10. Lucas
LUCAS
‘ S hall we start with the smaller box?’ Lucas asked his father as they sat on the sofa with the boxes of Christmas decorations lined up on the coffee table in front of them.
They’d eaten a light Sunday lunch of herby chicken breasts and roasted vegetables and were now ready to look through the decorations.
Lucas hadn’t been certain that any of them would be any good now, after being in the attic for so long, but if they didn’t look they’d never know.
He opened the lid of the smallest box and peered inside. ‘This one has some lights and tinsel.’ He lifted the tinsel and the silver strands caught the light, but the string at the centre was showing where some parts had gone bald.
‘Looks a bit sorry for itself,’ his father said, and Lucas agreed. ‘Perhaps the lights will be gone too?’
‘I would think so. Don’t want to plug them in if they’re a fire risk.
’ Lucas checked there was nothing under the lights and then put the tinsel back in the box.
‘Perhaps we need to check with the council about how to recycle these after Christmas. I’ll take them to the shed later on and put them away until January. ’
‘Good plan.’ His father nodded.
Lucas put the first box on the floor, then opened the next one. ‘We have some small ornaments in here.’ He got out a reindeer ornament with a sleigh attached to it, then a jolly Santa ornament. ‘Do you want to put these up?’
His father shrugged.
‘No pressure. We can donate them to charity if you don’t want them.’
‘You can put them up if you like,’ his father said. ‘I just don’t know how I feel about them, to be honest.’
‘Mum was the ornament person in the family,’ Lucas said. He wasn’t fussy on ornaments, seeing them as clutter, but if his dad would feel more festive with them up, then he was happy to oblige.
‘She was indeed.’ His father sighed. ‘Tell you what, let’s put them up this year and then we can decide what to do with them after Christmas. At least that way we can give them a chance and decide whether to display them again.’
Lucas arranged the ornaments on the mantelpiece, then looked back in the box. ‘We have more.’
He found twelve different ornaments that he placed around the lounge and soon it looked more festive. There was also a fake holly and ivy garland wrapped in tissue paper that he draped carefully around the mantelpiece.
‘It definitely looks like your mum has been here now,’ his father said, his voice thick with emotion.
‘It does.’ Lucas had put the tree up in the corner of the lounge that morning and added some fairy lights that they’d picked up at the tree farm, and now the lights twinkled prettily. ‘Hopefully there will be some baubles in the last box that we can hang on the tree.’
He moved the second box to the floor, then opened the last one.
There were three smaller boxes inside, so he got them out and opened one.
‘And here we have some baubles.’ He started getting them out and lined them up on the table.
There was a snowman made of clay, crudely painted with eyes and a mouth made of small black dots to resemble stones, and an orange triangle that he guessed was a carrot.
‘Oh…’ His dad blinked, and the line between his brows deepened as he frowned. ‘She kept this all those years.’
‘Did I make that?’ Lucas asked.
‘You did. In primary school. I think you would have been about six. You came home with it and were so proud.’ He held the snowman up by the ribbon attached to it and it twirled around like it was dancing.
‘And Mum kept it.’ Lucas thought of how long the snowman had been in the house and how carefully his mum must have packed it up every year for it to last. ‘What a softy she was.’
‘Always.’ His father gave a slow nod. ‘She deserved far better than she got from me.’
Lucas took the snowman and hung it on the tree, then returned to the small box and pulled out some bubble wrap that enclosed a small oval shape.
He unwrapped it to find a locket with a wintery scene painted on the front.
He pressed the small button at the locket’s base and the lid sprang open, revealing a mirror.
His reflection stared up at him, so he closed it again.
‘This isn’t a Christmas decoration, though? ’
‘Your mum used to hang it on the tree. It was her grandmother’s, and she kept it with the Christmas things because of the wintery scene on it.’
‘It’s beautiful.’
‘It is.’ His father held out his hand and Lucas set the locket on his palm, then went back to the box.
They spent the next half an hour going through different baubles that included some from France where they’d visited a Christmas market, some from Tenby in Wales where they’d gone for a holiday when Lucas was a toddler and others from holidays over the years.
His mum had clearly enjoyed collecting souvenirs.
Lucas liked that the decorations were different, and all had significance from places they’d been as a family.
It also reminded him about how much his mum had cared about her husband and son and treasured the time they spent together.
The other small boxes held some glass baubles wrapped in tissue paper that Lucas hung on the tree and a card envelope that he opened.
Inside were some Christmas cards his father had given to his mother and some photos.
He set the cards down and looked through the photos, and his throat closed up with emotion.
‘Let’s see,’ his father said.
There was one of Lucas as a baby lying on a sheepskin rug in front of the fireplace. He was wearing a white knitted outfit of leggings and a jumper with tiny buttons on the shoulder. On his feet, he wore green velvet booties, and he was smiling up at whoever was taking the photo.
‘Ahhh … Your mum knitted this outfit for you. We had little cash to spare so she scrounged up what wool she could and knitted you an outfit. You were adorable in it.’
‘Mum enjoyed knitting, didn’t she?’ Lucas asked.
‘She did. And she was very good at it.’ His father touched a finger to the photo and then looked at Lucas. ‘Crazy to think you were once that small. You were about four months old there and a very happy little chap.’
Lucas handed his father the photo. The next one was of his parents. They looked very young, and they were holding hands and standing in front of the harbour in the village. His mum was smiling at the camera, but his father was gazing at his mum like he had eyes for nothing else.
