Page 32 of Season of Gifts

“Even all of my yearning for my own bed”—she breathed twice, slowly—“cannot inspire hunger for more of these underseasoned soft foods.”She rolled her hand toward him, palm up in offering.He clasped gently, her delicate dusky blue veins stark against pale, papery skin.Settling her cheek against the pillow, she cast a clear spring-green gaze at him.“You’re fussing.”

“A mere inquiry is hardly fussing.”Leaning forward, he allowed a smile to creep across his face.“I haven’t even lifted a finger to fluff your pillow.Falling down on the job, I am.”

She patted his hand, but her eyes retained their sharpness.“You’re fussing on the inside.A mother knows.”

Contradicting her would be a lie.He was admittedly unsettled, if not actively fussing.She’d seemed slighter and less energetic when they’d visited for the annual fall cleanup, but quite spry dancing at their wedding.In a typical year, he would have had another opportunity to notice any medical concerns at Thanksgiving.This year he had prioritized starting new traditions with Alice and Jay.He ought to have been paying better attention.

“I am sorry, Henry.”Her breath fluttered; her lips trembled.“That must have been a frightening call to receive.I’ve been…” Slow breaths, and he breathed with her, the rhythm therapeutic.“Tiring more easily, and I simply accepted it as part of aging gracefully.There was no chest pain, no sudden attack.I was…” More breaths, and irritation lined her face.“Dizzy.I fell; I called Lina.”

Miraculously, she’d broken nothing in the fall.Not her wrists in an attempt to arrest her fall; not her hip, so often a debilitating injury; not her skull on the hundreds of hard surfaces that could have cut short her life Sunday.

He swallowed past the knot in his throat.Lozenges could do nothing for fear.“You needn’t apologize, Mother.Let us focus on getting you well.”

She stroked the watchband at his wrist; her father’s watch.“And you.The nurse will be by soon to put you out in the cold and tell me to sleep.When I tell her I’ve napped the day away, she’ll insist I try regardless.”Infinitesimal pressure emanated from the tips of her chilly fingers, leaving phantom marks on his forearm.“I insist you try.I’d feel better if…” In through her nose, out through her mouth, the breaths that kept her with him.“If Alice and Jay were here to help you.It’s not good to be alone.”

She’d been alone for years now.Seven since Father passed in his sleep.At least three since Lina had moved in with her daughter to mind the grandchildren.He should have been visiting more often.

“Perhaps,” he murmured, laying the book aside before smoothing her blankets.So thin; he would stop at the nurses’ station and ask for an extra tonight and whether it would be permissible to bring a quilt from home in the morning.“If your doctor believes you are fit enough, Alice and Jay may join us for the weekend.”He tapped the tray with its leftovers.“But you’ll need to eat more of your breakfast tomorrow than you have of this dinner.”

“Hmph.You were always an excellent eater.We never had to sweeten your vegetables.You approached every new dish with such curiosity.”She curled the corner of her lip, a graceful but triumphant smirk.“And even you would struggle to finish this meal.”

“I suppose I would.”Bending, he kissed her cheek and laid a hand on her head, gestures embedded in memory from all the years she had done the same for him.“I love you, Mother.Sleep well.”

“I love you, darling boy.”Her lips grazed his cheek.“I’m all right, truly.You needn’t worry so much.”

He held his silence as he left.A degree in art therapy and a lengthy stint of weekly visits to a therapist of his own hadn’t dislodged the fear he’d carried for thirty-odd years.He’d grown to know himself, to manage and direct his emotional responses, but one couldn’t simply shut them away.

The house was dark as he parked in the drive.The car display faded into darkness as well, the ghostly afterimage of 7:21 floating in his vision.Alice and Jay would be seated at the table, hopefully eating something containing the chicken he’d put in the refrigerator to thaw Sunday if they hadn’t finished it already.He should have thought to direct Alice to a few simple recipes.Or Jay; he did arrive home first, and meal-making would be no more foreign to him than it was to Alice.

The car door crackled in the cold.He wouldn’t interrupt their meal, whatever it was.He had soup to warm for his own dinner; that would serve as a mental transition between his role as caretaking son and his role as caretaking dominant.Dry flurries left an imperfect record of his passage from car to front door.Caught by the wind, the powdery snow chased his steps into the tiled hall, drifting to rest as he closed the door behind him.

Thirty-three years ago, the snow had followed Father’s shiny black shoes and Mother’s warm winter boots.

He’d been stocking-footed, standing beside Robert.Nearly eleven days since Mother had left to have the baby.She’d missed Christmas.Father hadn’t read the story of the old man and his ghosts the night before Christmas, either.Tonight would be New Year’s Eve, and Lina hadn’t even mentioned it when she’d put lunch before them.

“Mother!”Henry got half a step before Robert squeezed his arm and held him still.He wrestled just long enough to know his six-year-old strength couldn’t match his brother’s.Robert had started playing lacrosse at school.He didn’t live at home now; he’d leave again in a few days.

“Decorum,” Father said, but that didn’t matter, because Mother smiled and called him her darling boy and apologized that she couldn’t hug him just yet, but soon.

“Tomorrow we’ll be decadent and have Lina bring tea to my bed, and I’ll read to you, how would that be?”

“With the new baby?”

“Henry,” Father snapped.

Mother leaned into Father, patting his chest.“No, just you and me, Henry, and Robert, if he’d like to join us?”

His brother tightened his grip on Henry’s arm.“No, thank you, Mother.I’m meeting some of the boys for skating tomorrow.”

“Of course.Be safe on the ice, please.”She whispered something in Father’s ear, and suddenly Mother was in his arms.

“Wait here, both of you,” Father growled as he strode past them.He carried Mother up the stairs like she weighed nothing.

She did look skinnier.When she’d gone to the hospital, she’d been round with the baby.Henry strained on tiptoes and whispered toward Robert’s shoulder.“But where’s the baby?”

“There is no baby, dummy.”Robert let go of his arm and shoved him away; his socks slid on the tile.“She lost it, like the other ones.”

“What other ones?”

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