The shadow behind the sun never left though. She could feel it in her shattered bones. She did every year. The slow awakening of Jack Frost in his sweaty over-stuffed featherbed. Creaking, stretching, yawning, slippy Jack. For months a heap of buttons, now he's back like the clown that you were scared of as kid with the rock hard snowballs, the icy trips, your Grandma's broken hip and much much worse.
Brrrrr was his work song. She'd sing too. But something else; a hymn. For Advent. He's got more dreadful work to do. Terrible clowning up and down. She's just got to get through today again.
Humming Nat King Cole she put on her tattered dressing gown and pretended to cook some sausages and eggs and ate like a hedge-wren, the broken shells placed in the little composting bin by the sink.
It was right to return stuff to the ground. She knew. To give back what nature made. It felt correct and she wondered what it would be like to be inside an egg. To be something else. To believe in what was to come. Oh God, to be reborn, yes!
They'd been so like Larkin's arrows and she thought of him. A wreck in the garden compost heap beneath the turkey carcass. She'd put him in that Christmas. That's how she remembered it anyway. Things got mixed up. A new beginning after so much pain. Too much for anyone. The slow dissolution, the glacial decay: the gift to her broken man twenty years past. Her beautiful moraine.
Not really feeling part of the world anymore she held up her wedding ring and peered through the golden circle at the life beyond this day, the 24th. Everything was done. The decorations hung but she'd no idea when she'd managed that, their box of annual hope shoved behind the couch, open and empty like a coffin, in the bottom the fairy left behind.
Outside a blackbird pecked furiously at an old apple she had thrown out the day before. She liked feeding the blackbirds, their furious belief that all's well and always will be, driving their sable beauty like FBI sedans. Their best life as the telly adverts said. Just eat and be happy. The Simple corvid creed. No need for grief.
Washing up she heard a rattle in the mailbox. Just junk no doubt but maybe check. Your next best life might be waiting. A Christmas card from Jesus Or news that he'd come back and so could she.
On her way gliding down the old cobwebbed hall she stopped.
What was that on the far wall?
In the corner by the door. A blob. A blob of sorts.
She approached and stared up into the corner at the curious thing. It was certainly a blob, a little pile, more of a small heap. A heaplet she thought.
But what of?
She got a torch from his old work bag and craned her neck.
"Well I never, Ladybirds! How wonderful!"
She took down an encyclopedia and flicked to L.
Ladybirds like to overwinter in homes but it can be too warm and bright. Consider moving them outside somewhere safe and dry.
"Oh!"
She stared and stared at the tiny gorgeous mound of lives and giggled when the top bug moved in it's sleep, annoying the spotty one underneath.
"Oh my God! They're so beautiful!" She whispered.
"Like fairy lights!"
Her mind raced.
She really didn't want to move them but felt that maybe she had to after all 'cos after all her house really was warm and bright and after all they deserved to be outside where nature lived but Jack mustn't know, oh no, don't tell Jack, he'll roll over them like a glacier on wheels after all They've been through.
She resigned herself To a transplant and taking a deep breath began to pick them off the wall with old cocktail Sticks from the packet he'd bought that last Christmas.
"C'mon my tiny sausages!" She cooed as the bugs reluctantly shuffled onto the tips; creaking, stretching, yawning all the way.
She remembered he'd Asked for tooth picks in the Corner shop. For After the turkey dinner; Roasties, bread sauce, cranberries.
We don't have any tooth picks mister sorry but we do sell cocktail sticks.
They'd laughed all the way home and she remembered he'd lit a fire and they both curled up that Sunday before Christmas as snug as bug in a fireman's rug.
She placed the Cranberries carefully on her face One by one on her eyebrows. It was soft and safe and And out of the way and It Wouldn't take long he'd said. I'll bring My saw ANd well cut down a little Fir. A tiny one.
Yes, she'd take them to the old dark woods, where they can sleep and dream and believe their best life is coming.
She drove his ancient red Beetle, still a sweet wreck, along freezing streets, where no-one paid her any heed. She was invisible.
The clouds sailed by like ghosts searching for heaven and she tried not to blink in case sHe lost her passengers.
She pulled up at a traffic light and stared at the young girl in the new red VW next to her, her first time driving with her husband sat besidE, a little nervous with his Saw On his lap. She smiled as did she and was sure she saw her freckles move like ladybirds.
The haunted sky filled Up with tears full of faces and they drove off.
The old fir wood was Colder than town and bandaged up in mist. The humus floor steamed like compost and the needles scrunched under her bare feet like Tooth picks. It was always Christmas Dinner here.
"We need a Memorable tree little bugs, where you can go to sleep and imagine Spring, your best ever Spring next year."
The fir she chose by the forest road was thick and crusty. She saw the huge rent ripped from the bark, the paint still visible, nodded and knelt down.
"This will do My darling."
She blinked and all the little bugs fell into her hands like fairy lights.
She sobbed and the last few bugs leapt into her tears and landed on top of the others in her palm. She spoke to them softly.
"we just wanted a little tree you see and I drove out here with him that Christmas Eve, never having really driven in the winter but he said I'd do fine and I believed in him and everything to follow but Jack Frost got the wheel and sped us up on the ice like racing on a glacier, his clown suit buttons popping off and we crashed. Oh God, We crashed and I was at the wheel not Jack at all. I just couldn't stop you see, my darling, as We were squashed like bugS against this Tree that Christmas eve when we both so believed in our best lives yet to come.
The firemen got you out And laid You On thE Tooth picks Like baby Jesus That Christmas Night, their warm breath fanning you, a future yet to be.
But it wasn't
To be. They couldn't get me out.
You lasted longer but I was already gone.
And I'm so dreadfully dreadfully sorry.
She Gently placed the ladybirds next to each other on the bark like teeth And Curled up by the fir At his feet.
She slept and all her ladybIrdS and more descended and enveloped her whole body and joined her in her dreams, where they freed her from the wreckage and the firemen, heads down, sang Christmas hymns as she flew to the clouds, a ladybird, racing to get to heaven.
To wait for her beautiful man once again like every Christmas Eve.
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