Season of Gifts (Neighborly Affection #8)

5. Alice

Chapter five

Alice

A lice passed her phone across the kitchen island. “It’s not like him. He didn’t say anything to you?”

Frowning, Henry studied the message. She’d sent back reassurance and a basic Everything okay? Call me if you need to talk, sweetheart . and heard nothing else all day. Jay had obviously been busy, and he knew better than to text in traffic, but what the hell was the assortment of emojis? It looked like he’d pulled up the heart screen and added one of everything.

“No, nothing.” Henry slid the phone back to her. “I would have expected him an hour ago.”

Whatever had come up at work for Jay, it hardly could have taken all day. And he’d been giddy this morning about the promise of hunting for a gift from Henry tonight after dinner. Things that might make Jay late were—Jay swathed in bandages after slamming into a delivery truck door in January. “You don’t think he, uh…” Nope, those words didn’t want to come out. “Should we call—”

The front door opened with the sweet tick-tick-tick of a bicycle rolling into the entryway. Henry, gazing down the hallway past her, lifted his chin, his eyes focused and assessing.

“No visible injuries,” he murmured, and she squeezed his hand in thanks. Raising his voice, he called, “We’re in the kitchen, Jay. Come here before you go up to shower, please.”

The soft thud of shoes in the hall carried the news of Jay’s compliance. He stepped into the kitchen somehow aged a decade since breakfast—his gaze listless and vacant, his shoulders slumped. “Sorry I’m late.”

“Have you eaten anything this afternoon?” Henry took Jay’s arm as she pushed out a seat at the island for him.

“Maybe?” Jay shook his head. He sat. “I don’t remember. Probably.”

Henry smoothed Jay’s hair back with such thoroughness that on the third sweep of his fingers the light bulb dinged in her head that he was checking for tender spots, for a possible concussion.

“Let’s have a snack, then.” Henry’s voice soothed, low and even, though his slight squint revealed he hadn’t found any definitive answers yet. They were stuck in an analysis loop until Jay provided more clues. “A nice warming bowl of three-bean soup.”

“I’ll get it.” Planting a kiss on Jay’s shoulder, she hopped down from her own seat. Around the counter, she fetched a bowl for the soup waiting on the stove. Henry hadn’t finished—dinner was still half an hour away, and she’d interrupted his preparations with her arrival—but the soup had been left to simmer and smelled done enough to her. A block of hard, nutty cheese sat on a plate nearby. She ran it across the grater a few times and dumped the result onto the thick brown soup. Adding a spoon from the drawer, she slid the bowl in front of Jay. “Work kept you busy today, huh, sweetheart? Last-minute additions?”

She tried to match Henry’s tone, to be interested without being intrusive. He’d backed off on the concussion check, but he kept one hand on Jay’s shoulder, lightly massaging the slope toward his neck.

Jay hefted the spoon like he’d never in his life seen one. “I was wrapping up a client file. End of contract.”

He had exactly one client on Tuesdays, the woman he shopped for before their standing lunch date at Oscar’s. Nothing but paperwork after that. She’d been on her way to Oscar’s today when he texted. Ate without him rather than taking a sad solo lunch back to her desk. Usually he’d regale her with stories about the woman—Eickhoff, yes. She’d had hip surgery or something. “Not Mrs. Eickhoff? I mean, good for her that she’s doing so well she doesn’t need help anymore, but I’m sorry. I know how much you enjoy visiting her.”

The soup slopped over the side of the spoon and mostly back into the bowl, a few drops spattering the counter. “Yeah. Sorry. Clumsy.”

“Are you cold?” She pressed the back of her hand to his cheek, as if Henry hadn’t been touching him long enough to know whether he needed a hot shower before a hot meal. Jay had been out in far colder weather than they’d had today, but honestly, his lethargy was freaking her right the fuck out. Dad had been like this at the beginning, when the painkiller hit still took more than the edge off. At least Jay wasn’t slurring his words. “It’s nice that you got to see her this morning to say goodbye. Who won the card game?”

Folding his arms, he nudged the soup bowl away and laid his head down in the pillow he’d made.

Her heart pounded. If telepathy were a thing, Henry would be getting a screaming chorus of fix this in his head. She opened her mouth, and Henry held a finger to his, a silent library shush. His perplexed squint had disappeared; now his eyes seemed a bottomless well of mossy green.

Henry rested his hand at the back of Jay’s neck. “Were you the one to find her, Jay?”

