Chapter 18
18
JACOB
I ’m in a soft bed.
That’s the only thought that crosses my mind for an eternity. The bed is soft, the blankets are heavy, and I’ve been asleep for a long time.
Waking up doesn’t seem urgent, so I don’t give it much consideration. I drift under the blankets and try to remember where I am.
I forget about where I am and go back to sleep.
I wake next to the sound of a door opening and soft footsteps crossing the room. The edge of the bed dips ever so slightly. And then someone strokes my hair.
“Hi.” It is my wife, Catherine. “I think you’re, like, almost awake. If you don’t want to get up, I can just leave again, but I think you’ll like the news I’ve brought.”
I open my eyes. Catherine sits on the edge of the bed, so the angle is odd, and I don’t care at all. She’s gorgeous from literally every angle and with my vision still clinging to sleep.
I catch her wrist, kiss her palm, and close my eyes again to gather my strength.
She goes back to stroking my hair.
When I open my eyes again—this time intending to keep them open—she’s watching me, love glowing from her face. It’s angelic. She’s angelic.
“News?” My throat sounds like a rocky beach. “What kind of news?”
“You know how we wanted to go to the villa in France?”
“Yes?” But we said we wanted to spend the summer at the villa. It’s winter.
“It turns out Gabriel also wanted to go to France. Why didn’t you tell me about your secret plans?”
“We didn’t—” My mouth is incredibly dry. I’ll have to do something about that. “WE didn’t make secret plans, kitten. He asked me if I’d rather go to France or Spain, because Elise?—”
“Yes! Elise was part of this, too. She wanted to surprise me and Lydia with a vacation. Can you believe that?”
“…I can. Is it supposed to be unbelievable?”
“No.” Catherine leans down and kisses my cheek. “It’s believable, because my sisters are the best. Of course Elise wanted to surprise me with a trip even though I was, like, kind of ignoring her while we were in London. Of course it was going to be a big trip with a bunch of people who are actually fun to be with. And the cutest baby!”
“Kitten.”
“Here.” Catherine offers a glass of water. Has she had that the whole time? “Wait, no. Let me help you up first.”
“I don’t need help getting up.”
She ignores me, sets the glass aside, and leans over me for a hug. “I love you.”
“You are a deceptress. This is a deception. You’re trying to help me sit up without me noticing.”
“I’m so offended that you’d say that. Can a wife not hug her husband?”
“You can hug me whenever you want, kitten, but I don’t need?—”
“Sorry. I have to stretch a little bit.”
Catherine readjusts. Naturally, this has the effect of rebalancing her weight against mine and giving her some leverage to ease me off the pillows. I find I’m not interested in doing anything but keeping my arms around her and my face buried in her hair.
“Whew.” Catherine leans me against the pillows. “I need to start lifting weights.”
“How long have I been asleep? I feel like I drowned in cough syrup.”
My wife cranes her neck to look at a clock on the opposite wall. “Like, twenty hours.”
“What? What time is it?”
“Noon.”
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Have I held anything up?”
“No.” Catherine leans in and puts her hands on my face. “There’s nothing to hold up. The plane will take off when we’re ready.”
“What plane?”
“The plane to France.” Catherine’s face lights up. “Nobody wanted to have Christmas without us, so they didn’t open any of the gifts. We thought it would be more fun to open them at the villa.”
“It’s going to be—kitten, it’s going to be cold and rainy and miserable.”
“It’s going to be cold and rainy,” she corrects. “We’re not going to be miserable. We’re going to be inside a lovely French villa with our family.”
I’m too tired to put up a fight.
Instead, I shower—an embarrassing production involving me sitting on the tiles and a gloriously naked, flawless Catherine washing my hair for me—dress in a set of Gabriel’s traveling clothes, and go down to the kitchen, where I attempt to apologize for sleeping all day.
Gabriel pats my face and refuses to hear any of my apologies. Then he launches into a series of reveals.
He reveals that the rest of his family—Mason, Charlotte, Robin, Remy, Jameson, and Lily—have gone ahead on a separate plane.
“Oh, God, Gabriel.” I lean against the kitchen counter. “We can’t take two separate jets to France. There are environmental impacts.”
“I’ll make up for it,” he promises. “And you didn’t want the nurses coddling you in front of everyone, did you?”
“You’re going to coddle me in front of everybody.”
He gives me a pleased grin. “I’m so glad to hear you’re warming to the idea. Put the flight out of your mind.”
“I can’t put the flight out of my mind. I recently survived a plane crash.”
“I’m fine with the plane,” Catherine says, soothing and bright. “The security is very good. And the pilot comes highly recommended.”
I take a moment to study her honey-brown eyes. “Have you taken a Xanax?”
Catherine winks. “A lady never tells her secrets.”
“She has,” Gabriel announces. “Personally, I think it was the right choice. And now it’s time for us to get into the SUV.”
By the SUV, he means two separate SUVs—one for Gabriel and Elise and Nate and Lydia, and one for me and Catherine and my two nurse-shadows.
I’m about to tell Catherine that there’s no need for this—these lovely people should go back to the base where they work—when my phone buzzes.
Gabriel : I’ve paid the nurses for the flight and the three days after we land. They have their own accommodations, also provided by me. Get over it
Jacob : What’s the rush, handsome?
Gabriel : holiday spirit
My stomach turns to knots. A nightmarish aspect of this is that we didn’t actually miss Christmas. The Hills held out hope and waited for us.
I’m grateful. I am.
But Christmas is just too much right now.
Christmas involves mountains of food everywhere and people trying to prove their love by shoving Christmas ham into each other’s mouths. There are too many dinners and brunches. I can’t take it.
Not that I have plans to mention it.
I don’t mention much of anything, because as soon as we board the plane and settle into our seats, fatigue covers me like the blankets at Gabriel’s house. Not even a freak plane crash could keep me awake. I sleep the flight away and wake up when we land at Nice.
It’s not quite dawn in France. Two SUVs take us through rainswept dark to the outskirts of Mougins.
I’m expecting a collection of vehicles when we arrive, but there are only two.
I manage the impressive feat of getting out of the SUV under my own power. Gabriel climbs out of the second one.
“Where’s Jameson?” I would expect him to be the first to barrel out the doors and drag us inside despite the hour. “I thought you said everyone was coming ahead.”
“They did.” I must imagine the nervousness that crosses Gabriel’s face. There’s no reason for him to be nervous.
“Then where are they?”
The door of the villa opens, and soft, golden light spills out. “Jacob?”
It’s not any of the Hills.
It’s my mother.
I’ve done my best not to think of her. I’ve been angry with her, dismissive of her, and disgusted with her. I tried to tell myself I didn’t care where she went after my father went to prison.
But now she looks small, standing in the doorway of my villa—small and nervous and sorry , and I remember all the times I felt like I couldn’t go on, didn’t deserve to, and so I’d go into her bedroom and lie on the bed with her and not say anything until I felt better, and she would lie there with me, quiet and close, never leaving first.
Everything else—my criminally greedy father, the fucked-up things he went along with to make himself richer—disappears.
Those things will come back. They always do. We’ll have to talk about them someday.
I don’t know I’m walking until I’m at the door, and I don’t know how desperately I’ve missed my mother until I drop my head onto her shoulder, and I don’t know I’m going to cry— again —until I do.
“Oh,” she says. “Oh, Jacob. I’m sorry, sweetheart. I should have been here sooner.”
“Don’t worry. I’m—I’m fine.” I got my hair and my eyes from my mother, and I also inherited her reflexive denial. I should’ve realized long ago that all might not have been well with her.
“No, you’re not,” she whispers. “But you will be. Come inside.”