Chapter 17 #2
“He probably won’t go with you.” Luna stretches her arms high above her head, then reaches for her toes as she inhales. “But you can try.”
She’s right. Oliver doesn’t want me to take him away from the books he discovered, so I leave him with his parents and head downstairs. Luna is being sneaky about something, and I’ll figure out what it is.
Gavin’s roast with potatoes, Yorkshire puddings, and brown gravy are all amazing.
I sit down the table from him, chatting with Ruby and Luna about their lives and friends in Snowshill and getting updates while Hamish and Gavin catch up.
The kids are clearly tired. They pick at their food, but their moods are generally grumpy.
Rhys ate quickly and took Oliver upstairs to put him to bed well over thirty minutes ago.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if Rhys fell asleep too,” Luna says, sipping at her Dr Pepper.
Poppy whines, throwing a carrot down the table, and Ruby gives a falsely bright smile. “That’s my cue. We’ll see you in the morning. Come now, Violet. Tell everyone good night.”
“But I don’t want to go to sleep now, Mummy. I want to build a snowman. You told me we could build a snowman at Gavin’s house.”
“There’s no light outside, darling. Besides, it’s bedtime.”
“But I don’t want to go to sleep.”
“The faster you go to sleep, the faster we’ll get to make that snowman.”
“And drink hot cocoa?”
Ruby glances up at Gavin. He nods quickly.
“Yes,” she says. “And drink hot cocoa. You can even dip toast in it like Aunt Luna if you’d like.”
Violet jumps from her chair. “Okay, Mummy. I’ll go to bed. Good night!”
A chorus of good nights that follow her from the room.
“Aunt Luna?” I ask, leaning toward my sister.
“It’s easiest that way,” she says, fighting a yawn.
“Violet would give anything to have a brother,” Hamish says.
Luna nods. “She likes to pretend Oliver is her cousin instead.”
Since Ruby and Rhys are first cousins who practically grew up as siblings, the relation is nearly there.
Gavin leans back in his seat and tips his chin toward Hamish. “We used to pretend we were brothers. Do you recall the accent I would make you try to do?”
Hamish fills his plate with another helping of meat and potatoes. “Never fooled anyone.”
“I don’t know about that. We tried it on a couple of lasses on holiday, and they seemed to believe it.”
“The blonde just wanted ten minutes alone with you. She would have pretended to believe you if you told her you were born with blue skin.”
Gavin rolls his eyes, but I believe Hamish. The man doesn’t seem to know how attractive he is.
Luna nods like she understands. “My mom used to dress me and Callie in matching outfits all the time. People would ask if we were twins, which drove me nuts because I thought I looked so much older than her.”
“Matching outfits,” Hamish says, eyebrows raised.
“She wouldn’t stop at us, either,” I tell them. “She’d get herself something to coordinate if she could.”
“Sounds like your mum likes to be involved,” Gavin says.
Luna laughs. “That’s a good word for it.”
“You’ll like her.” It’s partially a hope, and also me calling it into existence.
After Gavin’s story about the stockings, my heart has been aching over the childhood he must have had.
Obviously an empty stocking is not the end of the world, but for a six-year-old, that’s pretty devastating.
It makes me wonder what else he missed out on.
The tension during the dinner we shared with his parents niggles at the back of my mind, and I wonder what the relationship is between them.
I thought it was good. Everything seemed alright.
But he’s a grown man who apparently bought his family home from his parents, and there’s some sort of history of them forgetting super important things.
To think they spent their first night here asking Gavin to use his connections to help his dad get a book published.
“Sounds like you have a good relationship with your mum,” Gavin says.
“She’s pretty great.”
“It must be hard, living so far away from her.”
Luna lets out a sigh, then it turns into another yawn. “It’s the worst. We talk on the phone a lot, but the time zone makes that tricky sometimes. I wish she’d move here, but she won’t leave the States while Callie’s still there.”
My gaze narrows. “You make that sound like she would leave if I did.”
“If you came to England, I could probably convince her to follow.”
Luna’s delusional, but I’m not going to pop her bubble. “Mom loves In-N-Out and Target too much to ever leave.”
Hinges on the front door squeal, filling the living room with a loud creak.
“Expecting anyone?” Hamish asks.
“Only the Winters, but they’re not due to arrive for another few days.” Gavin rises, taking his plate to the sink. “It could be Rory.” He doesn’t make it to the door before it swings open.
Jean comes through, Don just behind her. “Doesn’t this smell divine?”
Gavin freezes up for the briefest moment. It comes and goes so quickly, had I blinked at the perfect moment, I probably would have missed it entirely. The arrival of his parents gives him a quick sense of wariness before his smile is back in place.
Knowing a bit of their history, I wonder if his childhood was much more complex than it should have been.
“Hungry?” he asks. “I have a roast.”
“Aye.” Don helps himself to a plate and starts loading it up.
Hamish stands from the table, his chair legs scraping across the floor. “Hiya, Auntie Jean.”
“Och, I didn’t see you there.” She pulls him in for a big hug. “Where’s your mother?”
“It’s a Norland Christmas for us this year,” he says. “We’ve come up here to distract Ruby and Rhys from missing their grandmother. Mum and Dad stayed home with the rest of the family.”
“More room for us, then?” Jean says.
Gavin drops a plate. It shatters on the floor, blue shards scattering across the wooden floorboards.
“Och, but you gave me a fright.” Jean clutches her heart. “Don’t like the idea of your parents being here?”
Gavin coughs. “In the house?”
She acts like it’s normal, but I have a feeling this is entirely the opposite. Gavin looks like he’s swallowed two turtle doves.
Jean spreads her smile to everyone in the kitchen. “Do you have room for us? We’d like to stay for Christmas.”