Page 147 of Season of Gifts

Small fingers gripped his tight and shook firmly.“Thanks, Uncle Jay.”

He shooed the boys out the door in front of him and stepped into the winter wonderland beyond.Cocoa and presents around the tree were grand, but the crisp air in his lungs and the delicate crunch of snow under his shoes?That was heaven.

Chapter seventy-five

Henry

Inthesevenyearssince Father had passed, his study changed not one whit.Locked in the past, kept pristine by Mother’s regular cleaning service, the room waited for an occupant who would not return.

Henry ticked the door shut behind him, trailing Robert into the space.The baleful moose and its flanking deer mounts prickled his shoulders even now.But he required a quiet space to discuss what to do about Mother’s health, and this was the most suitable.

They appeared as mismatched bookends, he in his green robe and Robert in the blue, the colors that had been theirs since childhood.Christmas morning was nearly over; soon they would trade pajamas for proper clothes.He would retire to the kitchen to finish preparations for Christmas dinner, the traditional afternoon feast—with a few additions for his new spouses.

Robert strode to the window and stared out at the front yard.Jay led the boys in a snowball battle amid the ancient oaks, maples, and evergreens.The shoveling would be completed eventually if it hadn’t been already; of that Henry had no doubt.But the joys of being an uncle were what drew Jay year after year to a place that would never match the love and devotion he poured out.That Robert’s boys could fill the vacancy was an unmitigated victory in a month that sorely needed them.

Henry stood before the wide desk.Conjuring the man behind it took no effort; Robert so resembled their father that he might as well be in the room with the man himself.With a deep breath, he mentally assembled his report.“I believe presenting a united front about Mother’s care will have the best chance of success.”

“Whatever you think best.”Robert’s back remained straight, his posture impeccable, his hands clasped lightly behind him.“You know her mind better than I.”

Cordial, but distracted or disinterested.Even in his speech he mimicked Father.A flicker of irritation stirred, and Henry stamped it down.Mother had hinted that Father had had more emotional depth than Henry could have known as a child; he ought not paint his brother with the same brush.His own equanimity frequently covered an all-consuming fire Alice and Jay greatly enjoyed provoking.

Henry pitched a low laugh with the curling warmth of self-deprecation, casual and disarming.“Alas, I’ve been contending with her stubbornness for weeks and have been unable to remain objective.Perhaps your dispassion would bring reason to bear on the situation.I’ll be returning to Boston with Alice and Jay on Monday”—the thirtieth, plenty of time for making arrangements—“and I should like to have safeguards in place beforehand.”

Silence greeted him.He studied the cherrywood desk and the matching shelves.The grandfather clock.The antique barrister bookcase with its tidy rows of ledgers and its brass keyholes.

“My dispassion.”A coolness weighted Robert’s voice, the flinch of a man who has touched ice but refuses to remove his fingers from it.“Of course.”

In angling for flattery, Henry had somehow delivered offense instead.Stepping cautiously to the window, he gazed out beside his brother.The battle had given way to the creation of a snow family.“Father always praised your level head.”

Clarifying the compliment won no response at all.The ceiling, twelve feet above as it was throughout the first floor, hung oppressively close.The carved wood panels made the difference, perhaps.The lightness of the music room was lacking here, in Father’s favorite retreat.

Outside, the boys hefted midsections onto their creations with Jay’s assistance.Young Robert was nearly ten now.At that age, Henry’s brother had traveled up north with Father for hunting trips.“Did you take the boys hunting this year?”

Robert swiveled slightly, exposing a raised eyebrow.“No.Why would I?”

“You were an excellent shot.”He nodded toward the wall décor, the taxidermied proof staring back at them with glass eyes.What Father and Robert captured with long rifles, Henry and Mother captured on paper and canvas.“I thought you might keep up the tradition.”

“Hunting was Father’s passion, not mine.”In the yard, the boys ran about, pawing in the snow beneath the trees and returning with sticks for their project.Robert tracked them with his gaze.

“You went with him every year.”Henry had visited the family cabin up north only a few times, a summer vacation treat when everyone went, Mother and Lina included.The men’s hunting adventures had never been for the son Father deemedsensitive.

“I—” Robert clicked his teeth shut.

Beyond the window, laughter rang out.Jay lay in the snow, kicking his arms and legs in classic snow angel style.Gabriel—or Gabe, as they’d overheard before the boys had gone out—flopped down beside him and copied the motions.Robert—Eddie?That would require time for adjustment—spread his arms dramatically and windmilled to the ground.

Robert pressed his hand to the window frame.His head dipped.“Everyone needs to be somebody’s favorite, Henry.And Mother had already chosen hers.”

Henry’s feet rooted him to the floor, a blessing that prevented him from staggering.The family roles had been so rigidly defined—set in place ages before his arrival and hardening with each passing year.In thirty-nine years, he hadn’t once thought to question whether Robertenjoyedhis position as the heir, as Father’s right-hand man.They’d never had the heart-to-heart conversations Alice conducted near weekly with her sister.He knew little more of his older brother than Jay did of his, though Henry’s gap was a mere five years rather than fifteen.“I’m sorry, Robert.My intention was never—”

“No, I know.You were little.”Though it was Robert who appeared little now, his gaze roaming the distant past.“She needed someone she could mother, and I was off at school.And then she found out you could paint that summer, and everyone fell into their places.Mine was on hunting trips with Father.Yours was with Mother, in the studio or the garden or the kitchen.”

Places he still had, comforts he immersed himself in.Mother had given him a toolkit for finding peace and contentment.“You’re welcome to join me, Robert.”

“I don’t have your skills.I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”Robert nodded toward the yard, where Jay, giving Gabe a hand up from his snow angel, comically pretended to overbalance and fell back into the snow while Gabe laughed.“Your husband has known my sons for less than twenty-four hours, and I daresay he understands more about them than I have in all the years of their lives.He’s renamed them—no.He asked them what they wanted.He gave them space to be more than the model family Father wanted of me.”

“Father always saw me as lesser.”Or so Henry had believed.Once he’d lost faith in Father’s omniscience and taken on the responsibility of maintaining vigilance over Mother’s frailty, the only expectations he need meet were his own.“I hadn’t considered how it must have been for you, maintaining the standard of perfection he demanded.”

Robert grunted softly.“He never asked what we wanted.”He tugged the lapel of his robe, scant armor against age-old hurts.“Do you know I don’t even particularly like blue?Father considered it an appropriately masculine color for me to favor.Forty years later, I’m still wearing it.He expected to be obeyed, and I complied.Not like you—you had questions about everything, from the very beginning.Some children babble.You would sit quietly for a long time and then produce a question that startled everyone.I chafed under Father’s rules for decorum, but I knew better than to challenge them the way you did.And now…”

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