Chapter Text
On Sunday, the table held four jars of jam.
Sherlock counted them before removing his coat.
Strawberry. Apricot. Bitter orange. Blackcurrant.
Beside them, his father had arranged toast in a basket covered with a cloth, as though the fabric could stop the slices from going cold or the family from becoming dysfunctional before dessert.
Mycroft was already seated, naturally. He wore a grey suit, an offended expression and held his cup in both hands.
“You’re late,” he said.
“By three minutes.”
“Therefore late.”
Sherlock placed his coat over the back of a chair.
“You arrived twenty-seven minutes early. Different pathology.”
Their father entered carrying a teapot.
“Could you wait until your mother is here before starting again?”
“We never stopped,” Mycroft said.
“That is precisely what worries me.”
The house smelled of bread, tea and the polish their father used on the wooden furniture. Nothing unusual. Nothing threatening. A clock ticked too loudly in the hallway.
Sherlock sat down.
His mother came in from the kitchen with a plate of eggs and set it between them.
“I bought strawberry jam,” she said. “You used to love it.”
Her hand remained on the edge of the plate.
Sherlock looked at the red jar. Mycroft stopped stirring his tea. Their father lowered his eyes towards the basket of toast.
Sherlock’s mother did not correct herself immediately.
Then she said:
“No.”
She withdrew her hand.
“Victor loved strawberry jam. You hated it.”
Sherlock looked at her face.
No excessive caution. No attempt to take the name back. No animal used in his place to make the sentence easier to bear.
Victor.
A child at a table. Jam on his fingers, probably. Crumbs on his jumper. A food preference with no particular symbolic value.
Sherlock took a slice of toast.
“I still hate it.”
His mother nodded.
“Yes. Of course.”
She pushed the marmalade towards him.
“Bitter orange.”
“Acceptable.”
“That is almost a compliment,” his father said.
“Don’t get carried away,” Mycroft replied.
Lunch continued.
Their father spilled some tea on the tablecloth while reaching for the butter. Mycroft moved his phone before the liquid could reach it, with the speed of a man who had survived several governments and this family. Their mother wiped the stain with a napkin.
Nobody spoke for twenty-three seconds. Then she stood.
“I have something.”
Sherlock saw the box before it reached the table.
Brown cardboard. Worn corners. Lid slightly sunken. Kept in a dry cupboard, moved several times, rarely opened. Photographs.
His mother placed it beside his plate without lifting the lid.
“I found some photographs,” she said. “From that time.”
Mycroft looked at the box. Their father did as well.
Sherlock put down his knife.
“Of Victor?”
“Some of them.”
She kept both hands flat on the table.
“I can open it. Or put it away. You decide.”
He studied the lid.
His mind immediately produced several possibilities. A garden. Musgrave. A swing. Two children. Perhaps three. A real dog appearing at the edge of a photograph, with a different name written on the back. A date written by someone who did not yet know what it would come to mean.
He could open the box. The physical capacity existed.
That was not the same thing.
“Not today,” he said.
His mother picked up the box and returned it to the sideboard.
“All right.”
Sherlock looked at Mycroft.
“One rule.”
Mycroft raised his eyes.
“I’m listening.”
“No one uses Redbeard to refer to Victor again.”
Mycroft’s face barely changed.
“Fine.”
Sherlock looked at his parents. His father nodded first.
“All right.”
His mother remained standing beside the sideboard.
“Victor,” she said.
The name crossed the room a second time.
No doors opened. The water did not rise.
The clock kept beating in the hallway. The tea was going cold. Mycroft had a crumb on his sleeve and had not yet noticed it.
Sherlock’s mother sat down again. They finished the eggs.
When Sherlock put his coat back on, she followed him to the front door.
“Will you come back next Sunday?”
“No.”
She lowered her eyes slightly. Sherlock adjusted his scarf.
“The Sunday after, possibly.”
She looked up.
“Possibly.”
“If Mycroft refrains from speaking.”
“A manifestly unreasonable condition,” Mycroft said from the dining room.
Sherlock opened the door. Behind him, his father asked whether anyone wanted more tea.
The box was still closed.
But Victor had stayed at the table.