Epiphany #5
“Yeah, you know what? I really am.” She smiled at him. “Let’s join the rest of the team in the kitchen for coffee and leftover Twelfth Night cake.”
“You are a genius,” said Edwin.
“What do you think a fox would eat to get that big?” Andrews asked as they started back into the house.
“Don’t rightly know.” Edwin shook his head, his eyes haunted. “But I’ve wondered. I’ve often wondered . . .”
Jerome caught Kestrel’s eyes, put a fist to his heart, and said, “Respect.”
That gesture stopped Kestrel in her tracks, her thoughts spinning, her tear ducts burning.
Something transcendental had just happened, and she needed a moment to process.
When she shut the front door, she stayed on the outside.
So overwhelming was this sensation, all she could manage was to hold herself under the surprisingly cheery January sun and feel it through.
She hadn’t just been hired for a job. She hadn’t just met a fun group of friends. She’d been drawn in so deeply and so thoroughly, it felt like a home kind of thing. A Christmas kind of feeling.
She thought, What’s more important at Christmas than family?
Carefully replacing the safety, she put the spray in her bag, nestled beside the papers from Hank. His letter felt like a big question mark, a blank space, an invitation to a party with no time or place or RSVP request. She didn’t know what to think of it. But she felt a great deal.
Kestrel didn’t know how long she’d been standing there facing the front door and surfing the ocean of emotions swelling inside her before she heard the stepping of a horse.
She whipped around. A sleigh slid up in the snow on the other side of the gravel drive. Mary Francis was pulling it. And holding Mary Francis’s reins was Hank.
Kestrel couldn’t tell if it was cold outside, because her whole body felt warm and hopeful, like she was a mug of hot chocolate. It was not quite like a blue convertible honking outside her school, her mother waving—but it did share that same energy in its purest, most hopeful form.
Hank was still dressed in Regency clothes, with an overcoat and tall hat. Kestrel felt so attracted to him, she nearly cried out with joy. He hopped out of the sleigh, stood in front of it, and held up a handwritten sign in front of his chest. It read: Kestrel.
She lifted her hand in greeting. “Um, that’s me. I’m Kestrel.”
“Good day, miss.” He stepped back, indicating the sleigh. “Your ride is here.”
“Oh really?”
“Someone should have been waiting for you on your first day. So I thought, why not a do-over?”
Those words pressed into her like a seed into soil: Why not a do-over? Still, weedy doubts choked out any sunlight before the words could bloom.
His hands lowered, the sign dangling uncertainly. “Or . . . farewell amble, if that’s what you’d prefer.”
Kestrel felt unsettled. She’d bravely followed a gut feeling and made a big decision that didn’t include Hank. Still, a one-horse open sleigh. In England. With the only man she’d ever really loved—still loved. Before her mind could make itself up, her body said, Hell yeah, and climbed in.
Hank joined her on the bench, placing a blanket around her shoulders and a faux-fur rug over her legs. He had just picked up the reins when the front door flew open. A distraught and coatless Mr. Culpepper rushed out.
“Miss Spinster, do not leave me, I beg you!”
Hank looked at her inquiringly.
“He’s being weird, Hank. He got way into character, and he needs to snap out of it.”
Mr. Culpepper started to advance on them, shouting her name.
Hank jumped out of the sleigh and put his hands on Culpepper’s chest to stop him.
Hilariously, Culpepper tried to punch Hank, but Hank dodged and wrapped his arms around him, pinning his arms down.
“Easy, easy,” Hank kept saying, as if talking to a wild animal.
“I won’t let you hurt me, and I won’t let you hurt yourself. ”
Hank walked him back to the house, whispering to him all the way. At the door, Hank slowly let go and stepped back, prepared in case Culpepper attacked. But the bespectacled man straightened, put out his hand to shake Hank’s, and went back inside.
Kestrel had to laugh. “Hank, you are so good at being Hank. Ten to one Arthur Culpepper now considers you his best friend.”
Hank put his hands in his coat pockets and said, “I mostly care what you think of me, Kes.”
“You know what I think of you. I just don’t know what to do with you.”
His smile was concerned as he climbed back into the sleigh and set Mary Francis on a gentle walk.
Slowly they moved away from the house into the snow-swept grounds.
Above them the bare limbs of deciduous trees gestured emphatically toward the crisp blue sky.
It felt like a few minutes of bonus holiday, the final hour between Christmastime and true winter.
She snuggled into the blanket and exhaled, trying to let herself enjoy it before the peace of the ride morphed into conflict resolution.
