Page 98 of Season of Gifts

Heaping Henry’s burdens higher tasted so acidic that even downing the rest of her cinnamon-and-clove cider couldn’t wash out the sting.

She joined Jay at the tree, her broad smile floating on an ocean of uncertainty.The optics screamed happy family Christmas.Mother and Lina sat as close as sisters while she and Jay transformed the room.Mother had done up her hair, and a touch of color shaded her eyes.Her nails gleamed, trimmed and polished and shining with clear coat.Her outfit was immaculate, a touch dressier than Alice’s, but then she hadn’t been out traipsing around in the trees.Aside from occasionally needing to catch her breath after a bout of laughter, she could’ve been any completely healthy seventy-something-year-old.

Henry brought in a meal fit for eight and fixed a plate for Mother.He fed Jay a handful of appetizers with his fingers, and Jay’s starry-eyed devotion followed him everywhere he went.He laughingly chimed in as Mother and Lina shared stories of him as a little boy, how he could barely clamber onto the piano bench for his first lesson and once climbed the library shelves to the ceiling to discover what books the grownups were hiding from him.

Only Alice’s prickling discomfort refused to let her sink into the cozy scene.Maybe she was imagining a problem that no longer existed.But she knew the horror of believing so hard that things were fine that she aided Dad in his scheme to cook the Christmas steaks and wound up back in the hard plastic hospital chairs with Ollie gripping her hand so stiffly she ached for hours.

Just after eight, when Lina had departed and the lights on the tree twinkled amid a collection of bows and balls and silver garland, Mother delicately covered her mouth and yawned.“Dear me, I believe I’ve run out of daylight.”

Setting his napkin and glass aside, Henry rose to his feet.“It’s been an exuberant day, with little rest to speak of.I’ll help you to bed.”

“No, no, you stay, darling.”Mother extended her hand.“Jay, you sweet boy, will you accompany an old woman upstairs?”

“An old woman?”Leaving what had been his hip-to-hip seat beside Henry, Jay scanned the room.“You’ll have to point her out to me.There’s just you and Alice here.”

Mother sighed, pressing both hands to her heart.“Oh I do like this boy, Henry.How wonderful that you’ve chosen to keep him.And”—she reached for Jay as he positioned himself to help her up—“that he has chosen you in return.It’s no small thing to have people to share your life with.”

Mother turned her gaze on Henry; the corner of his eye twitched.She swiveled her head toward Alice, and that sharp gaze came with a raised brow.“Time together is such a blessing.I often found the discomforts of the day faded after dinner, when Robert and I had time to discuss the oddities weighing on our minds.”

An arctic chill swept from Alice’s back teeth to her toes.She didn’t always catch social cues.But Mother’s message couldn’t be mistaken for anything but a nudge to talk to Henry.She must’ve heard about Alice’s misadventure from Ollie.“Wise advice.Communication is so important.”

“Yes.”Henry stared at the tree, his face blank.“We risk losing irreplaceable things when we fail to listen.”

“Goodnight, darlings.”With Jay at her side, Mother delivered kisses to Henry and Alice, the brush of her lips a dry whisper in front of each ear.“I’m giddy as a schoolgirl wondering what tomorrow’s calendar will hold for us.”

The slow, steady beat of footsteps trailed out of the music room.Henry began gathering the last of the glasses and the small dessert tray.Alice scooped up a handful before he could take them all.“To the kitchen?”

The answer was obvious, but her firm tone would show him she wasn’t going to be left behind again.

“Yes, thank you.”He squinched his mouth in a wry twist.“I may need a moment to alter tomorrow’s card, and I would appreciate if you avert your eyes while I do so.”

“I can keep a secret.”Oh boy, could she.She winced so hard her ears tingled.“I mean, I won’t look.”Following him down the hall with a stack of little plates in one hand and three glasses pinched in the fingers of the other, she took slow, even breaths.“I, uh, I reached out—” She glanced up the stairs as they crossed the entryway; Mother and Jay were just now at the top.She fell silent until the swinging kitchen door was safely between her mouth and Jay’s ears.“I reached out to Nat about a thing for Jay.For all of us, really—”

“Is she arriving tonight?”The tray rattled against the counter as it landed.

“What?”Did he already know?Nat had said she couldn’t even start until Sunday.“No, I don’t think—”

“Should I prepare a room tomorrow, then?”Tense, hawklike, he took the plates from her.

“Prepare—” She set the glasses beside the sink before she dropped one.“I think we have crossed wires.She’s not coming here; we don’t have to prepare anything.”

“Ah, excellent.”Henry unbent a fraction, his shoulders smoothing out.“I have full faith in your ability to craft something splendid for Jay.If I may leave you with this?”With a splayed hand, he indicated the dishes on the counter.“I must amend our activities list.”

As he burgled one of his calendar cards, she scraped plates and loaded the dishwasher.He disappeared, taking the card into his mother’s studio.She’d promised not to look, but every second he was gone ate into the time his mother had created for them to talk privately.She sped through the cleanup and turned off the lights in the music room.The glow from the tree and the electric candles in the windows faded, leaving afterimages in her vision.

“Thank you, Alice.”Henry stood silhouetted by the light from the stairway spilling down the hall.“My change is accomplished, and the doors are all secured.Shall we venture upstairs?”

She took the arm he offered, her heart pumping an ocean of heat out to her fingertips in waves.“There’s something else.About my trip.”

“I owe you an apology, Alice.”He led her to the stairs and sighed deeply.“I was not my better self that day I reached you at the airport.My reaction was overly brusque.”He climbed almost as slowly as Jay and Mother had, as if the gravity had increased and their feet could scarcely clear the risers.“I am sorry that my own stresses may have made your week more difficult or affected your ability to work with a clear mind.Will you forgive me?”

“No, I—”

His steps faltered.Fuck.

“Yes, I mean, of course, but I’m not asking you for an apology.Not about that, not for me.”She babbled down the hallway to their bedroom.Was Jay ahead of them or behind?He knew everything she meant to tell Henry about the trip.But not so much about how utterly they’d failed Jay, and how much she needed a one-on-one with Henry about what they owed to Jay and how she’d fucked up and maybe didn’t deserve to be called his dominant at all.Not until she could do better.“I just—we—we’re overdue for some honesty.You don’t have to start; I can start.”

Henry ushered her into the bedroom ahead of him and closed the door.Jay wasn’t inside; he must still be helping Mother.

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