Page 120 of Season of Gifts

Jay, steering the cart with one hand, swung their linked hands lightly between them.“Do you need to go home?If you give me the list, I can pick up everything, and you can swing back and get me when I’m done.”

Either the tension in his body or his repeated checking of his watch had given him away.A gentle reassurance sprang to his lips, and he held it back.Jay didn’t require comfort from him in this moment; Jay wished to comfort him.He set the acorn squash in the upper basket.Extra pomegranates would be a must; Jay would enjoy squeezing out the arils.

“Thank you for asking.I am”—his heart pounded, and anxious questions swirled repeatedly in his head—“experiencing some concern, yes, but I would prefer to remain here with you and enjoy our time together.”And ideally not suggest to Alice that he found her supervision inadequate, as the opposite was true.“What would you recommend?”

Jay’s phone appeared in his hand, high above them and angled down, with the colorful produce of the market behind them.“Smile!”

He smiled; Jay’s energy was infectious.“And this helps us how?”

Jay tapped away at the screen.“You’ll see.”

They covered no more than fifteen feet before a chime sounded from Jay’s pocket.He withdrew his phone, grinned, and displayed the screen.“How’s that?”

Mother sat regally by the window in her bedroom, her sketchbook perched on her lap.Behind her, Alice crouched with an armful of bedsheets and a thumbs-up, mugging for the camera.The accompanying text, from Mother, readYour darling wife is stripping my bed for me, and I am being decadently lazy.The guest rooms have all been outfitted.I may nap in a bit; I shall want to be at my best for our baking adventures.Give my love to Henry as well, you sweet boy.

The panic ebbed.His breathing slowed; his heart rate followed.“You are utter perfection.”

Jay leaned carefully closer and lightly kissed his cheek.“From your mom.She loves you, you know.And so do I, and so does Alice.”

A kiss from his husband in the middle of the produce section.Five years ago, he could only have dreamed such a thing.“I am undeniably lucky to be so well loved.”

Chapter sixty-five

Alice

ThehouseHenrygrewup in?Was a freakingbeast.

The place could’ve been a bed and breakfast, and not one of those cutesy ones with three tiny attic bedrooms.Walking alongside Mother, Alice slowed her pace.She bundled the stack of sheets in one arm and kept one free in case Mother needed it.“Seven?Really?”

“On this floor.”Mother led her to the room across the hall from theirs and swung open the door.“This front bedroom is Robert’s, where he and Constance stay when they visit, and their boys share the adjacent one.”

“They don’t get their own?”Some days she would’ve killed for her own room as a kid.But when she’d gotten to college, she would’ve paid to have Ollie back.Her first-year roommate had known fuck-all about sharing respectfully.

“They do at home.”Mother pulled a just-for-looks pillow off the bed and began a stack on the bedside table.“They don’t visit overnight often enough for this house to feel like home.”

The pause in pillow-ferrying could have been fatigue, but the twist of Mother’s lips spoke of a different ache.Henry might be able to explain why he, the younger son and three hours away, was closer to his mom than the older brother who lived like an hour down the road.Alice hurried around to the far side of the bed.“It can be tough to fall asleep someplace new.”

Mother hummed softly.“Having someone familiar nearby is comforting when one wakes in the dark with the fear that the house and its strange noises yearn to devour them.And even then, it takes time.Two nights is hardly enough.”

Alice had slept easily enough last night, once they’d all gotten out their anxiety.The sheets felt like Henry’s, and Henry and Jay had been beside her.The room beyond and the sounds of the house settling didn’t matter so much.But she wasn’t a child.Or a new bride.

“You moved in here with Henry’s dad, right?”Alice shuffled pillows to the nightstand on her side and dragged back the quilt.The bare mattress sat underneath.She plopped the blue-gray plaid sheets at the corner.“Was it your first house together?”

“I did, and it was certainly not ours.”Laughing lightly, Mother pulled back the quilt at her side and walked to the foot of the bed.“Let’s shake this out, please.Closed-off rooms can be terrible dust-catchers.”

The bedspread smelled like flowers—sachets in the pillowcases, Mother confessed.After shaking out the quilt and draping it over a chair, Alice flung the fitted sheet across the bed.“Why wasn’t it yours?”

Mother hauled the corners on her side into place as efficiently as Alice did on the other side.If light housework was a strain, it didn’t show in her breathing or her movements.

“I was all of twenty-three when I moved here to marry Robert, and his grandmother ruled the house.”She held out a hand, and Alice tossed the top sheet across.“His parents had the room that is Henry’s now, and he and I had this one.His younger sisters were living at home and husband-hunting, and his bachelor uncle and widowed aunt had moved back in.Every meal was in the formal dining room.”The knit blanket topped the sheets, smoothed out and folded back before they stuffed the pillows in fresh cases.“His grandparents employed a full-time staff to keep the house in order.I decided nothing, not when I would wake or take breakfast or how I would spend my days.It was a significant change from growing up the only child of doting parents.”

“Sounds overwhelming.”Full-time staff?Being subject to her husband’sgrandmother’sdecisions?Yikes.She’d meant to steer the conversation toward Mother’s current medical issues while Henry was out.His perceptions were skewed by fear.With good reason, but still.They couldn’t help make smart decisions for Mother’s care if they didn’t know what she would need.“You’ve lived here ever since?”

“Ever since.”Mother sat primly on the edge of the bed while Alice fetched the quilt.“The years passed, and the household shrank.Weddings and burials left me in charge.Sooner than I’d expected, in truth.We’d dwindled to Robert and I, Lina, and the boys.”

“And now it’s just you.”Fuck, way to state the painfully obvious.She clutched the quilt to her stomach.“I’m sorry, that was—”

“Truthful.”Mother tugged Alice down beside her.“Most days, it is simply me in this rambling old showpiece.That doesn’t frighten me, darling.I have more than enough causes and hobbies to keep me nimble and entertained.”Tilting her head on Alice’s shoulder, she sighed.“I do miss the companionship.Henry’s father was an excellent debater, and our conversations were lively affairs.And Lina is the sister of my heart.”

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