Short story

A Christmas wreath workshop helps to heal the heart and leads to an unlikely reconcillation…

Everything that could go wrong that morning had gone wrong. Fran’s elder daughter couldn’t find her school shoes. Both girls forgot their packed lunches so Fran had to walk home to fetch their sandwiches before driving back to drop them off at the school office.

Then the traffic had been unusually heavy, so when she arrived at the village hall all the parking spaces had been taken, forcing her to park on the grass verge instead. She stepped out of the car into a puddle, soaking her suede ankle boots.

‘What’s going to happen next?’ she wondered as she pushed through the double doors to where the wreath-making workshop was taking place. It was already 9.15am and she hoped she hadn’t missed anything important.

Fran was hopeless at crafts, but she had been looking forward to trying her hand at making a Christmas wreath for the front door. Sixteen women were seated around the long table. All heads turned as she tried to enter unobtrusively.

“You’re just in time!” Edith, the instructor, called out. “We’re about to start.”

Fran’s heart sank as she realised the only free seat was next to Abby Brown, the last person in the world she wanted to sit with. Typical! What was Abby doing here, anyway?

Looking straight ahead, Fran pulled

‘Fran had met Greg in the choir and felt very positive about their relationship’

back the empty chair and sat down. Could it be any more awkward? Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Abby glancing sideways at her – she looked grim.

It was a small village and everyone around the table probably knew what had happened 18 months ago. Out of the blue, Fran’s husband Steve had left her and moved in with her best friend, Abby. The local gossips were in their element.

Last Christmas had been a miserable one. Fran had never felt so alone, but this one was going to be very different. She had recently met Greg who sang in the same choir and, although she was taking things slowly, she felt very positive about their relationship. He was great with her daughters and they loved his company.

At last she felt she was definitely over Steve. She managed to be civil to him when he came to pick the girls up at weekends, but they didn’t talk. It had been difficult at first, but now that she knew she no longer loved him, it was Abby’s betrayal that hurt her most.

Making a wreath proved tricky. Trying to focus on the task in hand and ignoring her neighbour was even harder. All round the table, the other women were asking each other for help, laughing as they struggled to trim branches of evergreen and attach fiddly cinnamon sticks which kept falling off or breaking.

At Fran’s elbow, her ex-friend was fumbling with a bright red ribbon that she was trying to tie into a large bow. When she held it up against her wreath, it drooped pathetically. Even Fran could see that she had made the loops too large to hold their shape.

Perhaps it was the influence of the Christmas carols Edith had put on as background music, but to Fran’s surprise she found herself wanting to help.

“Do you need a hand?” she asked tentatively.

Abby looked sheepish. “Oh, it’s OK, thanks. I’m useless at this. I’ll have to start