Page 13 of Season of Gifts

Alice expertly slid her own cracked and oozing marshmallow between two graham crackers.Chocolate ran down her finger, and she sucked it clean with ruthless efficiency.“Didn’t you tell me once she lost her cake pans?”

“Oh, the cupboard hunt!”Jay launched into the latest tale, animated as he honored his beloved client with stories.He’d had therapy this afternoon; perhaps they’d spoken of yesterday’s loss.

Henry and Alice had done nothing more at dinner than steer Jay into talking about whatever struck his fancy, their questions prompts to encourage his sharing.The scavenger hunt last night had been a pleasant distraction, something to occupy Jay’s mind so it wouldn’t continuously feed him the image of his friend lying dead in her home.

With victory achieved, his spouses had sampled a few of the audio recordings he’d made for them before Alice suggested they end the night with story time.An excellent suggestion, well-matched for soothing Jay’s emotional upheaval as it once had his nightmares.Henry had read the opening chapters of a meditation on death and renewal disguised as children’s literature.Perhaps they would finish the tome tonight.

“—a lot of cakes, I think.But also cookies and brownies and pies and tarts and chocolate molds at Easter, but not candy because it’s too temperamental and not flaky pastry, because she says—said—the dough is too much work.Is that a type of baker?”Jay gazed at him over a thoroughly charred marshmallow center as he bit into his treat.

“Indeed it is.”Henry leaned in closer, as though imparting a secret.That Jay recalled so many details, so much of what the woman had spoken to him in eighteen months of Tuesday mornings, spoke volumes about the depth of his attachment.“A wise one.”

The relationship wasn’t unlike the one he’d shared with his mother’s father.Grandfather Bennett had been the one to teach him about the ethics of manhood before Victor assumed the mentoring role, and he often referenced their lessons even years later.Father, having lost his trust once, had never fully regained it.But he held no bitterness about such things now.He’d processed those long-ago events and made peace with them.

And Mother was greatly anticipating their arrival for Christmas this year.He’d spent an hour on the phone with her this morning as she insisted on making plans for the ballet, an ice-skating outing, and assorted other winter traditions to celebrate Alice and Jay joining the family.She would be delighted to give Jay more mothering over the holiday.The bond would do them both good.

“—means a lot.”

Jay had swallowed the entirety of his s’more and begun assembling another.Henry had missed something, hopefully nothing vital to his husband’s mental health.His focus had become unaccountably shoddy.He sipped his cocoa, made less sweet and more palatable with the addition of ginger and sea salt, and projected an open, encouraging expression.

Laying the skewer across his knees, Jay stared into the petite flame.“Thank you for listening.I know I’m talking about her a bunch.”

Henry and Alice landed hands on him in near unison, she on Jay’s forearm and he on Jay’s thigh.

“They’re good stories, Jay.”Alice tugged her lower lip into her teeth at the corner of her mouth and released it.“It’s important to tell them.I’m…” Her gaze slid off them, though she stroked Jay’s sleeve with her thumb.“I’m learning that too, I think.Trying to remember the good times and not let what came after overshadow those.”

“Danny said something like that today.”A stroke of luck, that Jay had taken to his therapist so well.His enthusiasm allowed him to make great strides.“How grief is something you have to feel your way through, and you can’t cheat on it, you can’t sayno, I’m not gonna feel thisand have it go away, because that only makes it worse when you do feel it.”

Henry stood up.Abruptly, and without intending to, and now facing two surprised faces.“Apologies, my dears.I believe we’re running low on hot beverages.If you’ll hand me your mugs, I’ll refresh yours as well.”

They handed over half-full mugs without complaint, though Alice cocked an eyebrow at him.He carried them inside and set the cocoa to rewarming on the cooktop in the kitchenette.His unreasonably racing heart took longer to calm than it should have.

December deserved the blame; it was then the problem had begun and invisibly grown.If the unfortunate Mrs.Eickhoff had not passed away during a difficult season, he would be responding properly, as Alice was, with empathy and support.Instead, he’d attached personal meaning to an innocuous and insightful commentary about grief.Yes, insightful, that’s what he ought to have said rather than distancing himself—

The flinch rolled through his shoulders and trembled out his fingertips.He set his hands on the counter, gripping the cool surface.

Distancing himself like Father had.Father had failed them all with his willful ignorance.

But he was not his father; he would remain present for Jay through this crisis and be vigilant for signs of distress.And he would pour the refreshed drinks and take them outside before his spouses came seeking him, brimming with more uncomfortable insights.

Chapter seven

Jay

SettingthetableforThursday supper, Jay took personal inventory.Not what he was carrying on him or making sure his parts were all still attached, like he’d thought the first time Danny had suggested it in therapy.Right now, that was three plates with silverware on top and zero clothes, with all parts intact.

This was an inside inventory, checking in with his body to make sure things were running right (no leftover aches from work, but eager for dinner), and with his heart to find out how he was feeling (pretty good despite losing at checkers, though Mr.Donovan wasn’t a talker like Mrs.Eickhoff), and with his head for what he was thinking (should he feel guiltier for getting back into his routines, even though he found them super-comforting).He centered white plates on red mats, very peppermint Christmas.The lights on the tree glowed from the living room, and the whole house smelled of evergreen and citrus.

Danny said returning to his daily routines was normal, though he didn’t say “normal” because he didn’t like that word.But Jay didn’t have to feel guilty about not thinking about Mrs.Eickhoff every minute, and it was okay, too, that sometimes she would flash into his thoughts.And sometimes that might be the last time he’d seen her, and it would trip him up like a stick in the spokes, but other times it would be good memories, like the ones he’d shared with Henry and Alice last night.And probably this weekend there would be a service—he’d set up a search notification for her name so he wouldn’t miss her obituary—and he’d hear more nice stories about her.

Inventory-wise, the day wasn’t a bad one.And after dinner at the breakfast bar Tuesday, before his shower even, and dinner and dessert on the roof yesterday with tiny snowflakes landing on their hot chocolate, today was a regular old everything as usual day.Routine.

He sighed and rolled his neck, sloughing tension out of his shoulders, but his hot shower had done most of the work for him, and setting the table had done the rest.

“Finished, my boy?”Henry, at the counter, had slipped gloves over his hands before he started chopping up beets and scooping the pink-purple bits into a bowl.Pausing, he surveyed the table at a distance, and Jay clasped his hands behind his back and waited for judgment.“Beautifully done.”

Calm washed over him.A task wasn’t done-done until he had Henry’s approval running through his veins.

“Will you add a trivet for the salmon—one of the larger ones, please—and then bring three salad plates to me?”

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