Chapter Text
Richard wasn’t sure what he expected this Christmas to be like, but he certainly hadn’t expected it to be quite so festive and... normal. Not to say he didn’t still feel like six kinds of warmed-over shit emotionally. But it felt right to have the girls home, and the dogs piled amongst them in front of the fire and the cat in his lap, and, wonder of wonders, Mindy smiling at him from where she sat with Izzy’s head in her lap. Even if the smile was a little tired and a little sad.
They’d all be alright, he knew, in time, but for now there were cakes and presents and long walks and their annual Boxing Day ride along the lanes and over the fields to paper over the cracks.
He wondered what James and Jeremy were up to in Ansty, whether they were bellied up to the bar at The Royal Oak—Jeremy talking bollocks with the local farmers—or hunched over a Scrabble board by the fire in James’s sitting room, or tidying up the last bits to ready the house for Jeremy’s brood to arrive the next evening.
He chuckled to himself as he imagined James in an apron, pulling cookies from the oven. And Jeremy trying to steal them, still far too hot and gooey, off the tray. Pictured them bent over the kitchen table, reading glasses perched on their noses, wrapping last-minute cuddly toys for Arlo. And Chelsea season tickets for Finlo. And a new lens for Katya (that James would have certainly wrangled Lucy into consulting on). And a mind-meltingly complex Lego set with a billion-and-one pieces for Alex. And maybe a registration packet for that fancy writer’s retreat Emily had been waxing poetic about the last time Richard had seen her.
He blinked suddenly back to his former sitting room and the purring cat (who had now migrated to his chest) and Willow’s hand resting on his knee.
‘You were miles away,’ she teased quietly.
He realized with a start that he had been. That his daydream of James and Jeremy’s pre-Christmas domesticity had been so complete he could almost smell the baking confectionary and hear the crinkle of wrapping paper.
‘Just tired,’ he assured her. ‘There are a million loose ends to tie up at the shop in the new year and I haven’t quite succeeded in turning off my brain yet.’
She looked at him long and hard and he fought not to squirm under a gaze that should not be so shrewd in a woman so young. And then she quipped, ‘I should have thought that was your default state.’ before settling against his side and earning a little mrrr of acknowledgement from the contented cat.
He couldn’t help but laugh at that and wrapped an arm around her as they both turned their attention back to the film.
He knew Mindy was watching them—could feel her eyes moving over his face. He wondered what she was thinking. Wondered if she was also carrying a weight of grief lodged in her chest, threatening to bear her to the ground if she didn’t focus very hard on the good things.
He couldn’t ignore the reality that moments like these would rarely happen again—what with the girls growing up and moving away and Richard’s own impending departure. The optimist in him wanted to see the timing as a fresh start, but the greater part couldn’t help but connect bleak with bleak—a horrible time of year for a horrible thing. And he sank down lower and lower into his mood as he watched Jimmy Stewart unravel on the screen, sinking further and further into his despair until he found himself standing on the edge of a bridge contemplating the dark, rushing water below.
His heart began to race, and he considered getting up and walking away—he’d never really cared for It’s A Wonderful Life anyway—but he felt Willow’s hair brushing his arm where his sleeves were rolled up against the warmth of the fire and he heard Izzy’s little sigh of contentment and Mindy murmur something to her too low for him to make out. He felt the purring of the cat rumble through him and he set about attempting to commit the moment to memory instead.
He focused on the details, repeating them to himself over and over. He picked out the crackling of the fire and the lilt of Mindy’s voice and the running commentary from his girls and the muffled, garbled yips of a sleeping dog. He focused on the tastes—mulled wine and popcorn and Terry’s Chocolate Orange—as they stuffed their faces with festive film snacks. And he resolved to write this all down when he got back to the barn. To commit it to the page so that his unreliable memory couldn’t take it from him.
And he wondered again about James and Jeremy. Wished they were there with him, one big happy family sharing in the Christmas traditions—making his girls laugh as they invariably did and making Mindy’s eyes go soft with exasperated fondness and holding his heart carefully between them, holding it fast against the cracks spreading rapidly through it.
His mind was on James and Jeremy more and more these days, thoughts naturally turning to them in quiet moments, and he decided not to dwell on it, not here and now, decided to let them be a light that warmed him and brought him peace, another contented moment in a difficult but love-filled week.
He thought back to his and Jeremy’s day out at the vintage car trial. Remembered the way Jeremy and Patrick had stood together, heads bent in consultation. Frowned over the startled and admiring expression on Jeremy’s face as Patrick spoke, low and assured. And wondered at the look of something close to awe on Jeremy’s face when they finally wandered over to join his conversation with Marianne and Scarlett.
He rubbed absently at the place his wedding ring used to sit and it reminded him of his loutish behaviour at the pub. Revisiting his insinuations and implications made him cringe internally, and he couldn’t help but admire Jeremy’s patience in the face of his snotty petulance.
And contrary to everything his behaviour implied, he didn’t resent James and Jeremy their happiness or their bond. What he did envy was the sweet and cosy family Christmas that awaited them while he was staring down the barrel of the most difficult Christmas of his life, with no real plan except to try and get through it as gracefully as possible.
He cuddled Willow closer and forced himself back into the here and now. Forced himself to be present with the most important people in his life and to soak in what he had left before it was gone.