Page 98

But...it turned out I was deluded. I glanced at my case, sitting there on the floor, waiting to be
scooped up again sooner rather than later.
Stomach in miserable knots, I went towards it. ‘I’m going to stay in a hotel tonight.’
He grunted an angry sound, one of the first I’d heard him make. ‘No, you’re not. This is insane. You don’t need to leave, Graciela. Let’s talk about this.’
I turned on him, anguish and fury boiling inside me. ‘Again with the talking? Fine. Admit what you
hoped to achieve by taking me to your parents’ tonight.’
He stalled for a moment and then his lips firmed. ‘For most of my childhood we celebrated
Christmas the English way, until my mother decided to revert to the Danish way of celebrating the day before. Do you want to know why?’
I shook my head, impatient with his deviation.
‘It’s because my father ruined every Christmas for us, without fail, for as long as I could remember.
He’d pick a fight over the smallest thing, use it as an excuse to ruin the whole fucking day. One time, my mother stood up to him, and he destroyed all the presents. Smashed everything to pieces with a
fucking baseball bat.’
I flinched, my heart going out to him despite my own despair.
‘When she met Dag, they decided to revert to Danish tradition, head off the day before bad
memories ruined it.’
‘Well, I guess it was a good way to counter what your father did, but by not celebrating both days, wasn’t he winning?’
‘Don’t get me wrong, we still celebrate Christmas Day, but over the years, the Danish celebration
has become a bigger deal.’
‘A bigger deal you wanted to throw me in at the deep end of, to see whether I sank or swam?’
His face hardened. ‘You really think I would do that to you? Deliberately sabotage your
happiness?’ His voice was rough. Ashen.
‘I don’t know. Tell me why you did it.’
‘Because I wanted you to be happy!’ he all but bellowed.
‘Why? Why does this mean so much to you?’
He exhaled harshly. ‘Do you remember what my mother said when she opened the door?’
I frowned. Shrugged. ‘Something about bringing a guest?’
‘No, the bit about having to beg and plead for me to visit.’
‘Yeah. So?’
‘So I avoid going home as much as I can. Excuses were easy to find and I wasn’t ashamed to use
them.’