Season of Gifts (Neighborly Affection #8)

63. Alice

Chapter sixty-three

Alice

A lice sat back at the breakfast table and ogled her server. Not too-too much—Mother was sitting to her left, after all. But enough so he’d know she was watching and appreciating.

Jay rocked a floral kitchen apron like nobody’s business. He didn’t technically need one; Henry had diced an acre of omelet fillings by the time she and Jay made it down from showering and dressing. But she couldn’t fault Henry’s style this morning. Jay had rucked up the sleeves to the elbow on the pine-green top Henry had laid out for him. Soft cotton clung and swayed with him when he moved, and the black jeans hugged his ass.

Henry’s greeting had included kisses for them both before he lowered the apron over Jay’s head. “I require an assistant today, if you’ll be mine,” he’d murmured. “And I must protect such a stunning asset.”

Even hidden behind an apron with scattered wildflowers—pink and purple and yellow and blue—and flowing, curly script declaring it Grandmother’s garden , Jay glowed with confidence and competence. He relayed their omelet orders to Henry at the stove. He topped off their glasses and brewed Mother a second cup of tea with different leaves. He fetched plates and ferried completed meals and never stopped moving, not for a second, but he orbited around Henry with the biggest damn grin.

Alice waved buh-bye to yesterday’s mix-ups and cross-purposes. Those were in the rearview. Today they were starting fresh. Everyone had the same knowledge. Except Ollie, but Alice would fix that after breakfast. Nine-something here was six-something there, and that was way too early for a Sunday chat. But while she waited to kick off that adventure, another one perched at her fingertips.

“Jay?” Henry’s cards rested against a small vase at the center of the table. She could absolutely reach them if she leaned forward. “Would you hand me today’s card before you sit down, please?”

Jay set a stack of diagonal-cut toast beside the assortment of jams before circling around to her side of the table. He plucked the front card and presented it to her with the flourish of the wine guy at a fancy restaurant. “Ahh, the twenty-two, an excellent date.” Bowing over the card, he held it flat in both hands. “Would madam care for anything else?”

His smirk was so fucking sweet. She kissed his cheek as she snagged the card. “Actually, would you make me some toast with blueberry jam? And ask Mother what she’d like, please.”

She could do that herself, too. But she couldn’t replicate the joy in Jay’s eyes or the care he put into his service. Those she could only get if she let go of the idea of doing everything for herself. He worked intently on the task while she slid her finger under the seal on the card. Henry, carrying his plate, took his seat at the table.

The seal gave easily; she tipped the card into her hand.

Henry flapped his napkin and spread it over his lap. “Mind the—”

An extra paper slipped from inside the card, and she snatched it just before it would’ve touched down on her omelet. “Whoops. That was a close one.”

Henry gave her a silent golf clap. “Excellent reflexes, my dear. You’ve discovered our substitution.”

A pair of ice skates, laces tied together, graced the original card. The thinner sheet, like the understudy announcement in a theater program, featured a gooey, dripping caramel apple. “I don’t know how you make me want to bite into a piece of paper.”

Mother leaned closer, and Alice angled the cards toward her. “It’s the shading. The highlight creates that irresistible sheen.” Mother traced the edge of the skates. A soft smile curled the corners of her mouth. “We used to skate every winter when I was a girl.”

“And we will again.” Stretching in front of Alice, Henry patted his mom’s hand. “The three of us will come up for a weekend in February and join you out on the pond, if your care team approves.”

He could’ve made the original card disappear, but he hadn’t. That was caretaking too, knowing how happy seeing it would make his mom, even if they couldn’t do something so strenuous today. And come up in February —that was for Alice and Jay. Subtle and obvious at the same time, Henry was telling them their separation wouldn’t be forever, that he’d be at home with them. He maybe thought he’d have to be the one to find an answer for his mom’s health care, but she could talk to him about that today. Four heads were better than one.

Her toast appeared at the edge of her plate; Jay stood curved over the table with the centerpiece flowers tickling his chin. “You want to eat ice skates?”

“Only if they’re in the shape of cookies.” She flipped the substitute card around, and Jay’s mouth rounded in an O.