The cold invaded her body. Christ, she was an idiot.

“Not me.” Jay’s muffled tenor emerged from his hiding place. “But they hadn’t…” His breath shook. “The paramedics or whoever, they hadn’t…” He scrubbed his face against his sleeves. “I lied. Later, I mean. I called the building super and said I needed the information for the company files. He said they told him probably a heart attack. That it was fast, and she didn’t, she didn’t…”

They hugged him in a mass of overlapping arms, gliding together like puzzle pieces around Jay, her head landing on Jay’s shoulder blades with Henry above her. “I’m so sorry.”

Empty words that couldn’t match the ache inside. Jay had been alone today, dealing with all of this on his own—wait. Jay had chosen to be alone instead of telling her or Henry what had been going on. “I know you were close. That must have been really rough.”

“She looked surprised,” Jay whispered. “Lying on the floor by her chair.”

A shudder rippled through Henry; she couldn’t move her head easily enough to figure out why. Jay shifted, pushing back, and they let him sit up. Red rimmed his eyes above shadowed hollows. “I know it’s not—she’s not my—but she was a nice lady. Mom-ish, you know, like moms are supposed to be.”

Yeah, and he’d lost two mom-ish women already this year, his sister to her hateful scheming and his mother to her I-never-loved-you bullshit and growing dementia. Couldn’t life cut them a break for once?

Henry gently slid the soup closer to Jay. “It’s difficult to see someone you love like that. Hard to know what you’re seeing at first, harder still to accept it. Sometimes we run from that pain before we can face it.”

Like the first time they’d let her into Dad’s hospital room, and her feet sank foundations into the floor a foot inside the doorway. Her brain looped a that’s not Dad soundtrack, her chest burned like running wind sprints in gym class, and her legs flat-out refused to move closer to the beeping bed with its nest of tubes and wires.

Henry sounded like someone who knew. Not empathized with Jay because he loved Jay and wanted him not to hurt, though yeah, that too, but knew knew. Like someone who’d been there.

Jay stirred his spoon through the soup, holding the silverware with a little more of the competence of someone who’d been feeding himself for decades. “I didn’t wait with them. Her neighbor, the super. I couldn’t stay where she was just, just on the floor and not moving and not breathing and not, not her . I ran away.”

Humming, Henry firmed Jay’s grip on the spoon and guided a bite into his mouth. “And afterward? Did you ride to clear your head?”

“Sort of.” Two more spoonfuls, Jay-propelled, got to the right place. If he’d been out riding and hadn’t eaten most of the day, his body would be craving nutrients like crazy. “I rode back to the office and called her son. So he’d know. So it wouldn’t be a complete stranger who told him his mom was dead.”

A tear slid from Henry’s eye, rolling down the side of his nose. “That was kind of you, Jay.” He pressed his face to the top of Jay’s head, leaving a kiss and the errant tear behind. “I am exceptionally proud of you. It sounds as though you did exactly what was needed.”

“Maybe if I’d been there earlier—”

“No, my sweet boy.” On the far side of Jay, Henry rested his elbows on the counter, his hands clasped, his gaze steady out the kitchen window into the dark December evening. “What-if is a dangerous road to travel. If you allow it to start unraveling in front of you, you’ll teach your mind to take that road again and again. Grief and anger will become tormentors, constant companions rather than transient emotions. You experienced a tragedy today, but it was not of your making. The guilt and recriminations are not yours to bear.”

“Have you ever…” Jay curled one hand around the warm bowl, rubbing the edge with his thumb. “Have you ever seen someone like that?”

She avoided swiveling her head and staring, but Jay had asked the question her lips desperately wanted to pose. Henry’s father was dead, had been for years, though he’d never shared the details. Maybe his firsthand knowledge came from that.

“Once.”

The air in the kitchen crystallized; even her tiniest breath might crack it.

“Many years ago, during a medical emergency.”

Jay’s knee bounced. Such a small motion, rise and fall. Did it feel like pedaling in his head?

Henry exhaled and pushed himself upright again, the straight-backed posture that could only come from years of training. “That outcome was much more favorable. I’m sorry that this one was not.”

Favorable. So not dead, like Jay’s favorite client.

Jay nodded. He ate in silence, rapidly shoving spoonsful of soup into his mouth. The kitchen slowly returned to normal, Henry pulling a platter of little steaks from the fridge and setting it beside the stovetop. She awkwardly reclaimed her seat while mentally formulating a hypothesis for the benefits of silence versus a complete topic change, since continuing the current one would be an awful option.

