A Winter’s Wish Come True. Lynsey James

I have to find the words to turn his world upside down.

      *

      I can barely concentrate at work when I get there. Although mixing up batters and decorating fairy cakes is second nature to me, I keep making mistakes and it doesn’t go unnoticed by my colleague Fred.

      ‘Cleo, that’s the second time you’ve added too much sugar to the cupcake batter,’ he says, coming over to help me with my third attempt. ‘What’s troubling you?’

      I grunt in frustration and step away from the industrial mixer. ‘Everything’s going wrong at the moment Fred, and I’ve got no idea how to fix any of it.’

      Once he’s made the cupcake batter with the correct ratios, he turns to me, a kind smile on his face. He might be in his seventies, but he has an unusual knack of knowing exactly how to fix my twenty-something problems.

      ‘Want to talk about it?’ he asks. ‘I’ll stick the cupcakes in the oven and we could shut up shop for a while?’

      I shake my head. ‘We can’t shut the shop; it’s the lunchtime rush soon. I wouldn’t like to see a bunch of hungry schoolkids without their sausage rolls and cakes, would you?’

      My colleague gives a knowing nod; the few times we’ve had to close over lunchtime since I’ve worked here, the aftermath hasn’t been pretty. We’ve found out just how good kids are at adopting a mob mentality.

      ‘You’re right,’ he says, ‘I could be doing without having to scrape rotten eggs off the windows again! There’s something bothering you though, I can tell.’

      I sigh. He’s not going to let this go until he knows everything, so stalling tactics are useless here.

      ‘OK …’ I take a deep breath as I get ready to share my news. ‘… Yesterday, I found out I’m pregnant.’

      Fred doesn’t reply right away, so the only sound in the room is the mixer whirring and rattling. For a terrifying second, I worry I’ve caused some sort of heart attack, until his face breaks into a smile.

      ‘Well, that’s lovely news!’ He pulls me in for a tight hug. ‘Congratulations love, I’m sure you’ll make a brilliant mum.’

      I give a nervous chuckle and fiddle with a loose thread on my baker’s jacket. ‘Thanks, but I don’t know about that! I’m an only child and I’ve never really been around babies before. Not sure I’ll know where to start!’

      The idea of having a tiny human who’s totally dependent on me for survival makes my head spin.

      ‘It’ll all come to you when you meet him or her,’ Fred assures me, patting my shoulder. ‘It’s just instinctive, trust me. With my two, the wife and I were clueless at first. But you get to learn what each cry means and what they need. And you get to watch as their personalities develop and they become their own little people. There’s nothing quite like parenthood, believe me. And if you’re worrying about me running the bakery while you’re off having the baby, don’t. We’ll organise some cover well in advance.’

      I feel my shoulders relax and the weight in my chest becomes a little lighter. ‘Thanks Fred, you’ve made me feel a lot better. Maybe I won’t be so bad at this motherhood thing after all!’

      I think I’m saying this to try and convince myself more than anything else. I know next to nothing about babies and the thought of raising one, especially on my own, is daunting to say the least.

      However, as Fred pulls me in for a comforting hug, I get the brief feeling that everything will be just fine.

      *

      Since today seems to be a day for tackling huge obstacles – telling Fred about the baby wasn’t as easy as one might think – I decide to do the hardest thing I’ve ever done: tell Scott he’s going to be a father. It has to happen sooner or later, and he has decisions of his own to make about whether he wants to be involved or not.

      I leave for the Silver Spoon café just after the lunchtime rush subsides at the bakery. The café is pretty much deserted, which doesn’t do much to ease my nerves. There’s no buzz of conversation to divert Scott’s attention, or any tantalising smells to ensnare his senses. The spotlight will be fixed on me and my big news. I check my phone one more time to see that my text to him definitely sent. Knowing my luck, there will have been some area-wide service outage that means he hasn’t got the text.

      Maybe that means I can leave? Put it off for another day where I feel more ready to drop such an enormous bombshell? No, that wouldn’t be right, I say to myself. I can’t bury my head in the sand about this; the sooner he knows, the sooner he can decide what part he wants to play in the baby’s life.

      The door swings open and in walks Scott. He looks tired and his gym clothes are crumpled; being back at his own flat has made him regress into dude-dom once again. I can just picture the plates of half-eaten, congealed spaghetti dotted around the place, along with discarded pairs of underwear and socks.

      Our eyes lock and I feel my heart skip. God, he does the dishevelled look well.

      Cleo, stop it!

      ‘Hey,’ he says, taking a seat opposite me. He looks at me for a moment, as though he wants to say something else, but changes his mind a few seconds later.

      ‘How are you doing?’ I ask, determined not to let any awkward silences develop. If they do, I’m done for. I don’t care that I probably sound like Joey from Friends.

      ‘I won’t lie, I’ve been better.’ His voice doesn’t have any of its usual warmth of humour, which I can’t say I didn’t expect. ‘Are you finally ready to talk about what happened between us? Is that why you texted, asking me to meet you here?’

      Oh boy. This is going to be even harder than I thought. How am I supposed to tell him that I’m not here to rake over the nitty-gritty of our disastrous night together? I’m about to turn his life upside down and he has no idea.

      ‘No Scott … I … I actually have some news.’ My heart is in my mouth as I prepare to say the words out loud. I drop my gaze to the table, away from his hopeful brown eyes. ‘You know how I passed out yesterday and had to go to hospital? Well … the doctor did a blood test to see what might be causing it and …’

      I trail off to collect myself. Any minute now, I’ll be rushing off to the bathroom to be sick or sprinting out the door to hide under my duvet.

      ‘You’re not … You’re not ill, are you?’ Scott looks genuinely worried. Once again, he goes to reach for my hand and pulls back at the last minute. ‘Cleo, if you are—’

      ‘No, I’m not ill.’ I have to cut him off before I can hear him say he’ll be there for me and everything will be OK: basically everything I’d secretly like to hear, though I’d never admit that. ‘Scott, I’m … I’m pregnant.’

Chapter Three

      The words fall out of my mouth and pierce the café’s silence with an unsettling finality. That’s it now; they’re out there and there’s no taking them back.

      Scott takes a few seconds to react. At first, he stares ahead of him with his face set in a blank expression. I’m not sure if he’s heard me until he opens his mouth to speak.

      ‘What … What did you say?’ His voice is hoarse, like everything he wants to say and all the questions he wants to ask are caught in his throat.

      ‘I’m pregnant,’ I say again. ‘I found out yesterday.’

      ‘And is the baby mine?’ he snaps. His eyes are shining with tears and his hands are clenched into fists in his lap.

      My eyes widen. ‘How can you ask that? Of course the baby’s yours!’

      ‘Well I don’t know Cleo, anything’s possible since we split up,’ he yells. ‘I