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“I agree.”
“Fingers crossed everyone will be happy!”
*
At eight o’clock,over a very simple breakfast of tea, toast and yogurt, Alec informed his uncle and aunts that due to the heavy snow, Mrs. Johnson wouldn’t be returning in time for Christmas, and that with Mr. Trimble and Mrs. Booth away with their families, it would be just them for Christmas.
His announcement was met by silence. Emma and Dorothy glanced at each other, expressions wary. Cara stayed silent.
Uncle Frederick was the first to speak. “I don’t know if we can get curry delivered tonight,” his uncle said. “I don’t know howthey’d make it through the snow. None of our roads have been plowed.”
Alec was tempted to smile but didn’t. “I don’t think takeout will work, Uncle Frederick, so I’m glad we had some of our favorites last night.” He paused, glanced at his aunts, who were staring at him. “I think we should be prepared that there isn’t any coming or going, not for the next few days. The storm has knocked out train service, and there are no cars on the streets at the moment. I imagine they’ve got the snow plow out in Bakewell, but they won’t get all the roads clear, not with the snow still falling.”
“No coming or going?” Emma repeated, a hand going to her throat. “Does that mean we’re… stuck here… for Christmas?”
Alec gritted his teeth. Stuck here, indeed. He was the one stuck here with them. But he didn’t say any of that, because it wouldn’t be helpful, or kind, and it wasn’t as if anyone planned on being trapped at Langley for days. It had just happened. He glanced at Cara who was also watching him. At least her expression was hopeful. Encouraging.
He took a breath and exhaled. He would not be short with them, not with any of them. They’d only be here for a few days. Surely they could manage to get along for three or so days.
“Yes,” Alec said, answering his aunt. “It does look like we’ll be here through Christmas, unless something miraculous happens.”
His uncle’s right hand shook as if he lifted his mug. He wasn’t about to drink his tea in a tiny china cup. “A miracle did happen on Christmas before, if you recall. Maybe there will be another.”
“I would hope God isn’t worrying about snow in Derybshire,” Dorothy said. “I’d hope He was focused on bigger problems.”
“True,” Frederick said, setting the mug down. “I wouldn’t want to waste a miracle on us, either.”
Silence descended, everyone lost in thought.
Finally his aunt Emma sighed. “There is a first for everything.” She sighed again. “It could be worse.”
Cara’s forehead creased. She looked around the table, baffled. “But you grew up here,” she said, looking from Emma to Frederick. “Aren’t you excited about Christmas at Langley Park?”
No one answered her, and neither Emma nor Frederick met her gaze. Alec felt sorry for Cara who was trying so hard.
“Well, I’m excited,” he said rather forcefully, even as he wondered when he’d last used the word excited. “It’s going to be different, and different can be good.”
Alec couldn’t wait to escape the breakfast table and, after helping clear the table, Cara shooed him away, saying she could do the dishes quickly, and she was sure he’d enjoy finishing his reading.
He was grateful to be excused, not because he minded dishes, but he was uncomfortable in his house at the moment. His announcement at breakfast hadn’t gone over well and he knew his aunt Emma, who was wired very much like his father, tended toward sharpness and criticism when out of her comfort zone.
He dreaded the coming days and dreaded a holiday filled with cantankerous older people with nothing positive to say.
Or maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. He hadn’t spent very much time with his relatives, not in years, not since his father’s memory began to fail. For a while they’d still made a point of coming together a few times a year, but when his father could no longer recognize his sister, or his uncle Frederick, it became incredibly difficult to make conversation, with the best option being to reduce the amount of time spent together from a few days scattered throughout the year to a single meal, with an early Christmas dinner, the most practical.
Everyone lived close enough that they could drive home after the early Christmas dinner, but if there was drinking, a morningdeparture was fine, and that was what had happened the last few years. Everyone stayed overnight and then left after Mrs. Johnson’s hearty breakfast.
Last year was the first year Alec’s father was physically absent for Christmas. He hadn’t been present in the proper sense for years, but Alec had always brought him home from London with him, but last year his father couldn’t handle dressing or walking even a short distance. Alec tried with a wheelchair but his father fell apart, and reluctantly Alec realized that the father as he knew him was truly gone.
Last year at dinner, when Alec mentioned that his father’s disease was advancing faster than expected, conversation stopped, and then later, when it began again, the focus was on different things, and Alec’s father wasn’t mentioned again, because what could they say? It had all been said before.
And that was the problem with the family dinner. No one had anything to say that hadn’t been said, and they couldn’t look to Alec for conversation starters because what was he supposed to say?
Alec only traveled for business. He wasn’t in a relationship. He led a very structured life. He wasn’t unhappy, but there wasn’t a lot to share. And so he generally encouraged the others to talk, and they did. The more they drank, the more they talked, and the more they drank and talked, the later they wanted to stay up, reminiscing about life here at Langley when it had been full of children, and there had been parties and good times. Listening, Alec was always conscious that there didn’t seem to be good times anymore, and no one blamed him, but he still felt responsible, just as he felt responsible for everything.
Chapter Nine
After breakfast, Alecdisappeared into his study, leaving Cara with the aunts, and Uncle Frederick had gone off to do something or other.
