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It’s good to be home, Richard had thought when he, Ned and George finally pulled up to the top of the drive and tumbled out of Ned’s temperamental car with bags bursting at the seams and gifts galore. It had been a long journey from Oxford through the night (because Ned is incapable of waking up before twelve in the afternoon) and crooning along to the Christmas songs on the radio had worn off after a while – though George didn’t seem to feel the same.
Their house, a great thing of sandstone and majesty that oversees frosty fields and evergreen forest at the back, was a welcome sight to Richard’s tired eyes as he slammed the car door shut. Unlike in Oxford, there had only been a brief flurry over Middleham which meant that this Christmas in Middleham was not particularly white one. Nevertheless, the frost that crunched underfoot, the orange light spilling out of the windows and pooling into the rose garden below and the wreath hung up on the door did more than enough to make Richard feel as though it had been far too long since he’d seen his family.
All the anxieties of the last few months disappeared as they rang the doorbell and their mother Cecily gathered them up into a lung-crushing embrace only to be matched by their sister Meg who appeared just behind her. Yes, it is good to be home, Richard decided as he fell asleep that night to the view of the Yorkshire Dales just beyond his window.
Now though, he isn’t so sure. The living room – an airy space with high ceilings and walls cluttered with wedding, school and graduation photos hung so long they have left shadows around them – had felt as comforting as ever just the evening before. Now though, it is a chaotic scene with lopsided piles of gifts scattered everywhere, the TV blaring with the volume turned up as loud as humanly possible and the Plantagenet siblings strewn across the squishy patterned sofas.
There is a half-eaten tub of Quality Treats on the sideboard and Ned is groaning about how full he is while he unwraps another brightly coloured chocolate. George is bickering with Meg over what film to watch for no purpose other than to wind each other up and Richard is, quite frankly, sick to death of it all. He is a firm believer that there is nothing more important than family, especially one as large as theirs, but his siblings are beginning to wear his patience.
More pressing than this is the date. It is Boxing Day which has traditionally been when the Nevilles – most importantly Anne – pop round for dinner to share leftovers and stories from the year gone by and it is this which has Richard itching in anticipation, more so than the presents his mum had handed out to the four of them – handmade jumpers. They’d all murmured a thank you and an oh you shouldn’t have and wear them dutifully but truthfully it makes Richard want to claw at his skin. He has something to be grateful for because it could, he supposes, be much worse. His is a passable shade of navy that apparently brings out his eyes. George on the other hand has murky shade of olive, Ned an off-burgundy that he is somehow pulling off and Meg a mustard. What Richard finds more concerning than the colour of his jumper is the mistletoe pattern embroidered on the front, a symbol which has not gone unnoticed by him.
It’s not so much the blatancy of his mum’s gesture that irritates him, but the fact that she hasn’t just said something and God does she wish she would. She’s certainly implied it with the sudden curiosity about Anne in the last few days. He is blunt even in his looks, the darkest in his fair family and he cannot stand his mother’s subtlety, no matter how good her intentions are.
Of course, he could just blurt it out and end all this tiptoeing around the question but he won’t, not yet. For one, he’s much too stubborn and two, he won’t have their parents oohing and aahing over them or, God forbid, teasing them. The inevitable can wait until New Year. No, this time is theirs to spend and he wants to savour it.
He’d met up with his childhood friend Francis in the morning for a walk around the village to work out some of the nerves that had him tied up like a crimson bow. When he wasn’t peeling potatoes for dinner or sending Anne a quick text about the sorry state of affairs at home, he was hammering out some pieces on the piano but he didn’t have the patience nor the will to enjoy what he was playing. He quickly scrapped that and pulled out his guitar to strum a chord but they all came out strangled and whiny so he abandoned that too. Now his head is bent over a book he doesn’t know the name of, eyes skimming over the letters on the page which blur together in a mess of black and white.
I’m going insane, he thinks. I’m going insane.
As the channel flickers between Home Alone and Love Actually and Meg shrieking whenever George turns the latter off, Richard decides he’s had enough.
“How old are you both? I’ve forgotten” he snaps, raising his eyes from the book in his lap.
They stop momentarily, looking up from the remote to Richard in confusion then back at each other. George clamps a hand over his mouth with a “hah!” before Meg shoves him back into the Christmas tree, baubles and bells dropping to the floor.
