Running with Scissors

Chapter 5

As Nicky opened her gifts she looked around at the faces of her family.  She realized that it had been a long time since they had all been together like this.  She watched her Dad as he played on the floor with Adam and remembered when it was her toys he would have been building on Christmas morning.

“Don’t you want to know what it is?”  Jayne’s voice broke into her thoughts. Nicky glanced down at the present she had been unwrapping and pulled the last of the paper from the white box.  “It’s from me and your dad.” 

She looked at the box for a moment before opening it.

Inside she found a silver charm bracelet with two charms threaded onto it. As she looked closely at the charms she saw that one was a silver horse shoe, the other a prancing horse.

Nicky stared at the bracelet.  It was beautiful.  She remembered seeing the collection of charms in the window of the jewellers. She had fallen in love with them.

“I hope they’re the right ones,” Jayne said.  “I saw you looking at them weeks ago.”

“Love it. Thanks.”  Nicky wasn’t sure what to say.  Jayne had surprised her and she wasn’t used to it.

Christmas day passed with the usual flurry of activity.  Nicky tried to stay out of the way as various relatives of Jayne’s arrived.  Most of them only ever came to the house at this time of year.  Maybe they hibernated the rest of the time!

It was late evening by the time Robert turned up. Nicky watched as he tossed his jacket on the floor and opened her bedroom window, letting in a blast of icy air.

“Make yourself at home,” she said sarcastically.

She picked up his jacket and laid it on the bed as he lit a cigarette.  “You still working this week?” he asked, blowing smoke out of the window.  Nicky told him she was.

“Do you want me to speak to your Dad about you staying for a while?”

 “Sounds like a plan,” she told Robert. “Kelly asked me to work some extra days anyway, so that should be a good enough excuse for Dad.  I already mentioned it but it would be good if you could sort it out with him.”

She watched as her cousin pushed himself up to sit on her windowsill.  He stared out at the grey street.  He looked miserable.

“Have you heard from your mum yet?” she asked quietly.  Robert continued to look out of the window.  “Look, maybe she just...”

“Leave it Bug!”

“Don’t call me Bug,” she said automatically.  She felt a wave of anger at her aunty.  It probably hadn’t even occurred to her to give Robert a call!  She was about to tell him this when her phone rang, interrupting her.  She sighed as she looked at that screen and saw the ‘number withheld’ message.

“Hello?”  As usual no-one responded.  “You keep calling so you’ve obviously got something really desperate to say and I’m just dying to hear what it is.”  She spoke in the most mocking tone she could muster.  She listened to the not quite silence for a moment.