Free The Little Christmas Kitchen by Jenny Oliver

flight to Heathrow so they’d only spent one night together in the room above the taverna – Ella in the big bed, Maddy on the small single. Ella had got undressed in the bathroom and then got into bed with her book. The only thing they’d said to each other was, ‘Night’ before rolling over to face in opposite directions.
    But when Ella had woken up in the middle of the night, the room so black that she couldn’t see her hand in front of her face, she had turned over and heard Maddy say, ‘Are you awake?’
    She hadn’t replied.
    ‘I’m kind of scared.’ Maddy whispered. ‘Not
really
scared, just a bit.’
    Silence.
    ‘You remember when we flew to see Dad and Mum made us wear sticky name badges with our address and phone numbers on them?’ She laughed softly, ‘I kind of want a name badge. I think I’ll be ok though. I hope so. When I imagined going I had you there in my imagination. You know, just in case.’
    Ella heard Maddy roll over, bunch the covers up around her. ‘I suppose there’s always Dad…’ she carried on, then paused before she said, ‘I don’t know if he’d see me though.’ Her voice going up at the end of her whisper as if it was a question.
    Ella still didn’t say anything. But she had lain awake for hours afterwards thinking that she should have replied.
    ‘Ella–’ her mum called, ‘Can you make the coffee?’
    ‘What?’ Ella looked up from where she’d been staring at her pad.
    ‘The coffee? The jugs are in the corner, remember I showed you?’
    ‘Oh right. Yes.’ Ella and Max had a housekeeper who came most mornings to clean their flat, iron Max’s shirts and make them breakfast. As a throwback from Max’s boarding school days, he liked a bowl of porridge followed by a bacon sandwich and HP sauce every morning and when he’d realised that Ella could make neither porridge nor coffee or make bacon just the way he liked it, he’d hired Rose – a middle-aged woman with a huge chest who reminded him of his house mistress.
    ‘Ella, what are you doing?’ her mum asked as she walked past her carrying a tray piled high with plates of eggs, bowls of glistening mushrooms and stacks of golden, buttery toast. ‘That’s too much. You take the plunger out before you put the coffee in. Jesus, Ella do you not know how to make coffee?’
    Ella didn’t drink hot drinks. She never had. She couldn’t understand why people would want to drink anything hot. Her mum had always given her an orange juice when everyone else had had tea.
    The idea that her mum had forgotten that made her silent.
    ‘I don’t know how you and Max live sometimes.’ She shook her head. ‘Here, coffee, water, plunger. Ok?’ Then she strode out, clearly stressed, balancing the tray of food while scooping up two jugs of freshly squeezed juice that clanked together as she walked.
    Ella’s phone rang as she was spooning out coffee powder.
    ‘Max?’ she said, the line was crackly.
    ‘Ella?’ She heard him say. ‘Ella–’
    ‘Hang on Max, I can’t hear you. Let me just go outside.’ She hurried out the back door and stood by the sea wall, looking out at the fishing boats. ‘Max, hi.’
    ‘Ella I think Amanda’s husband is going to call you. Don’t believe anything he says. He’s been looking for a way to stop her getting a penny.’
    ‘Max, he said–’
    ‘It’s bullshit. Whatever he said, Ella, it’s bullshit. He’s set this whole thing up. It’s divorce tactics. The sly bastard is just securing his cash. Ok? Listen to me, Ella. When are you coming home?’
    ‘Christ as soon as I can.’ She sighed. ‘My mum has me waitressing.’
    There was a pause and then a booming laugh down the other end of the phone. ‘I like that idea. Are you wearing a pinny?’
    Ella smirked. ‘Maybe.’
    ‘Love it.’ Max laughed again and then the signal cut out.
    ‘Damn this island.’ Ella sighed, looking at the one bar on her phone.
    ‘Ella!’ Her mum was in the doorway. ‘The coffee?’
    ‘Oh