“I’m talking about both of you–“
Meg makes another dive for the remote and Richard can only roll his eyes at it all, dropping his head onto the sofa arm in despair.
And I’m supposed to be the youngest.
He’s surprised to hear a response from Ned who he’d assumed was asleep when his hand had stopped alternating between a bottomless glass of wine or the box of Celebrations in his lap.
“Don’t even bother Rich. You know what those two are like…” he mumbles, one eye shut and the other half open as he rolls over and wraps an arm around the cushion.
Richard knows he’s being dramatic but somehow, he can’t bring himself to care. He seems to be the only one waiting for the thaw, for the lucid Christmas cheer to fade away because God help him if his siblings could get any more annoying. He contents himself to sulk and watch the hand tick, tick, ticking on the clock above the mantlepiece, far too slowly for his liking, letting the squabble in the background fade into the roar of flames from the fireplace.
“Rich?”
He jerks at his childhood nickname and turns to meet his mother’s usually stern gaze, milky and calm and her dark hair loose around her shoulders, streaks of grey peeking through at the roots.
“Ma mère?” he answers.
“I was going to ask if you’d heard what I’d asked you but I won’t bother.”
She rests a hand in his dark curls, brushing one out of his eyes as if he were a tired child and not a twenty-year-old man. She has a way with children and knows how to soothe them, having five of her own and being a primary school teacher for most of her adult life, she has to. She has the kind of voice that can command like an orator but ease like a mother can a crying child and instantly he feels his sour mood sweeten a little.
“Come and help set the table, get away from those two for a bit, hm?”
She doesn’t wait for a response and he trails bleary eyed after her into the kitchen where he’s greeted with the savoury smell of the dishes the four of them helped to prepare earlier. He instinctively stretches up on his tiptoes to the top of cupboard to take down the prized blue china as his mum fishes out the glasses, watching with bated breath until he places the plates safely on the counter.
The table is heaving under the weight of the endless dishes that she pulls out of the oven, a rainbow of Christmas delights; a tender chicken, roasted potatoes, carrots, parsnips, stuffing, tiny seasoned sausages, a steaming boat of gravy and various spiced soups that warm you from the inside out. It looks very cosy like this, he thinks, the country kitchen with the long oak table covered in a blue runner and lit with candles, encircled with mismatched wobbling chairs. It reminds him why he came home in the first place.
This perfect tableau is incomplete without one extra addition and Richard makes sure to set one extra place at the head of the table as they always do – for their father, his namesake. His loss is most keenly felt around the holiday and they do not let the anniversary of his death pass without a candle lit in his honour. Wordlessly, Cecily squeezes his shoulder and kisses his cheek, mother and son understanding one another perfectly.
She opens another drawer and pulls out a stack of printed name cards, written in the beautiful hand he did not inherit, pressing them into his open palm.
“Name cards. Start at the top of the table and work your way down.”
“When did you find the time to do all this?” he asks, bewildered but doing as he is bid.
“Oh, I have my ways”, she assures him, “and an unwilling daughter. Speaking of– “
A screech travels from the living room followed by a vicious string of curse words.
Throwing her oven glove on the counter and swearing under her breath, she hollers “George, that’s enough! Stop bickering with your sister and do something useful, will you?”
The man himself appears in the doorway, disgruntled and covered in pine needles, looking like he’s been dragged backwards through the Christmas tree. Just one raised eyebrow from his mother is enough to quiet any protest he’s about to make and Richard has to stifle a laugh. George shoots him a look which only makes his effort even harder.
There is no amusement in their mother’s steely gaze as she turns her disapproving eye to Richard, then back to George.
“Please don’t make me tell you off for something you are far too old to be doing.”
“But–“
She raises a hand in warning.
“Enough. Now go and wake Ned, he looks half-asleep, and ask Meg to go into the cellar and see if we’ve got anything nice to drink. I think we’ve got lots to be celebrating, don’t you?” she adds, glancing Richard’s way.
Now it’s George who’s grinning like a fool as he struts back to the living room and Richard who’s seething, making sure to put George’s name next to his mum’s and as far away from Isabel as possible for being so annoying. Serves him right. He continues setting out the cards in stony silence until he reaches the final two in the pile. Richard and Anne.
Just for a moment, he admires how the two names look together, Richard and Anne. Anne and Richard, heat rising in his cheeks. He doesn’t see Cecily looking over his shoulder, watching her son with the air of a wise woman who can foresee the future.