“We’re having a makeup day!” He wiggled back toward his seat with a celebratory dance.

Henry tugged the bow at the front of Jay’s apron, and the strings fell loose. “Indeed we are.”

A makeup day? “I know people put avocado and honey and mayonnaise and all kinds of weird stuff on their skin, but we’re not rubbing caramel on our faces, right?”

Henry laughed. And kept laughing. He pulled her from her chair and set her on his lap, the cards still dangling from her hand, and he wrapped her up in his arms and pressed a kiss against the side of her head.

“Oh, that”—Mother sounded pleased with herself—“will be just lovely. Jay, darling boy, would you lean in?”

Henry slid the apron over Jay’s head. As the fabric fluttered to the floor, he curled his fingers into the neckline of Jay’s shirt and brought him in for a kiss. Absolutely a safe-for-mom kiss, not an I-want-you-upstairs-in-five-minutes kiss, but unmistakably a kiss of love and belonging.

“Does that suit, Mother?” Henry, his smile easy, stoked Jay’s cheek with his knuckles. “Sit and eat before your breakfast goes entirely cold.” Turning to Alice, he chucked her lightly under the chin. “And you, my troublemaker. Will you read the card that will answer your question, or shall I?”

If she’d ever forgotten why she fell in love with him, she remembered now. She wasn’t one for crystals and chanting and auras, but energy—energy was real. She could measure it and test it and determine how much of it any given system would need. And today, Henry was brimming with energy. Getting in one more good squeeze, she passed him the card. “I think we all like hearing your voice, if you don’t mind.”

As Alice reclaimed her seat, Mother tilted her phone screen and scrolled through the snapshots for her. “I believe that does suit me, Henry. The three of you look happy.”

“I daresay we are.”

“We are.” The photos showed it, but more than that, Alice felt it. The warm pulse in her chest filled the spaces where she’d evicted the worry and stress.

Jay squeezed Mother’s hand. “Me too, Mom. I know…” He glanced at Henry, then studied his plate, then lifted his head, blinking. “Henry’s been wanting me to come here for Christmas for a while. When I was ready, when you were ready. And this year isn’t the A-plus time for either of us—you’re recovering, and I’m trying to untangle the holiday from the family I usually spend it with. But I want you to know…” Shaking his head, he shrugged and sighed, his eyes a rich chocolate velvet. “There’s no place I’d rather be than at this table, having this breakfast with all of you.”

Mother laid her phone down and clasped Jay’s hand with her other hand on top, tendons tightening over a narrow wrist with the strength of her hold. “You always have a place at this table, darling. You and Alice are family. And you are welcome to visit whenever you like, whether Henry joins you or not. You are enough, all on your own.”

Jay blinked hard, his eyes wide and watery and his cheeks fresh-shaven. Sometimes he seemed so young—so innocent despite all the shit the world had put him through. “I’m gonna hug you now, okay, Mom? I do it to Alice, too, but usually I scoop her up in the air, and I think you want more warning than that, and I won’t lift you up because Henry would make panic sounds while he decides how to object.”

“A hug would be delightful, Jay.” Mother swept him in as he dropped to one knee beside her chair. “I live alone now, you know. Hugs are precious gifts to be savored.”

Henry had said last night that his mom had adamantly refused having a live-in nurse. But that probably wouldn’t be the same as having family in and out all day. They could visit more often, for one thing. A close friend would be better. Some kind of companion that Mother could rely on.

A hand closed around hers below the table; Henry squeezed tight, and she rubbed her thumb along his fingers. A bittersweet shuffle crossed his face, the pained squint of his eyes contradicted by the gentle smile on his lips. “I mistakenly believed your presence would be a distraction, my dears. But you are an extraordinary help. And I shall need Jay’s assistance preparing today’s activities.”

“You got it.” Jay shifted back into his seat only when Mother let him go. “Are we doing an assembly line? Or each doing our own? Are there toppings?”

“There are whatever you would like there to be, as we’ll begin with a trip to gather supplies.”

