Page 67 of Season of Gifts

“And then the drawing session afterward.”

“Are you attempting to bargain for two activities this afternoon?”He affected a stern eyebrow, though he lightened his tone.“I do believe I have a horse trader on my hands.”

“I need to stay busy, Henry.”She led him forward, one careful step after another, into the bedroom.“My thoughts are not fit to dwell upon.”

A chill seeped into his ribs and froze the breath in his lungs.“Two it is.”

They completed both the hair-washing and the sketching session before a slightly early dinner.Both seemed to lift Mother’s spirits.She executed the orchid in marvelous shading.Finding more activities that were engaging without being exhausting was imperative.

Henry departed with the dinner tray and the portable monitor.Mother was dozing again, though it was hardly past seven.

Tomorrow they would interview the nurses; on Friday they would have another session of cardiac rehabilitation.Saturday he would retrieve Alice and Jay, which would give them a few hours in the car to discuss expectations for the holiday and Mother’s energy level and limitations.He couldn’t provide the boisterous experience Jay typically enjoyed at Christmas, and navigating Mother’s melancholy could be delicate during a normal year.The added emotional weight of her current health—

His phone rang as he reached the first floor.Balancing the tray in one arm, he plucked his phone free with the other.The screen proved baffling.Why on earth would Will be calling him?

“Will?”

“Henry!I hope I’m not interrupting dinner, keeping Alice and Jay waiting while you hang on my every word.”A sly bend in Will’s tone signaled more than mere teasing.

“You know very well that you aren’t.How do you know that?”Not from him; he’d utterly neglected to inform anyone beyond immediate family.Though Will belonged in that accounting.He ought to have called Will and told him personally.

“How’s your mother, Henry?”The teasing vanished, leaving behind the soft burr of Will’s gentle hush.“And how are you?”

“Encumbered.”He stared at the remains of dinner—Mother had finished most of her plate, a vast improvement over breakfast.Light snoring came through the monitor.He strode down the hall toward the kitchen.“She’s resting.Today was a good day.”In that it hadn’t required an excursion to the hospital.Her fluctuating mood and the enforced bedrest rang ancient alarm bells in his nervous system.“You’re aware of the details?”

“Only what Em shared.”

What Em—he hazarded a guess.“She spoke to Alice?”

“Jay, actually.She had dinner with him last night for your anniversary.I was with her at the club when the call came in from Amelia.Care to fill me in on what’s been going on, old friend?”

The anniversary.

And the card, Jay would have opened—

Henry stumbled to the counter and landed the tray heavily on top.

“Henry?Everything all right?”

“Yes, fine.”No, nothing.He’d taken uncountable missteps in the past ten days.Forgetting the celebration he’d intended likely wasn’t even the worst offense.Mother’s welfare so consumed his mind.But Jay craved consistency and structure.Which Alice would have deftly handled, had she not charged off unexpectedly.Which would be a cause for strain on her as well, she who so often demanded perfection of herself.“Just the dinner dishes.”And his marriage, a clattering shambles he would need to set right Saturday.“You and Em were at the club together on a Tuesday evening?”

“Don’t change the subject, you slippery talker.Which is precisely what Em and I were doing—talking.”

As a distraction ploy, his feint had been rather obvious.His mental acuity had slipped.Lack of sleep, stress—the same culprits presumably behind his absent libido.“Did I suggest otherwise?”

Will sighed.“Why aren’t they with you, Henry?Your sensitivity about your mother’s health—”

“Tread carefully.”Of his friends and partners, Will alone knew the whole of those dark days.

“Why go through this by yourself?You could have shifted the logistical load to give yourself capacity for the emotional one.Alice and Jay have strengths—”

“So I ought to weigh them down with responsibility that is mine?”As if he hadn’t considered and rejected the options available to him.“I should expose Jay to the potential loss of another mother figure when he’s barely begun grieving for his relationship with his own mother and the sister who raised him, and while he’s still reeling from the loss of a client who treated him like one of her sons.He saw her body lying on the floor, Will—”

“Then you of all people should understand—”

“And Alice?”He’d spent enough time down the memory well in the last week and a half.Will couldn’t be allowed to push him back in.“I should foist upon her all the responsibilities her mother did?She spent her teen years as a de facto parent to her younger sister and sometime caretaker for her father.I should order her to set aside her career aspirations and handle for me things I can just as easily do myself.This is the advice you call me with?”

“It is.I don’t care how much therapy you’ve done, Henry; she’s your mother, and your reaction to a health scare is going to be emotional.Of course it is, even if you hadn’t—”

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