He handed the photo to his father and watched as he looked at it, his Adam’s apple bobbing furiously.
After a while, his father looked up and Lucas saw his eyes were glistening.
‘I loved your mum. Very much. There are no excuses for what I did later on in our marriage, but all I can say is that time and experiences wear us down. They wore me down and soon I forgot to appreciate what I had and thought I’d be happier with something …
someone different. I was wrong. I was very wrong, but by then, I had done the damage and caused the hurt.
And yet your mum stuck by me and never left.
She was an angel. If only we had hindsight before we do something; it would help us avoid doing things that hurt the ones we love.
But then it wouldn’t be hindsight if it came first, like some sort of vision.
Look how beautiful your mum is there and how happy she is. ’
Lucas nodded. His mum was glowing, and the way his dad was looking at her reminded him of how he used to look at Thora.
Love like that was precious, and it was so sad when people lost it or …
when they forgot to look for it. Lucas had read once that a person could be as much in love with someone as they wanted to be, and he sometimes wondered if that was true.
Could you choose to be in love, as much in love as you liked, with someone for all of your life?
There must be ways and means to ensure that you didn’t tire of each other.
True, physical beauty faded and so did initial attraction, but what if it could morph into something lasting, something that endured because you loved and respected your partner and didn’t feel the need to look for a fresh ‘hit’ of attraction with someone else.
Yes, sometimes people couldn’t reconcile with their partner and that was when it was better to part, but sometimes a love was so deep, intense and real that letting go of it was a huge mistake.
They looked through some more photos and reminisced as they found ones of Christmases gone by, of snowstorms that had swept over Cornwall and shut roads and businesses for weeks at a time.
There were also some newspaper clipping and coupons cut out of magazines.
He’d been an adult when his mum had passed away and so he’d known her as an adult, but some memories had faded over the years and seeing these things gave him fresh insight into who she’d been.
Hoping to save money, she had saved coupons.
She had kept cards that had sentimental value to her.
She had treasured a locket that had belonged to her grandmother.
And she had loved her family more than anything in the world.
His heart ached as he looked through the things she’d kept, and then he came to the last photograph.
‘Thora,’ he said, as he gazed at the photo. It showed him and Thora standing with his mum back when they were about eighteen. He was in the middle with his arms around their shoulders and they were all smiling at the camera. Behind them was the sea and a clear blue sky.
‘You were young there,’ his dad said.
‘Very.’ Lucas frowned. ‘Why is it in with the Christmas stuff?’
‘Who knows? Perhaps your mum packed it away by mistake one year.’ His dad gave a small shrug. ‘Or perhaps you were meant to find it today…’ He trailed off and Lucas looked at him.
‘You think?’
‘I don’t know, but your mum always said everything happens for a reason and according to that logic, you’ve found this photo today for a reason.’
‘A reminder.’ Lucas licked his lips. ‘Of what was and what could have been.’
‘What could still be. I’d like to think that would be a more positive way to view it now.’ His father laughed softly, and Lucas smiled.
‘What could still be.’ He handed the photo to his father, then sat back on the sofa. ‘Mum and Thora got on well, didn’t they?’
‘The breakup devastated your mum.’
‘I was away, so I didn’t see that she was upset by it, but I should have known. Well, I probably knew but didn’t want to admit it to myself because it was too hard to think about.’ He pushed his hands back through his hair. ‘That’s what I’ve always done.’
‘What?’
‘Pushed difficult thoughts away. Kept busy. Stayed away from Cornwall.’ He gave a wry laugh, and his father reached over and patted his hand.
‘We all avoid things that hurt us. It’s self preservation.
But don’t leave it too late, Lucas. Don’t do what I did and waste time.
Speak to Thora. Apologise. Explain. See if there’s a way to salvage something between you, even if it’s just friendship.
You were friends as well as romantically involved. ’
‘She used to make me laugh so hard. I’ve never met a woman who could make me laugh like that. In fact, I’ve never met anyone who could.’
‘I remember that well. Your mum would sit on the sofa knitting and we’d hear the pair of you upstairs giggling away.
She’d smile and nudge me and more often than not, I think I’d grumble something about youngsters not understanding what life had in store for them.
But your mum always saw the positives. I was such an idiot for letting her think I didn’t love her.
What a waste of happiness and all because I was pursuing something that wasn’t real, other women I had no business pursuing.
I had my head turned and thought it was what I wanted when I really had everything I wanted right here at home. ’
Lucas covered his father’s hand with one of his and sighed. ‘Life isn’t easy, Dad. All we can do is learn as we go along.’
They sat there for a while, side by side, as they looked through the photographs again and Lucas realised that not only was he learning more about his mum but he was also getting to know more about his father.
No person was all good or all bad and people had reasons for the things they said and did.
Judging his father was wrong because he had never walked in his father’s shoes or lived through his experiences.
Besides which, his father had punished himself enough over the years, and Lucas did not want to add to his pain.
So he listened as his father told him about happy times when he’d been with Lucas’ mother and then when Lucas had come along.
His father’s face lit up, and it made his heart brim with love to hear about the life they’d shared as a family and about how, when Thora had come into their lives, she’d brought even more joy.
She had been, his father said, the daughter his mum had always wanted along with her precious son.
Life may be short, but love, well, love lasted forever.