With the bowl three-quarters empty, Jay glanced over his shoulder at the table. No place settings for dinner on it yet; their Advent calendar basket sat like a centerpiece, with today’s card propped against the front. Henry had sketched them an old-timey detective’s cap and magnifying glass.

Jay tap-tapped his spoon at the bottom of the bowl. “How many days till we see your mom for Christmas? We’re going to Maine, right? I promised her we would.”

“We are, yes.” The steaks sizzled as they seared. Using a spoon, Henry scooped melted butter from the pan over the tops. The kitchen took on a garlicky aroma. “I thought the Saturday before the holiday, if that’s amenable to work schedules for the two of you.”

“That’s good for me.” Jay laid the spoon face-down and sagged in his chair. His cheeks had more color, at least.

“I can do that.” Four days before Christmas. Later than Jay usually went home, but much easier for her to swing at work. Jay would go tomorrow if he could—soak up hugs and chatter from the remaining mom-substitute who actually cared about him. Maybe she could suggest more time for that. “They’re rolling out a new work-life balance program, starting with closing shop the week between Christmas and New Year’s. We could stay a few days longer if your mother doesn’t mind, Henry.”

“That’s a lovely idea.” Henry made delicate turns in the skillet with his steaks, the tongs holding just tightly enough not to let them fall. Not the toss-and-slap method Dad had used, the one that dripped fat through the grill grates and sent flames flaring up. “I’m certain she’ll be thrilled to cultivate more fans for her goose-and-cranberry sandwiches from the leftovers.”

“Goose and cranberry, huh?” Jay perched his elbows on the chairback, maybe to keep himself from sliding off the seat. No wonder Henry wanted to get more food in him. “At my house—I mean, my parents’ house—it’s a Christmas turkey, and it gets oyster stuffing.”

This year, they’d have a whole host of new traditions. “We always had steaks when I was little.”

“Steaks?” Henry repeated, as Jay turned sideways, saying, “For Christmas?”

“Yup.” She’d take the brown-eyed scrutiny; Jay had perked up at least a little. “Steaks for Christmas. Thick ones, like Henry’s making now, but bigger.” She spread her thumb and forefinger a good inch and a half for the height, then estimated the shape with her hands in midair. She and Ollie had split theirs; Mom and Dad each got their own. “Dad would shovel out to the grill and tie an apron around his winter coat, and Ollie and I played in the snow while he grilled. Baked potatoes, too, wrapped in hot foil, and you couldn’t touch, or you’d burn your fingers.”

Jay poked her shoulder, sizzling through his teeth, and drew back his finger. “Yowtch, hot potato!”

She captured his hand and pressed kisses to the imaginary wound. “I’m sorry I hurt you.”

She was sorry, just for her inept questioning about Mrs. Eickhoff and not a pretend burn.

Jay clasped her hand. “I’m okay. Really. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you at lunch. I think I just wasn’t ready for talking or hugging or…” He shrugged. “I needed to get away.”

“Sometimes the world is big and overwhelming, and that’s all you can do.” The year Dad had been in the hospital for Christmas, Mom had tried to make things festive, but Alice had never wanted anything so much as to leave that sad, stale room.

The next year, he’d insisted on keeping up their tradition, and she’d hastily shoveled the patio while her parents argued, afraid he’d try to do it himself. She’d checked for ice, she was sure she had, but then there’d been the fall and the hasty trip to the ER, and a burn wrap on his palm where he’d grazed the warming grill on his way down. She and Ollie had sucked on candy canes courtesy of the nursing staff. The steaks had gone uncooked in the snow.

Henry touched her face. She startled back. When had he finished at the stove? Their steaks rested on the low wire rack on the far counter. “All right, Alice?”

“Yeah, just got lost there. Those steaks smell amazing.” She ostentatiously inhaled. “So, goose for Christmas. What’s that like?”

Jay chimed in, asking whether the goose dinner constituted a gift, and if that broke Henry’s vow that their twenty-four days of Christmas would be avian-free.

As plates and bowls and silverware appeared, her mind circled back to Jay’s earlier declaration: So it wouldn’t be a complete stranger who told him his mom was dead. She never let herself think about stuff like that. But if something happened, she’d get the call, wouldn’t she? Or no. She rarely spoke to Mom, and not to Dad at all. If they still had the list of contacts on the fridge, Ollie would be top of the list. Ollie would get that call.

That was unacceptable.