps we don’t visit you at Christmas because Mum doesn’t like Lisette.”
“Is that it?”
Dad looks uncomfortable. He’s a terrible liar. “No. Everyone likes Lisette. I’m well aware of it.” He says it as people do when considering an extremely irritating character trait in the person they live with.
Elsa looks at him for a long time before she asks:
“Is that why Lisette loves you? Because you are very ingoing?”
Dad smiles.
“I don’t know why she loves me, if I’m to be quite honest.”
“Do you love her?”
“Incredibly,” he says without any hesitation.
But then he immediately looks quite hesitant again.
“Are you going to ask why Mum and I stopped loving each other?”
“I was going to ask why you started.”
“Was our marriage so terrible, in your view?”
Elsa shrugs.
“I mean, you’re very different, that’s all. She doesn’t like Apple, that sort of thing. And you kind of don’t like Star Wars.”
“There are plenty of people who don’t like Star Wars.”
“Dad, there’s NO ONE who doesn’t like Star Wars except you!”
Dad seems unwilling to take issue with this.
“Lisette and I are also very different,” he points out.
“Does she like Star Wars?”
“I have to admit I’ve never asked.”
“How can you NOT have asked her that?!”
“We’re different in other ways. I’m almost sure about that.”
“So why are you together, then?”
“Because we accept each other as we are, perhaps.”
“And you and Mum tried to change each other?”
He leans over and kisses her forehead.
“I worry about how wise you are sometimes, darling.”
Elsa blinks intensely. Takes a deep breath. Gathers her energy and whispers: “Those texts from Mum you got on the last day of school before the Christmas holiday. About not having to pick me up? I wrote them. I lied, so I could deliver one of Granny’s letters—”
“I knew,” he interrupts.
Elsa squints suspiciously at him. He smiles.
“The grammar was too perfect. I knew right away.”
It’s still snowing. It’s one of those magical winters when it never seems to end. After Audi has stopped outside Mum’s house, Elsa turns to Dad very seriously.
“I want to stay with you and Lisette more often than every other weekend. Even if you don’t want that.”
“You . . . my darling . . . you can stay with us as often as you like!” Dad stammers, quite overwhelmed.
“No. Only every other weekend. And I get that it’s because I’m different and it upsets your ‘family harmony.’ But Mum is having Halfie now. And actually Mum can’t do everything all the time because no one’s perfect all the time. Not even Mum!”
“Where . . . ‘family harmony’ . . . where did you get that from?”
“I read things.”
“We didn’t want to take you away from the house,” he whispers.
“Because you didn’t want to take me away from Mum?”