Page 159 of Season of Gifts

“Nearby.”Henry took two steps forward, and Jay smoothly angled in front of him, using his legs to push snow aside.“Thank you, Jay.The mausoleum was filled with generations of Webbs long before Father died, but it makes a convenient signpost.”He followed in Jay’s wake, and she kept up beside him.“My paternal grandparents are entombed within.I don’t recall them.”The slope wasn’t steep, but they moved slowly, picking their footing carefully.“I suppose Robert would.”

“Do you think he’ll—” She nipped her tongue between her teeth.Henry wanted them along for support, not an interrogation.He’d had a ton of family stuff thrown at him in the last two days.

“Change?”He stroked her back, his caress strong enough to settle into her bones through her coat.

“Yeah.”Her brother-in-law had definitely made an effort at breakfast to be not such a robot, but he wasn’t even close to qualifying as laid-back.Their dad had fucked him up pretty hard with the sober responsibility routine.The dad Henry was here to mourn.“I’m sorry.We should talk about what you want to talk about.Or nothing, if you want some quiet.”

“Gabe and Eddie would sure like it if he did.”Jay spun backward for a step, his usual cheer replaced by a twisting frown.“They didn’t come out and say it—well, Gabe sorta did—but I figure they get lots of stuff and not much attention.”He spun back around and marched on, the snow crumpling beside his calves.“If we have kids, we’re not doing that to them.We spend time with them, and we tell them we love them like eighty-seven times a day.Not because they’re perfect or beautiful or smart or funny or artistic or athletic.Just because they exist.Whatever they are or aren’t.”

The cold stung her eyes.She had to swallow twice to get her lips to move.“Sounds like a good start, sweetheart.”

“I suspect we are all in agreement on those points.”Henry tipped his head back; his fingers curled into her coat as his breath puffed out in a cloud above him.“A bit to the right of the mausoleum, Jay.You’ll see a double-width stone with a smooth bell curve across the top.”

They course-corrected to end their upslope trek shy of the mausoleum.WEBB marked a few dozen stones around them, some with dates back into the early 1800s.Jay stepped aside in front of smooth speckled granite reading ROBERT EDMUND III on the left beneath the surname.

Henry stood at the foot of the grave, his chin level and his shoulders back.“I don’t truly know if or how much my brother will change.Before yesterday I would have told you he seemed content with his life.”The breeze ruffled his hair but not his expression, as unmoving as the stone.“I see now the superficiality of that belief.Our upbringing put much stock in appearances.Not entirely different from theall is wellstrategy Alice’s mother employed.”

Staring at the headstone, he clasped her hand hard enough that the throb of her pulse sang in her fingers.He stretched out his other hand to Jay and pulled him close, so the two of them flanked Henry like bookends holding him upright.

“Hello, Father.”Henry rolled out a low sigh that settled like a layer of fog swirling on the snow.Birds flitted in the branches around them.“I wish things had been different.”

Her words.She’d given them to him yesterday in the kitchen, and now he gave them back to her as shared truth and understanding.They might stand in a vast, snowy emptiness, but the three of them could never be alone.

Henry’s clenching fist eased.He soothed her hand with soft strokes.

“I wish you could have been more open about your private struggles.”A wistfulness spun through his comforting baritone.He too knew sadness that could never be erased, only accepted.“I wish I could have known you better.We are different men, you and I, but I believe I understand now some of what drove you.”

That would be pretty valuable information.Intention didn’t always show up in action.Henry could look at the journals and know his dad’s hang-ups weren’t abouthim.That was generational shit rolling downhill, the weight of all the dead mausoleum people’s expectations pushing at his back.

“I shall strive to avoid falling into similar traps of the mind going forward.”Henry warmed with wry humor, his mouth curving in a slight smile.“These last few weeks have given me lessons in humility.And I shall endeavor to remember that seeing our parents’ vulnerabilities may be useful instruction for the next generation.”