She is readying herself to ask the most secretive but indiscreet of her sons a question he might not want to answer when a rumpled and sleepy Ned appears in George’s place whose towering height means he nearly hits the top of the doorframe. She opens her mouth to gape at the sight of him, infuriated.
“Oh for Christ’s sake, look at the state of you Ned! Is it too much to ask to have a little…“ she flounders for the right word, gesturing wildly with a free hand and then snapping her fingers “decorum!”
She looks up at him in despair, hand on her hip. “Go and sort your hair please.”
“Ma mère it’s alright!” he insists, trying to not laugh at her exasperation and Richard thinks maybe it does look alright. Somehow his brother with his sharp angular jaw and big blue eyes can make anything look good.
“No, it’s not. Just – oh, do I have to do everything myself?” she exclaims, pulling him down to her tiny height to brush the tawny curls out of his eyes until it sits nicely.
She takes pride in this sort of thing, bustling about like a little finch, snapping good-naturedly at her children to be careful and do things properly. This Christmas was no exception and all this fussing could only get worse with their guests’ arrival.
And just like that, like God himself is laughing at him, the doorbell rings out its happy chime and Cecily is flapping her hands, wiping them down on her apron.
“Get that, would you Rich? I’ve got to put my earrings in.” she insists, but he instead stares at the jewels in her lobes with purpose, straight-faced. She just smiles her omniscient smile, waving him away.
“Other earrings! Now hurry up, we don’t want to keep our guests waiting.”
Oh, she knows. She definitely knows.
Making sure to place he and Anne’s name cards next to one another at the end of the table, he heads towards the door, heart hammering in his chest. He could kick himself for being so stupid. It’s just Anne, you idiot! he hisses under his breath before adding That’s precisely the problem. He pulls down his lumpy blue jumper, runs a hand through his dark curls and preps an easy grin.
Opening the door, he is greeted by the family he’s known all his life looking like a Christmas card, balancing foil-covered trays and a generously sized bottle of prosecco. The Nevilles, apart from Isabel who always maintains her porcelain complexion, look bronzed from their holiday abroad.
“Merry Christmas!” they cry out and Anne’s mum pulls him close trying to not crush her dish, her dad slaps him a couple times on the back and Isabel kisses him on both cheeks in the European style she’s adopted since going to art school. She looks perfectly pretentious, straight from the glossy pages of a magazine, chestnut hair capped with a beret, placed artfully over her choppy lob.
His family appear from behind him and take over, exchanging hugs and phrases like “Look at you!” and “It’s been too long”. He can only hear the beat of his heart in his chest, pounding in his temples, the familiar greetings running together in the same chirpy tone. He doesn’t even realise that Anne’s mum has handed him the bottle of prosecco or that Isabel is asking him a question because Anne has come into sight, the last and littlest one through the door and he swears his heart stops, almost dropping the bottle before Ned reaches out to take it from him.
“Annie” he breathes, not caring that his siblings are watching, not seeing how his mother watches them out of the corner of her eye with something like pride.
She looks adorable in a crimson woollen hat with a matching scarf, paired with a neat little peacoat that brings out the copper of her hair.
“Rich.”
She is looking straight at him with those intuitive eyes of hers and he absorbs every shadow and inch of light cast over her face, the smatter of freckles on her nose, the sprinkle of snow in her hair and the sunburned flush on her cheeks.
“Merry Christmas,” he says to her and her alone, smile so wide he thinks his face will break.
As Cecily shoos everyone into the kitchen, he pulls her behind the living room door to steal a kiss as though they have spent a lifetime apart and not a matter of weeks. Anne’s hands are cool on Richard’s jaw, his resting on the small of her back as they kiss so deeply that Anne’s woollen hat is knocked aside, caught before it falls to the floor by Richard’s quick instincts.
“I have missed you,” she whispers, breathless, and he answers by pulling her in again, letting her cold lips meet his in front of the fire.
Maybe dinner won’t be so bad after all, he thinks.
When everyone is engaged in discussion or watching the Christmas re-runs with drooping eyelids and full stomachs, Richard decides it’s safe for he and Anne to take their leave. Asides from the dirty look George gave him when he saw the seating arrangement, dinner was an all-round success. He’d laughed until his belly ached with the stories Anne’s father told about work and been intrigued by Isabel’s ventures in photography, looking at her folio with genuine interest (holding Anne’s hand under the table only helped matters). Best of all, there had been no questions asked, only pointed glances shared between their parents as they saw Anne go bright red at the table plan. That Richard could deal with.
