Season of Gifts (Neighborly Affection #8)

35. Henry

Chapter thirty-five

Henry

M other ate breakfast with dull, listless interest and closed her eyes again soon afterward. Henry, with the portable baby monitor clipped to his waistband, quickly ferried the dishes back to the kitchen. Before his return trip, he scheduled interviews with nursing care candidates. As Mother dozed, he pushed aside his own weariness and texted Alice and Jay a belated good morning. They would already be working, both of them, so he kept his message short.

His body ached for a proper night’s sleep. Even with the monitor, his bedroom lay far too many steps from Mother’s side. The best sleep he’d gotten since initially bringing her home from the hospital—could that truly have been less than a week ago?—had been the blissful hour of ignorance in his own home, his head on the pillow where Alice and Jay had slept. He could blame the various chairs and chaises, the throw blankets, the odd contortions of his neck and shoulders that left his muscles stiff—but the truth was his mind refused to accept quiet as evidence of calm.

He would slide into sleep only to jerk awake minutes later and carefully assess. He counted breaths per minute as others counted sheep, with the result rarely leading to rest.

When she woke, Mother declined books and music. With a dressing gown over her pajamas, she accepted his invitation for a short stroll of the upper hall. “We’ll need to freshen the sheets in Robert’s room and the adjacent guest room for the boys.”

“We have time.” He limited his steps to her pace, alert for any sign of labored breathing. Lying abed left her bored and frustrated, but even simple exercise demanded vigilance to ensure the benefits outweighed the risks. “Barring any disruptions, we may expect their arrival midafternoon on Christmas Eve.” Next Tuesday, nearly a week away. “Shall we begin putting together a menu for tea this afternoon?”

She hummed a half-hearted affirmation. “And Alice and Jay, they’ll arrive when?”

“Saturday, I expect, unless Alice encounters extended difficulties at work.” By Saturday he might reasonably have nursing coverage for some portion of the day, or perhaps be able to prevail upon Lina’s kindness once more.

“How is she doing?” The oxygen tank trundled along behind them; Mother raised the mask to her mouth and inhaled. “In South Dakota, did I hear that correctly?”

“You did, yes.” Though he couldn’t say with any certainty what she was doing there. They’d fallen into a pattern of brief communication, with him supplying updates about Mother’s condition and Alice affirming that all was well with her. Had she told him, and he’d forgotten? Or had she simply determined him incapable of meeting her needs and kept her own counsel? A tangle of appreciation and fear knotted his stomach. “I believe she’s diagnosing a malfunctioning machine, though I confess I don’t know the particulars.”

Mother patted his arm. “No, darling, how is she doing? She grew up there, didn’t she? And she and her parents are somewhat estranged?”

“Somewhat.” Entirely. He’d not once this week asked her, though the thoughts had flitted through his mind in the gaps between other concerns. But she would be busy with work, and Alice had a task-driven mindset when she wished. They could address the aftermath of having been so close to her parents without the opportunity to reconnect if she showed signs of emotional strain upon her return. “She’s been quite focused on tracking down the trouble.”

He paused in front of the library. Two more doors would have them back at Mother’s room. She reached for the mask more frequently on the return trip than the outbound one; he ought to have turned them around sooner than the end of the hall.

“I propose we rest before lunch, then select one of two options for the afternoon.” Choice conferred agency, and agency created a bulwark against the hopelessness that led to depression. “Either I’ll fetch up one of the orchids and we shall have a still life drawing session in the bedroom, or I will endeavor to wash your hair.”

She eyed him askance, a flicker of light returning to the green. “A real washing, not the dry shampoo combed through?”

“A real washing.” He had Lina to thank for that suggestion.

“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—”

“I am perfectly capable of making rational choices for Mother’s care during her convalescence.” Though she’d seemed more depressed today than she had been last week. A reaction to yesterday’s setback? Or something more. He found the conservatory unbearable; retrieving the orchid this afternoon filled him with a wash of fleeting memories, the bright jumpsuits of the EMTs, the pale blue of Mother’s lips, the words jumbled, flying too quickly through phrases he didn’t recognize. But she might find the bedroom more distressing, a renewed sentence in a prison where she’d been caged before. He would need to keep an even closer watch over her. “We are doing fine.”

“Sounds like something your father would have said to you.”

The kitchen blurred. Heat boiled over, engulfing his chest, his throat—a steaming kettle seeking an outlet. “When did you become a sadist, Will?”

“I’m prodding for a reaction, I won’t deny that. But not for my pleasure. I take no pleasure in this, Henry.” A low exhale stretched into silence. “I’m prodding because my oldest friend is behaving in ways I’m certain he would despise if he gave himself the time to analyze them.”

Raw, that was how his throat felt. As if he’d been screaming for days with no one in earshot. “I haven’t the luxury of time, Will. Mother needs round-the-clock monitoring. She is the one most in danger.”

“Are you sure of that?”

He shivered, a chill sweeping in as the fever passed. “What do you mean?”

“Talk to your pets, Henry. Don’t get so caught up in the past that you let the present slip away.”

“Why—” A notification flashed across the screen too quickly to catch more than the sender’s name. “Jay is texting me. I need to address this.”

“Good for him. I hope he tells you what he needs and that you truly listen, Henry.”

“I am always listening.”

He ended the call with a vehement tap and bent over the counter, forearms on the cool surface. Would that he could stopper the unceasing storm of needs bubbling up from all corners. Mother’s despondence. Will’s insistence on stirring up old wounds. Alice’s wary distance. Jay’s hunger for constant companionship. Exhaustion clouded his every waking moment. He could almost drowse here, on his feet like a horse. The monitor emitted Mother’s soft, fluttery snores. Jay was waiting.

Henry pushed himself up and swiped into the text thread.

“I am always listening.”