The Christmas Surprise by Jenny Colgan

the two babies growing, but now … now it’s all fallen apart and I can’t help thinking about it. And I keep replaying Africa in my head over and over, and it isn’t helping me and it sure as hell isn’t helping Rosie.’
    He swallowed hard. There was a long pause. Finally Diane, in her cool tones, suggested something shebelieved could work extraordinarily well: facing up to your worst fears, if it could be done, seeing them and taking away their power, had had spectacular success with PTSD, phobias, all sorts of trauma.
    ‘Well,’ she said. ‘You could visit.’

    Stephen had about a million reasons immediately as to why he couldn’t possibly: school term, the cost of getting out there, which would take away from the fund-raising, leaving Rosie.
    ‘Would you need to leave her?’ said Diane. ‘You could take her with you. A trip somewhere else, away from all her memories and routines.’
    ‘To see a pregnant woman,’ said Stephen.
    ‘The world is full of pregnant women,’ said Diane gently. ‘That’s something she’ll have to get used to on her own. And you can always have another baby. Might be a good idea to take the trip before it’s too late.’
    ‘I don’t think so,’ said Stephen. ‘But thank you. As ever, it’s good to talk to you.’
    Diane smiled ruefully to herself as she replaced the phone.



Chapter Four
    ‘So, we’re having black napkins for the men, and white for the girls, and mixed black and white almonds …’
    Tina was blathering on. Rosie wasn’t listening. Instead she was wondering. She knew, she knew, everyone said, that she should probably be over it by now. She was otherwise well, if worried about the future, but oh, she was still so sad.
    Every baby she saw, every advert, every television show seemed to be there to taunt her. Stephen had mentioned Célestine from time to time, and she couldn’t bear to hear about that either. She wasn’t sleeping well, absolutely anything made her cry and she still hadn’t told Stephen about the awful news from the check-up. She had to get a grip, she had to. Lilian was worriedabout her, which wasn’t good for Lilian; and she knew she was no fun any more, that it was rubbish for Stephen to get home every night to a tired, washed-out, miserable fiancée.
    ‘How about,’ he had said the previous weekend, ‘how about we get together and go through wedding plans? Mother wants to know.’
    She had been so grateful to him for making an effort; it was so kind of him, and thoughtful, even if the very idea filled her with horror at the moment. She had gone with him, though, up to the big house.
    ‘So,’ Lady Lipton had sniffed. Tall and broad, she was dressed, as usual, in numerous layers of clothes of obvious quality but dubious age. ‘I think we’ll use the same seating plan from my wedding. So we’ll keep all the Yorkshire families apart from the Lancashire ones,
obviously
, then we’ll put one bishop per table; they get terribly dull unless you space them out.’
    Rosie had smiled weakly, doing her best. This wasn’t like her at all, but sometimes with Lady Lipton it was easier just to kind of lean back and let her roll all over you.
    ‘So
how
many do you think your people will have to have?’ said Lady Lipton, as if everyone in Rosie’s family was a burden that had to be accommodated. Which was, Rosie thought, exactly how Lady Lipton
did
see the Hopkinses, apart from Lilian, whom she adored.
    ‘Um, twenty?’ said Rosie tentatively, not reallyhaving thought it through. Her mum and that lot, if they could get over … Michael and Giuseppe and her London friends, even though she’d been neglecting them terribly lately. She assumed all her village friends would already be included.
    ‘
Twenty?
’
    Stephen squeezed her hand under the table, as Rosie wondered if this was a lot or a little, and cursed himself. They were both so caught up in themselves these days, he should have taken her somewhere nice or fun, not to sit in his