Page 41 of Must Love Christmas

Da beamed, as Simon knew he would do. “Garen seems proper boss.”

“He is. He’s a—oh!” Simon’s fear spiked, then faded as a Southampton shot went wide of the Liverpool goal. “He’s a good man.”

“Are you and he—”

“No. Just mates.” He fought to keep the regret out of his voice.

“Ah.” His father crossed his legs and waggled his foot a few times. “But he is, you know…”

“Yes. He’s gay.” Simon still had to fight not to stutter over that word, even though it had been nearly five years since he’d come out to his family. He shifted the subject a bit. “When you drove me and Poppy up to Glasgow last month, did you notice that snowman statue in the living room?”

“The one with the countdown to Christmas?”

“That’s the one. Garen offered to bring it to have in my hospital room. It was dead sweet of him, but can you imagine me lying here with that thing staring at me night and day?”

His father joined his laughter. “You’d never sleep.”

“It’s funny how he forgets so many things,” Simon said, “but he updates that snowman like clockwork.”

“Why is he such a fanatic about the holiday?”

Simon explained about Garen’s grandmother passing and his parents living far away—and about his and Karen’s overseas adoption, though he wasn’t sure what that part had to do with Christmas.

“Hmm.” Da stroked his chin, where a faint scar remained from a long-ago mishap with a pruning hook. “They say that children raised in orphanages grow up to have, you know, issues.”

“Who’s ‘they’? Somebody on one of your podcasts, eh?” His father had grown addicted to the medium and was always going on about his latest audio obsession, whether it be football gossip, true crime, or serialized zombie fiction.

“Probably. They said something about those children not being able to love others properly because they were deprived of love at an early age.”

“Really?” Maybe Simon had dodged a bullet in not becoming Garen’s boyfriend.

“They say your brain develops so much in those first three years, everything that happened to you back then makes you what you are now, even if you don’t remember it.” His face softened as he laid a hand on Simon’s bed. “Like you being ill when you were three.”

Simon frowned. Over the last few years he’d wondered how his childhood sickness had affected him later in life. Had he gravitated to running, even as a boy, because it required less coordination? He’d certainly been rubbish at football.

But those musings had focused on his body, not his mind. Simon had never considered how that experience, lurking just beyond his memory’s reach, had shaped his fears and aspirations, maybe even his personality.

Still, what did it matter, now that he was literally reliving it? Simon couldn’t move, not a single finger to read, play a video game, or even change the TV channel. There was nothing to do but lie here and think. So he thought about his job, about his friends back in Liverpool—several of whom had visited this last week—and even about Garen. But mostly he thought about whether he wanted the future to look like the past.

Before landing in this hospital bed, Simon had never questioned his path in life. He’d been the first of his family to attend university, and after graduation, he’d taken the job offer with the highest salary. Living at home had let him save money and pay down his student loans. The promotion and transfer to his company’s operational headquarters in Glasgow had been a dream come true: living independently, supporting himself, controlling his own destiny.

This illness had shattered that dream. How could Simon control his destiny if he couldn’t even control his pinky finger?

“Our midfield’s got no organization today,” his father said. “We should be up two-nil by now.”

Simon focused on the game in front of him, leaving behind the foggy future—for now, at least.

When halftime arrived with the match still scoreless, Da got to his feet. “Need to stretch my legs. And yours.”

“Ta.”

His father shifted the covers to free Simon’s lower half, then proceeded with the exercises the physiotherapists had shown them, maneuvering his limbs to preserve their range of motion and providing resistance to maintain his muscle mass.

The exercises felt good to Simon, for they got his blood flowing and eased the ache of lying in bed. But they made him feel like a puppet as he watched his body parts moved this way and that, unable to pull away.

He turned his gaze from his own limbs to the window. The trees outside bore fewer leaves each day, undermining his suspicion that time had stopped.

A Christmas ad for John Lewis department stores started playing on his tablet. “Bit early for that, eh?” Simon asked.

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