Kirsten spotted a young waiter wearing a Father Christmas hat and clutching two balloons approaching their table.
She tried to signal to him not to bother, but he didn’t get the message. When Clea and Iris saw him, they looked horrified as he handed them each a balloon.
‘Can this day get any worse?’ Clea muttered.
‘I’m nine, not a little kid!’ Iris chimed in.
A year or so ago, she would have been delighted with such a gift. How things had changed, and it was all Kirsten’s fault for falling in love.
She looked across the table at Andreas and her heart leapt, as it always did. But the glare on his 12-year-old daughter’s face as she sat beside him brought her back down to earth with a crash.
Andreas’ daughter Clea was only seven when her mum died. Now, five years later, she was furious that her dad had fallen in love with someone else.
‘When are we going home?’ Kirsten’s own daughter Iris asked, wearily. ‘I’m so bored. I wish I’d gone to Dad’s.’
Andreas winced. He had tried hard to make this Christmas shopping trip fun, but it had fallen completely flat.
‘Maybe we should leave,’ he said.
‘Best idea you’ve had all day, Dad,’ Clea said.
‘We’ve had fun though, haven’t we?’ Kirsten said, hopefully.
‘Fun?’ Clea scoffed, then turned to look the other way while Andreas shook his head and mouthed, ‘Sorry.’
As they left the restaurant, Clea and Iris gave their balloons to two small children sitting near the door, and even smiled at them. It was the first
