44. Sinclair #2
We kick off with a couple oysters apiece from a local fish market, which is apparently a thing on Christmas Eve, or the réveillon.
Kurt apologizes for his shucking skills, but they seem pretty good from where I’m sitting.
Fleur refuses to eat them—not a huge shock—and gifts hers to her mom and her grandpa.
Then it’s on to boudin blanc, an ultra-smooth French veal sausage blended with milk and spices, that is fucking delicious and is served with apples baked in butter and the most sublime mashed potatoes.
“Those potatoes are at least half butter, just so you know,” Gloria says at the expression of pure bliss on my face. “That’s why they taste so darn delicious.”
“I can confirm that,” Elyse says.
Reggie pats his sweater warningly. “Just remember, pace yourself, my boy.”
I laugh, but his advice falls on deaf ears. This food is far too good for pacing. I brought along both a red and a white Burgundy pinched from the Fairwater cellar. I was a little worried that bringing French wines would be too on the nose, but everyone seems to be enjoying them.
“What’s the significance of the réveillon?” I ask as our collective eating slows.
“Well, we’ve messed with the religious parts of it, just like we have with Christmas Day,” Kurt says, chuckling to himself. “No Midnight Mass for us these days. Just a whole lot of food.”
“Sounds about right to me,” I say.
“The feasting is supposed to happen after mass,” Elyse says.
“Back in the day, French Catholics fasted for Advent, just like Lent. So you often started the evening with seafood—because that wasn’t considered breaking the fast. Then folks would come back from Mass and dive in to the rich stuff—the boudin blanc, foie gras, capon.
That’s what réveillon means: the meal you stay awake for. ”
“And you leave your shoes out for candy,” Fleur pipes up, having warmed to me considerably since I produced those gifts.
“I’m very interested in that part,” I tell her, and she laughs, showing a row of sweet, pearly-white teeth.
“Fleur—the girls’ mom—always told us that, generations before she was a kid, people would come back to their homes, cold and tired and starving after Midnight Mass, but the table would already be laid and the meat would be cooking, and they’d get stuck in,” Kurt tells me.
“The joy of it, of course, was all that excess after the fasting.”
“Seems to me we’ve all got very good at expecting the excess part without bothering with any of the fasting that goes before it,” Reggie observes. “Makes me wonder if we’re doing it wrong.”
“I’m pretty sure you’ve just summarized everything that’s wrong with our society,” I tell him, and everyone laughs.
“I think you’re both right,” Kurt says, holding his glass of Domaine Leroy Chambertin Grand Cru in mid-air, “but, here in this household, we’ve had a few lean months, alright, and it feels pretty good to be eatin’ oysters tonight without worrying.
I don’t know if Lees told you,” he says to me, “but we’ve had some very good news recently.
Last month, every last cent of Sylvie’s medical debt was forgiven, thanks to some incredible charity, and when I tell you that the axe is no longer hangin’ over our heads…
” He bows his head for a moment. “What I really mean is that it feels like a miracle to be sittin’ here tonight, feeling light as a feather.
Don’t it, girls? Your mom did good, rest her soul.
” With that, he raises his glass heavenward.
“To Fleur,” Gloria says, doing the same. “God rest her clever, string-pullin’ soul.”
I raise my glass, too, but I can barely speak for emotion.
I expected that this might happen, of course; I’d already primed myself.
But seeing the sheer relief, the gratitude, on Kurt’s prematurely lined face is another thing altogether.
I feel humbled to be here, humbled to have had my presence in his daughter’s life count for one good fucking thing.
That he thinks his late wife is responsible is a detail I didn’t foresee, but it makes it all the lovelier.
I realize I need to react as if this is big news because, of course, Elyse has not told me. “Wow—that’s incredible!” I say. “That’s— I’m so happy for you all. Congratulations.”
I daren’t look at her as I say the words.
As nine thirty rolls around, Fleur grows sleepy, and I consider the grim but unavoidable fact that soon I will have to take my leave of these good people and drive out to Long Island.
I am stuffed full of sausage and potato and—admittedly delicious—yule log.
Reggie has managed three slices. He wasn’t lying about saving space for it.
I don’t want to leave, but I have to. My heart is so full, yet I’ve had no time alone with Elyse to say anything.
“I’m goin’ potty,” little Fleur announces, swaying with tiredness as she stands up.
“Dad,” Sylvie says with a pointed jerk of her head toward the far wall.
He looks over there, too. “Oh, yeah. Sure.”
I’m unclear what is happening until Fleur goes off to the bathroom.
Kurt rises from the dinner table and takes the big clock down off the wall, winding it forward until it’s showing midnight.
Then, with a satisfied grin, he remounts it as the rest of us chuckle.
I’m pretty sure that, for a man like Kurt Ward, this is as far as he ever takes his deceptions.
“Look, honey!” Sylvie says when she comes back. “It’s midnight already! See how the two hands are pointing to the twelve? You wanna put Baby Jesus in the manger?”
We all get up from the table and head over to the wooden nativity, which is arranged on a small table next to the tree.
Fleur kisses the Baby Jesus statue on his tiny forehead and lays him tenderly in the manger.
Next, she puts her shoes by the front door so that Santa will fill them with candy.
The kid has the right idea, embracing traditions from every place she can.
While Sylvie puts her to bed, whispering promises that the sooner she goes to sleep, the sooner it will be Christmas morning, the rest of us pitch in, clearing the table and loading the ancient-looking dishwasher to within an inch of its life.
Kurt washes up the overflow, Elyse and I dry, and Reggie and Gloria, who know their way around this kitchen to an impressive extent, put things away.
Gloria also insists on resetting the table for breakfast tomorrow.
I wish I were staying; I wish I were Fleur, waking up to a household full of love and magic and Elyse.
After Reggie and Gloria have headed home with yet more yule, I turn regretfully to the Wards. “I should get going. I’ve impinged enough on your time.”
“You going far, son?” Kurt asks.
“I’m driving back to Long Island. Traffic shouldn’t be too bad, though.” I smile to show that it’s not a problem, but Sylvie frowns.
“That sounds like a total pain in the ass. You can sleep on the couch, if you like, and head over in the morning.”
“Not a bad call,” Kurt says, cocking his head.
“Oh, no, honestly,” I protest. Perhaps, given Sylvie’s history (and mine), they doubt my suitability to drive. “I’m absolutely fine. I only had half a glass of wine, and that was at the start of dinner.”
But I can feel Elyse’s eyes on me. I look down to where she’s standing beside me, and my heart cracks open once again. Such a beautiful human, inside and out.
“Stay,” she whispers.