Alice rattled Henry’s hand back and forth atop her napkin. “But you’re going to share what we’re doing first, right?”

Mother raised her teacup in both hands. “I confess, darling, I would also like to know.”

Surveying them all, Henry saved a wink for Jay alone. “Shall I read the card and enlighten them?”

Grinning, Jay stared across the table at Alice. She raised a stern eyebrow at him, although her mouth kept puckering as she held back her laugh. Jay let his loose. “I think if you don’t, Alice is gonna grab that card back from you in two seconds.”

“Good guess, st—” Whoops, probably don’t call her husband stud in front of their mother-in-law. “Sweetheart.” She smiled a mouthful of teasingly menacing teeth at him.

Henry cleared his throat—a whole epidemic of chuckle-covering seemed to be going around—and lifted the card in one hand. He left the other clasping hers, less tightly now but stroking her skin like one of Jay’s fidget stones.

“My dearest loves.”

His voice carried a solemn weight to it, and Alice shivered.

“We have missed much time together. I cannot give you back that time, just as none of us can be those past selves again. What the future holds, we mortals cannot say. But the present is our time, and each moment of it we spend together builds a shared past and shapes a collective future. Let us spend today as a family, remembering and honoring those we have lost by bringing love and joy to the present that will nurture us in the future. May ours be as sweet and bountiful as the treats we make today.”

Henry fell silent.

Alice swallowed the tears building in her throat. “That was beautiful.”

Jay and Mother chimed in with appreciation. Henry had written that last night, after the tree-trimming. Before they had gone upstairs, before they had talked everything out. He’d been hurting and on edge, working toward a panic attack, and still focused on love and kindness and compassion for all of them. On their future together. Alice curled her left hand in tight to taste the bite of the wedding band beside her knuckle. This was forever. They were forever.

Amid laughing exhortations to eat, they finally dug into the meal. Even cooling, her omelet was exquisite. Henry, sampling his, nodded distractedly and dabbed his mouth with his napkin.

“Our baking, of course, shall be in honor of Mrs. Eickhoff.” The words landed gently, Jay turning to Henry as a flower to the sun. “Do you suppose she would have liked caramel apples, Jay? Perhaps there’s something special you would like us to make as well. Robert and his brood will arrive Tuesday, and I’ve no doubt we’ll wish for a robust assortment of sweets to offer.”

“She liked a lot of sweet stuff.”

“A wise woman.” Eyes twinkling, Mother bit into the toast Jay had doctored for her.

Mother had gone with the peach-blackberry jam, and somehow her bite managed to be dainty but enormous without sending a single piece of fruit over the edge. Alice eyed the three blueberries dotting her omelet from her own overzealous enjoyment, then jabbed them onto her fork and finished them.

“But I think…” Jay glowed, bouncing up straighter in his seat. “She made some sort of forest cake with cherries and whipped cream all the time. I think it was her favorite.”

Henry and his mother exchanged a look.

“Would you happen to—”

“Oh, we must.” Mother waved lightly toward a giant cupboard against the back wall. Not a regular kitchen cabinet, but a freestanding hulk of dark wood and intricate carving. “We’ll investigate the recipe cards straightaway after breakfast, and if it’s not there, I’ll ask Lina for a copy. It’s her recipe; you must have made it with her often enough as a child.”

Humming softly, Henry raised both eyebrows at Jay. “And stolen more than a few alcohol-soaked cherries.”

“You?” Jay wore the disbelief scattering sparks in Alice’s head.

Mother chuffed and sipped her tea. “Henry was much loved and much indulged. He absorbed everything we could teach him and hungered for more.” A frown sped across her face, dark clouds dissipated by a swift wind. “I have never found austerity and asceticism to serve a child well. A foundation of empathy and compassion are sufficient to rein in the more dangerous impulses without breaking the spirit. And the smaller mischiefs may be a source of delight, when one’s own emotional house is in order.”

Good advice for adults, not just children.

Alice lifted her cup of breakfast tea. “To putting our emotional houses in order and enjoying merry mischief all our days.”

The chorus of agreement and the clinking of cups jingled like bells.