All too soon, Hank said, “Kestrel—”
“I don’t dare,” she interrupted.
“Of course you dare. You’re Kestrel. You double-dog dare. What is it that you’re afraid of?”
“Me. I’m too much. You won’t want me, not for long.”
It was the stark, ugly, honest truth, but until she’d said it, she hadn’t realized just how deep that fear ran through her.
“Kestrel Klein, you are exactly enough, with room to grow.”
It was a lovely thing to say, but she didn’t really believe him.
He would change his mind eventually. With any other man, the inevitable mind-changing wouldn’t bother her, but she couldn’t submit Hank to the future she feared—how he’d try to keep loving her but inevitably succumb to resentment for how she’d come between him and his family.
Just imagining it made her chest hurt as if the boulder of grief was literally crushing her.
“I know very little for certain, but it’s clear to me that I can’t go back with you.” Kestrel tried to keep her tone light despite the pain. “This was a good ending. We can let each other go in peace.”
“I see no reason we can’t mean something to each other, even if we’re not in the same place.”
“Your family—”
“Is irrelevant.”
He took out his phone and opened the “Kern Fam” text thread, showing her his most recent message.
Two years ago I brought home the love of my life and you chased her away and convinced me to reject her.
I’ve spent every day since regretting that I let you.
She makes me a better person. Knowing and accepting her could have made you better people too.
Do not contact me till you’re ready to apologize and embrace Kestrel as she deserves.
Paper post requested. Extra points if you write with ink and quill.
Kestrel was surprised to see no reply texts. “None of them responded?”
“I don’t know. I blocked their numbers.”
“Hank! I refuse to let you cut off your family. Besides, it’s not sustainable. As if you’d ever miss a Kern Family Christmas.”
“I did this year.”
“But . . . I thought you arrived after Christmas.”
“No, I flew out Christmas Eve. I wish now I hadn’t told Anika where I was going.”
Kestrel stared. Hank had willingly missed a Christmas with his family. The sun may as well have exploded.
“But . . . you can’t just ignore them forever, especially not for my sake.”
“It’s not for your sake. I’m building healthy boundaries between myself and the people who have tried to put me in a box and force me to be who they want me to be.”
“Healthy boundaries?” she said, brow raised.
He shrugged. “Yeah, I saw a therapist. I don’t want to stay in Chicago, but moving there was good for me in a lot of ways. I didn’t go home for Christmas last year either.”
Now Kestrel’s mouth was openly gaping. “But . . . But . . .” But snowmobiling for Christmas trees! And nativity pageant with the niblings! And the Snow Bowl in the yard! “But Christmas is family. And tradition. And pudding.”
“Pudding?”
Now she shrugged. “It’s all pudding, love.”
He smiled hopefully at the term of endearment, his cheeks pink.
“Well, Christmas in Chicago was pudding free, but I found little ways to celebrate. I served Christmas Eve dinner at a shelter. I joined an Ultimate Frisbee team, and we played in the park on Christmas Day. I bought the last Giga Pet in a toy store.”
“Little Karma Junior,” she said fondly.
“At first I was so nostalgic for home. But then I noticed how much more relaxed I felt because I wasn’t always looking over my shoulder, fearing someone was watching me, judging me.”
Kestrel was nodding, her whole body eager for her to believe, but the nod morphed into a head shake. “When you’re back in Wisconsin, you’ll mend your fences fast enough.”
“I’m not returning to Wisconsin. Actually, I—I know living on separate continents is far from ideal, but if it works out, I’m hoping to stay on at Pembrook Park.”
Kestrel sat up straight, losing the rug to her feet. “What? How?”
“Yeah it’s all happening so fast. I texted you this morning, asking you to call me as soon as you got your phone back.
But then Edwin let me know that you weren’t flying out today after all, so I had the idea to come pick you up in this rig.
I have Edwin to thank for the job offer.
He told Charming and Wattlesbrook they needed another all-work man, and I think he’s right.
There’s no end to the jobs—caring for the horses as well as the houses, all those fixes and hacks.
” His eyes lit up, enchanted by the thought of the challenges at his fingertips.
“You’re staying here,” she repeated, dumbfounded. “You’re going to live here.”
“I hope so. I like it here. It turns out, I even like tea. But if long distance is a deal breaker for you—”
“Hank, I’m staying.”
“You’re staying longer? As a guest?”
“As an employee. An all-work woman, I guess. EMT, fill-in companion, entertainer, servant, whatever they need.”
His brow tightened. “Kes, I didn’t know. If you want, I’ll tell Edwin no thanks. I’ll leave.”