Never Again

Part Thirty Eight - The Epilogue!

It was Christmas Eve, and Erin looked around and cringed. She WOULD be ready, she would be! She still couldn’t believe she’d suggested this, that everyone came to them for Christmas. Jack had warned her that it would all be too much for her, but she’d argued differently. She wanted her family around them, and normally he trained Christmas Day and played Boxing Day, so she’d expected the holiday to be a bit of a wash out for them. But an injury two weeks ago meant he’d be out of the squad, and it was an opportunity that she didn’t want to miss.

Saying that, she felt bad using a broken cheek bone in her favour, she’d been worried sick when he’d been knocked unconscious two weeks earlier. But in typical bullish Jack fashion, he’d insisted on throwing himself back into everything regardless, and was barely influenced by it, but he wasn’t allowed to play for another three weeks at least whilst the bone healed. So she wanted to make the most of having him around.

The fact that he had confessed that the previous Christmas he’d come home from training and eaten a microwave meal watching DVD’s alone was only fuel to her fire. She LOVED Christmas, and wanted Jack to experience a magical time, to appreciate the holiday for what it was.

That didn’t mean she wasn’t stressed. She looked at the turkey that sat in front of her, stuffed with sausage meat, sage and chestnuts to bursting, then at the oven. She wasn’t sure the two would fit together. The turkey was HUGE, but she couldn’t worry about that now, it was all she had to serve! Jack had been glad to escape the tension, leaving her and her stress levels behind to head to the airport. His parents and brother were arriving, and he’d never been happier than when he escaped to collect them, whish spoke volumes when you considered what their relationship had been a year earlier. His sisters has such large families that it was impossible for them to visit, Erin was sad about that, but she had spent a lot of time with them over the last year and felt closer to them than she thought possible.

She glanced at the clock, two pm; her parents were due any moment, with her brother, Yvonne and the kids. The plan was to go into Manchester to the Winter Village, the children wanted to ice skate, the adults were going to drink mulled wine and watch from the safety of the adjacent bar. Before then she had to finish peeling the vegetables, if she did, then she was virtually ready. Quickly preparing the huge bag of sprouts and filling yet another saucepan, she had time to run upstairs and change before the intercom from the road gate alerted her that someone had arrived.

Buzzing them in, she took the last moment to straighten her knitted dress, slashed on some lipstick, then opened the door as the cars started to arrive.

Erin could barely believe the last year had happened. After proposing, Jack had wanted to get married immediately. That meant low key, not that either of them desired a huge event, and in his rush, it also meant that it happened on a Thursday between important games for Jack, so there was no honeymoon either, other than a night in a luxury hotel.  But to Erin it was perfect, she didn’t need pomp or ceremony, all she wanted was Jack.

The day was perfect and something Erin would savour for the rest of her life. And when the summer had finally rolled around, and the football season ended they finally had their honeymoon, four weeks in Sri Lanka and India. A perfect, perfect time.

On the doorstep she waved to the approaching car of her parents’, followed by her brother’s. Once the two vehicles had stopped, a whole round of hugs began. It was chaotic as she showed them all to the rooms they were occupying for the next few days, and she left them all to settle in, instead heading for the kettle to make some tea.