Releasing her, Henry strode forward.Her fumbling hand found Jay’s, the two of them closing up the gap as Henry crouched in front of the stone and rested his hand on the top.His long coat flared out, dark against the snow behind him.His scarf trailed down his back.He bowed his head.His breath fogged the glossy shine of the granite.

“I forgive you for not being the man I needed you to be, Father.”

Her stomach churned; her heart rattled her ribs.She couldn’t say the same.Not yet, and maybe not ever.They could go forward, her and Dad, but only if he worked at doing better.Henry would never have that chance with his dad.Their relationship was over and done; all that could shift was how Henry thought about it.How he revised his hypothesis with the new information from his dad’s journals.How he dealt with the resentment—well, she would have resented, anyway—of knowing there had been another man, a deep thinker he’d never been granted access to.

“The forgiveness isn’t for you but for me.Judgment and anger rooted a fear in me that persists though I had thought it conquered.Now that fear has hurt the ones I love—and me as well.”Henry took a long, slow breath, his jaw shifting.“I shut them out when I most needed their presence, their compassion and guidance.They steady me in ways uncountable and unknowable but gratefully felt.”

Jay leaned into her, his head coming to rest against hers, his hair tickling her cheek.Wrapping her arm around his back, she snugged their bodies.Henry hadn’t glanced at them, hadn’t strayed his gaze from the gravestone, but he didn’t need to.His apology rang as loud and solemn as a church bell.

“The gift of their love allows me to take steps into the unknown, Father.I wish you could have known that strength.”The stone must have been cold, and Henry had left his lined driving gloves in the car, but he pressed his fingertips against the grave marker regardless.“In the year ahead, I will attempt to share this knowledge with Robert and bridge the distance between us.I will use this strength to protect Mother by honoring her wishes rather than stealing her choices.And I shall not live my life at arm’s length as you did.My dear ones will know how endlessly deep my love for them runs.They will be neither trophies to display nor boxes to be checked.”

The crisp air chilled the inside of Alice’s nose.Snow skittered away under her heel.In her mind, Robert and his family stood at the front door as it swung open for their arrival, positioned like a photo card just so, not a hair out of place or a collar askew.Adam droned on, showing off his house room after room, announcing the finishes by brand name and rattling off the dimensions and the cost like a sales pitch.

Those were the end results of chasing perfection.Keeping score.A life of hollow victories was actually a stack of losses—and if you knew enough to know you weren’t happy, you chased more empty wins thinking maybe they’d be the thing that finally switched on thethis is enoughhappiness.Only nothing ever did, because the trophy wasn’t the prize any more than the blueprint was the machine.The real things took work to build, and the work was being deep in the messy emotions with the people you loved.

Jay nudged her a hair off-balance about half a second before Henry embraced them both, his arms wide, her face unexpectedly buried in the collar of his coat.

“I don’t suppose—” Henry shook his head slightly, wedged between them as he was.“I don’t suppose I believe Father’s spirit is here, that our ghosts haunt the living as they do in Dickens’s morality tale, but I must admit I feel lighter, as though invisible shackles have fallen away.Confronting mistaken beliefs is a powerful remedy for any number of feelings.”

“You taught me that.”Jay squeezed hard, compressing coats and lungs before he eased up.“My head’s thicker than yours, so it took a while to work its way in.If you want homework assignments to think about the topic, I have these great prompts in my notebooks.”The sly tease in his voice gave away the smile as much as the wiggle working its way down his back.“You might recognize the questions, though.This guy I love gave them to me every week for years and years—”

A rough kiss hushed him, Henry cupping the back of Jay’s head and holding him still.Eyes closed, lips fused, they spoke without words.Shorter kisses followed, lighter and lighter, until Henry opened his eyes and fastened his gaze on Alice.

“And you, sweet girl?I spied you having thoughts before I gathered you up.”He peppered her forehead and cheeks with kisses, his mouth warm, his lips gentle.“What epiphany has struck you so?”

“Oh, no, I, it was just—” She claimed a full kiss, pouring her energy into him, all of the joy they’d built together.“This visit is about you making peace with your dad.It doesn’t have to be about me.I’m sorry that one-sided conversations are all you can have with him.”

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