Named of the Dragon Read Free Page A

at all, it's only because I'm a mother, and no mother likes leaving her child alone in the holidays."
    I could understand that. She'd never had to worry about it before, because I'd never missed a Christmas with my family. Even during those brief, disastrous years of my marriage to Martin—ancient history now—when the simple act of sitting down to Christmas lunch became a kind of torture and my mother took to serving the turkey already sliced, for fear my father might do murder with the carving knife—even then, I'd always kept the ritual, shuttling back and forth between our tiny flat in Shepherd's Bush and my parents' home in Maidstone.
    This would be the first year that I'd broken with tradition.
    "And I suppose," my mother went on, rather carefully,
    "I'm just a bit concerned about you being on your own, you know, at this time of the year."
    "I'm fine," I said. "And after all, it's been five years. I'm past the fragile stage." I'd been sitting too long. I rose rather stiffly, and stretched. "Shall I make us some tea?"
    It was a tactic that I often used when I didn't want to talk about something, and I knew she wasn't fooled, but being my mother she didn't let on. And she didn't follow me into the kitchen, either—she let me have my privacy. Alone, I filled the kettle, forcing back the pricking tears. I'd never liked to cry in front of anyone, not even my mother, but my emotions weren't so easy to control so close to Justin's birthday.
    That's how I preferred to think of it—his birthday. Not the day that he had died.
    It seemed like yesterday, sometimes, as if the five years hadn't happened. I remembered every moment of my labour, being glad that my mother was there, being glad that Martin wasn't—he'd been dead three months by that time, and although I had gone through the motions of grieving I'd secretly felt like an enormous weight had lifted from my shoulders. Martin hadn't wanted the baby in the first place. Careless, he'd called me at first, and then selfish, and finally he'd gone along grumpily, showing no joy at the prospect of being a father. His death had somehow made the baby more my own.
    I'd picked the baby's name myself, the day I'd learned I was carrying a boy. I'd spelled it out in brightly painted letters on the nursery door: Justin. I'd stocked the nursery shelves with clothes and books and cuddly toys, and planned the outings I would take him on, the places I would show him. I'd walked on air for weeks.
    He'd been a big baby, nine pounds and three ounces, so I'd expected that the labour would be difficult. But soon, I'd thought, the pain would be over. Soon I'd have Justin...
    One final push, the feeling of that tiny new life slipping from my body, and a rush of swelling happiness.
    And then had come confusion. Urgent voices, hurried hands, a sterile figure, gowned and masked, who'd whisked my baby out of the delivery room and down the echoing corridor. I'd heard the high-pitched crying, frantic, rising to a scream above the fast receding footsteps, and I'd struggled to rise, to go after my baby. "What is it?" I'd begged them. "What's wrong?"
    I remembered my mother's anguished eyes, and the doctor saying Justin wasn't breathing, and me shaking my head. "But he's crying ... I can hear him crying."
    No, they'd told me gently. That was someone else's baby, not my own.
    I'd refused to believe it. This isn't him, I'd thought, when they'd taken me to view the little body, to let me hold him. My baby's alive, he was crying, I heard him...
    The kettle rattled on the stove and whistled to the boil. Brushing my cheeks with an impatient hand, I brought myself back to the present and reached for the teapot.
    My mother's voice called from the sitting-room, "Need any help?"
    "No," I called back, "I can manage." I said it again, very quiet but firm and determined, for my ears alone: "I can manage."
    *-*-*-*-*
    Managing Bridget was another matter. My mother might not be having the most relaxing time in