Page 61 of Season of Gifts

Adam leaned forward, his intimidating stare about as strong as light beer.“Still the girl who can’t admit when she needs me.”

Anger seared her chest for one blazing moment.And then it flamed out, leaving genuine laughter.He couldn’t score a hit because he couldn’t even see who she was.He’d never known her.They’d fucked, sure.A decade ago.But the real her, the person with hopes and dreams, the woman capable of love—she’d saved that woman for Henry and Jay.

“I feel sorry for you, Adam.”What a fucking wasted life.Years since they’d broken up, and he couldn’t think of anything better to say to her thanyou should’ve stayed with me.“You’re so obsessed with what you don’t have that you ignore all the wonderful things you do have.”

Jesus did that feel good.He gaped at her, his mouth flopping uselessly, with no smart comeback for the truth she’d delivered.What she wouldn’t give to see—

The truth swung into her face like a semi jackknifed on a snowy highway.That’s what I need to say to Dad.

Adam and his bullshit were a convenient target, but he was nothing to her, and his opinions were even less.Her swirling anger belonged to a bigger problem.Another man who’d grown bitter and smug, who sniped at her just to satisfy his own need to feel better about himself.A man whose words could still hurt her as long as she kept letting them.

“Sorry about that.”Wade stepped back into the room.“Sounds like strep throat.I miss anything?”

Only a decision that had been brewing for a decade.Somehow on this trip, she absolutely needed to go home.

Chapter thirty-two

Henry

Motherrefusedtoacceptthe safe course of action and remain in the hospital another night.She refused to allow Henry to carry her up to her bedroom when he flatly rejected her plan to continue sleeping in the conservatory.Twice in a lifetime was more than enough to see one’s Mother dying amid the greenery.

They’d prescribed her a portable oxygen tank, for goodness’ sake.She belonged in the cardiac unit, not laboring beneath a foggy mask after spending several minutes climbing a single flight of stairs.The décor would require a permanent change—seats for resting at top and bottom of the stairs.He’d had to fetch this one from farther down the hall.Perhaps they could install a small home elevator.

Mother sat with her back straight, her shoulders level, carrying every inch of the bearing she’d learned in childhood, even as she inhaled again and again through the mask.Lina had been kind enough to run a change of clothes over to the hospital this afternoon, when it had become clear that Mother’s adamant stance was unshakeable and the pajamas she’d worn on her ambulance ride were suitable only as rags.Her wool dress buttoned from her collarbone to her knees, with thick buttons she could manage herself.Where Lina had pulled it from, he had no idea.

His mind bludgeoned him with the knowledge that he’d forgotten something between the frantic scramble of the paramedics and the long night of wakefulness and Mother’s despair at once again waking in the hospital.The coy bastard refused to tell him what, of course; it merely pounded the inside of his skull with a vague sense of doom.

He crouched before the chair, clasping Mother’s free hand between his own, gently pressing away the chill.He’d kept the sedan so overheated on the way home that he’d sweated all down the back of his shirt, yet even that warmth hadn’t put color in her cheeks.“You’ll be much more comfortable in your own room, your own bed.Less drafty.Closer to the lavatory.I’ll open the curtains; I’ll bring up some of the smaller potted plants from the conservatory.”

He would pile an exceptional number of pillows behind her back.Reading between the lines of the doctor’s talk with them today had uncovered Henry’s mistake, the one that—compounded with his inattentiveness—had nearly proved fatal.He’d let Mother lie flat to sleep, with only the thin pillow she preferred.During the day, he used extra pillows to allow her to gaze outside, converse with him while he read aloud, and eat her meals.But at night, as she lay flat, her heart and lungs communicated poorly.The oxygen in her bloodstream faltered.Her heart ordered greater effort, but there was none to give.

He was as bad as his father, practically killing her with his lack of proper care.Not noticing the signs.Not seeking help until the crisis was upon them.

“We’ll have a light supper, low sodium, a Tuscan bean soup.”That would demand perhaps forty-five minutes away from Mother at most, and he would be able to check on her while it simmered.His legs ached from the lengthy crouch.Barely twenty-four hours ago they’d been gathering the ingredients at the grocer after her rehab session.Riffling through spinach to secure the least wilted offering, she’d seemed hearty and hale.Not like a woman hours from suffocating in her sleep.“Bread and a spot of butter.I’ll bring you tea.Would you like a cookie beforehand to whet your appetite?”

One cookie would be permissible, though her diet overall would need to conform to strict standards as part of the effort to slow further deterioration of her heart.Miscarriages increased the likelihood of heart trouble later in life.If they’d known that decades ago, perhaps there would have been fewer attempts at children.Perhaps Henry himself would not exist.

Mother let the mask drop from her face.Her cracked lips needed moisturizer, and her dry skin sucked in light like a dull matte finish, bouncing no spark of reflection but for her eyes.She sighed heavily.“You needn’t placate me with treats like a small child.I’ve lost the argument; I’ll stay in my room.”She ruffled his hair with a ghostly touch.“My heart is tired, that’s all.I’m fine, Henry.”

“You arenot fine.”His voice shook; his knees tipped toward the floor.The present pitched him overboard, into the heaving seas of the past.

The moose eyed him from its perch in Father’s study.He was new, the moose, and the big whitetail bucks had been forced aside to give him the center spot on the wall.Henry slipped past the three of them and turned toward Father’s desk.His back prickled, itchy and goosebumpy; the dead eyes would still be on him, but he couldn’t see them now.

Father wrote smoothly with his fat silver pen.The ink glided across the page in deep blue swirls.Henry waited.This was the game; if he was patient before his goodnight, he might have a real talk with Father the way Robert did.Only Robert had gone back to school weeks ago and wouldn’t be home for forever.At the spring break, Lina said, but she’d had to flip three calendar pages to get there.

Father’s desk had thick, square legs with flared feet.Deep grooves made them shaggy like the big farm horses Henry’s class had visited once.

The pen clicked into its holder.Henry hurriedly lifted his gaze.Father didn’t like when Henry was idle and daydreaming.

“Yes?”Father folded his hands.“What is it, Henry?”

He stood tall, shoulders back, and kept his chin up the way Robert said to every time he left for school.“I’m worried about Mother.”

Father closed his eyes when he sighed.His nose flared.His jaw moved, even though he wasn’t chewing any candy.Father didn’t keep candy on his desk.

“We’ve been over these fears of yours several times.”Father glanced toward the photo on his desk.Only the little stand at the back showed from Henry’s side, but he’d seen it before.He’d dressed for it and obeyed the photographer’s instructions to stand just so, with his hand on Mother’s chair, to smile but not too much.Robert stood on the opposite side, with Father behind them all.“You are a sensitive soul, I do see that, but I am at the end of my patience.”Father rapped his knuckle on the desk.“Your mother was ill, but she is recovering.She is fine, Henry.You need more time outdoors with other boys your age.I’ll have Lina make the arrangements.”

Mother had come home from the hospital five weeks ago, and she hadn’t left her bedroom since.Lina took all her meals up to her.Father was sleeping in the side room for guests.Henry visited her for tea every day after school.She loved to hear all the details from the moment the bell rang, so he tried his hardest to memorize everything, but her eyes were always red, her face pinched with tight lines.Her stomach was still tender.She looked like the crumpled leaves that crackled underfoot before the snow smothered them.“I don’t want the snow to swallow her.”

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