School ReYOUnion

Chapter Thirty One

"Who hides in a bakery at Christmas?" Dad glimpses up at us all, smirking like an excited child. "A mince spy!"

Mum loudly groans before rolling her eyes with obvious dismay. "Oh my goodness, year on year, the jokes just get worse, don't they?"

She's right, in all the years that dad has excitedly read the jokes from out of the pulled Christmas crackers; the jokes just get cornier and cornier. But corny is good. Corny is comforting. Corny is what I know. As I'm sat around the table with my parents and Mitch, for the first time in my life, I feel the heavy weight of insecurity sitting at the bottom of my stomach. Okay, it's probably rammed in there, along with the too many pigs in blankets, roast potatoes, turkey and the rest of the delicious lunch that I've only just eaten, but that insecurity is so uncomfortably still down in there.

"Okay, what about this one, then?" Dad has already eagerly taken mum's joke from out of her torn apart cracker, knowing that she has no intention of ever reading it. "Who is Santa's favourite singer?" Again, he impatiently pauses, just dying to tell us the awful punchline. "Elfis Presley." He's laughing at the awfulness of it, which in turn makes us all laugh along with him.

Could I really leave my cheesy-joke-telling-father?

Could I really leave my obvious-eye-rolling-mother?

To even be considering what Mitch asked of me earlier, makes me now feel insecure and terribly guilty. My independence has been built on the solid ground of who my parents are. Built upon who they have allowed me to become. While my mum is begging my father to not read out any more groan-worthy cracker jokes, I'm sat here watching them both with so much gratitude and respect for them. For so many years, I have taken who they so wonderfully are for complete granted. For so many years, I have been ungrateful and complacent for all that they have given me—everything, they have given me everything.

It's only now that I can fully grasp the enormity of that.

Grasp the enormity of what I'd be leaving behind.

Don't cry!

Please don't cry!

Is all I silently keep telling myself.

"Who's ready for pudding?" Rising from my seat with a quivery weak smile, I start clearing away the dinner plates. I don't look at anyone. Not Mitch. Not dad. Definitely not my mum. I'm only keeping my glassy eyes down on the dirty plates, while clamping my lips together to imprison a sob that I fear is trying to escape.

Don't cry!

Please don't cry!

Becomes my repeated emotional inner mantra.

With all four plates stacked up in my hands, I hurry to the kitchen with them. Hurrying, because my eyes are now bordering with hot tears. The kitchen will give me some space. A place to pull my stupid self together. As I carefully put the plates beside the sink, I exhale long and slowly. That overwhelmed breath needs to be expelled. It needs somewhere to go. As I'm opening up the fridge door, I then see mum's sherry trifle. That trifle becomes my absolute undoing. Clasping my hand over my opened mouth, I try to quieten my crying. As quick as my tears are rolling down my cheeks, I'm swiping them away with my shaky fingers. I've never been much of a crier, yet here I am, crying. It's the trifle's fault. It's the reason why my tears have found their way down my cheeks. That trifle has just broken me. For it represents all that my mum is. Her trifle is yet another one of our family traditions. Along with the weak pulling of a Christmas cracker that often fails to give that BANG, and has inside of it a really crap joke, a tacky gift and a hat that's big enough for three adult heads—they both are our traditions.