Page 82 of Season of Gifts

“It’s growing late.”The air did little to relieve the pressure in his chest.Did she find the oxygen mask equally unhelpful?“I suggest we table this discussion and consider the home health aide situation from a novel perspective in the morning.”

Mother held out her hand to him, palm up, beckoning him toward her.“It won’t happen again, Henry,” she whispered, her eyes softening.Her fingers shook.“We haven’t talked about those fears in a long time.”

“And we needn’t now.”He added the sketchbook and the pencils to the assortment of items carpeting the nightstand, then bent into her embrace and kissed her cheek.So thin and light she was, the fledgling bird he’d named her.“Would you like any assistance before I remove the dishes?”

“No, darling.”She smoothed her hand down his face and left her own kiss high on his cheekbone, just shy of his ear.“Take time for yourself, will you?You’ve been doing so much.So many echoes.This won’t be like last time.”

No, it would not.He would make certain of it.

With the portable monitor clipped to his hip, he carried the dishes downstairs in a single trip.The dishwasher was due for a cycle.Neatening the kitchen required but minutes.

Mother’s optimism—willful denial a perhaps less gracious but more accurate accounting—complicated his ability to put systems in place to support her.Another week, yes.Alice and Jay would be a balm for the season’s melancholy tendrils, the grief that wrapped its fingers around the house each December.But what then?

When an instantaneous recovery did not materialize, how then would he make certain Mother was safe?Send Alice and Jay home while he remained?

He paced the kitchen, his anxious energy uncontainable, perhaps the drive to move that Jay lived with daily.If Will was correct in his insinuations, Henry’s long separation might have eroded Jay’s progress, the steps so hard-won, the therapy he’d poured himself into energetically after years of resistance.Touch would tell him.Touch and keen questioning, but how was Henry to accomplish such a feat with his mind dulled?

A full night of sleep would be a start, yet impossible to achieve.His body rebelled against the usual meditative techniques.He owed Will an apology, of course he did.Too raw and emotional over Mother’s health?An obvious truth.What had he told Jay, that therapy could teach them to redirect their responses but not eradicate them.Not erase the people they had been.The boy he was, slumbering for all these years, was wide awake now, and Henry had allowed his fear to seize control.The planning and deliberation he prided himself on, the careful and gradual coaxing, all remained inaccessible to him so long as his child-self steered the ship.

His feet carried him out of the kitchen and into the garden studio.The lights flicked on under his hand, casting a blazing spotlight on the easel near the windows.He hauled a sizeable sketchbook up from the nearest rack.Pristine from the first page.Blank sheets awaiting the torrent of his emotions.The rolling stand held charcoal and pastels.He snatched up a stick of darkest black, the powder flaking off and embedding in his fingers before he laid the first stroke.

In his mind’s eye, he pushed open the door to Mother’s room.She was better now, Father said, but she still spent an awful lot of time in bed or napping in the garden room.Sometimes they would read in the library, but he couldn’t snuggle against her.Her stomach had an angry red scar, a slash below her belly button.Even hugging him sometimes made her wince.

“There’s my birthday boy!”She closed the nightstand drawer and twirled her finger at him.

He spun slowly.He was taller today; he could feel it.When he went downstairs, Lina would measure for him against the pantry door.For the party, he’d worn dress pants and a plain dress shirt with a tie under his sweater.“Do I look seven, Mother?”

She crossed her hands against her chest.She’d worn her lavender robe today.If she meant to go downstairs with him, she would have worn real clothes, not pajamas.“You don’t look a day over thirty-seven, darling.”

So old!Thirty-seven was as far ahead of him as the dinosaurs were behind.But he was seven now; he could be gracious.Or magnanimous.He’d have to look them up again and compare.“You don’t look a day over twenty-seven, Mother.”

She laughed, holding her stomach tight.“Shameless flattery!Your classmates must adore you.”With both hands, she gestured him to the side of the bed.He stood still as she tidied his hair and kissed his forehead.“You are the most perfect thing I’ve ever made in my life.Do you know that?The very best thing.”

If that were true… “Better than Robert?”

Nose wrinkling, she laughed again.“And so quick!Go find your grandfather, please, and send him up to visit with me.”

“I could stay with you too, Mother.”Father almost never did; he was in his office now, even though it was Sunday afternoon.

“But what about your party guests?”Eyes wide, she pressed her lips together.“They’ll be here soon, and you mustn’t disappoint them.”

True.He was the host; it was his responsibility to make sure all of his classmates enjoyed the party.“I’ll save you a slice of cake, Mother.”There, that was decided.He couldn’t include Mother in the games, but she could partake in the sweets Lina had made.“We may have some together after my guests have gone.”

She tapped his nose with a single finger and waggled it once.“Thus ensuring you get two slices, you clever boy.Go on, now.Ask Lina to take plenty of pictures for me.It’s not every day my baby turns seven.”

He would always be the baby now.Her robe hid her scar, and her stomach was flat again, not round like it had been before Christmas.

Mother hummed softly.“What is it, Henry?”

He wasn’t supposed to ask.Father said not to talk about it ever.But Mother had overruled Father about stories at bedtime.“Will the others turn seven someday?The babies who got lost?”

She froze like he’d calledredin Red Light, Green Light.She stared through him, looking at him but not looking at him, not really.Her throat moved.Her eyelashes fluttered.“They aren’t lost, Henry.”

“But Father said—”

“They were sick, darling.”She closed her eyes so tightly, tighter than hide-and-seek, and blinked them open.The pale green looked shiny and wet, like leaves on a spring morning.The leaves went away every fall, but they always came back.It was only just March; they needed more time.Mother might come downstairs again once her winter ended.“Sometimes, when we are very, very sick, our lungs aren’t strong enough and our hearts can’t pump enough blood, and we die.Like the spider in the story I read you, do you remember?Sometimes it happens before we even get to take a breath in this world.”

He remembered the story; the farm animals had been funny, and they could talk even though real ones couldn’t.Mother had cried when the spider said goodbye.Dying meant going away somewhere mysterious and never coming back.And if being sick made the dying happen—Mother had been sick for weeks now.“But you aren’t that sick, are you, Mother?”

---