Three games of Scrabble later with some of the most interesting words Richard had ever seen on the board (“Since when is ‘errorist’ a word?” “It means being wrong all the time… like you’re being right now”) the two of them make their way upstairs. They are slightly tipsy, but in the light-headed touchy-feely kind of way that makes you feel as though your feet aren’t touching the floor as they shove the door of Richard’s room open.
Nothing much has changed about his childhood bedroom and it is oddly comforting. The same clean white sheets cover the bed pushed against the wall and the same patterned blue quilt lies over top. His father’s oak desk carved with his initials sits beneath the window and a towering bookshelf overflowing with paperbacks slots in the corner. His pinboard is crowded with photos, tickets from concerts, postcards from Eliza’s year abroad and a photo of he, Anne and Francis in the middle when they were about sixteen, fresh faced and grinning at some party.
Nothing has changed but some things definitely have, he muses, kissing the back of Anne’s hand before they flop onto the bed which creaks beneath them.
For a moment they lie there, staring up at the ceiling and hands resting on their stomachs before Anne bolts upright in sudden realisation.
“I have something for you” she says, eyes glittering with excitement.
“So do I.”
“Perfect. Give me a minute then” she answers, heaving herself from the bed with a groan and disappearing into the guest bedroom next door. In the meantime, Richard rolls off the bed and opens his cupboard to check his gift is still in place, just in case it had managed to disappear since he had stashed it away.
Everything has to be just right.
The door opens with a squeak as Anne holds the wrapped gift above her head, triumphant. Richard nearly jumps a foot in the air and quickly shoves the door shut, knocking over his waste bin in the process. Shit, shit, shit-
“Found it. You alright?”
“Never better” he bluffs, kicking the scrunched-up papers under his desk.
Idiot.
She gives him a knowing smile and sits herself on the bed, patting the space next to her and he follows suit as she hands him her present, fingers brushing over one another’s.
“Thank you Annie, you didn’t have to-“
“Oh shut up with the pleasantries and open it already.”
They lean against the wall, legs dangling over the side of the bed and Anne’s head lolling onto his good shoulder like a pretty paperweight. He unwraps the package with care, untying the bow of white ribbon and making sure not to tear the paper. A scrapbook slides into his lap, surprisingly heavy with cuttings peeking out at the edges, an elegant R and A drawn on the front (“Izzy helped me with that bit” she reveals, tracing the curling calligraphy with a smile).
They have always stuck to the tradition of giving each other handmade presents, no matter how long it takes. Over the years there have been pop-up cards, wonky scarves and watercolour paintings and this year, it seems, is no different.
He flips it open and it is the first time they met, a bright June morning in the hospital at Anne’s birth with his family crowded around the bed. He is in his mother’s arms as she sits beside her friend, looking at the little pink bundle with wonder, tufts of jet hair curling around his ears. George standing beside Isabel is bemused, Eliza is beaming, Ned is yawning and Meg is holding her father’s hand. His mouth aches from smiling as he takes in the little additions Anne has made in her neat script like some things never change with an arrow next to Ned.
A pressed branch of pink honeysuckle is pasted to the page, “Saved by mum” she adds, ghosting a finger around its edge. Beside it are pictures of their mums holding them in their laps, glowing with maternity and the two of them like night and day, Anne with a head of red wisps and Richard with big dark eyes (oh so serious scrawled beside him).
The passage of time moves quickly as he turns over the page, the two of them holding hands on the first day of school, Anne drowned in a red gingham dress and black shoes and Richard in his school jumper, hair a mess of dark curls. His mother taking a note of their heights on the kitchen wall in pencil, Richard stretching on his tiptoes and Anne a full head smaller than him. The five Plantagenet siblings lined up on the sofa with Anne and Isabel in matching dungarees squeezed in between them. Birthday parties and chins smeared with pastel icing, trips to the beach with their families wearing sunglasses and giggling, shared holidays to the south of France with Richard’s skin tanned, Anne’s sunburnt.
All at once these memories frozen on film animate before his eyes. He remembers when Anne would squeeze her eyes shut as she blew out her candles, refusing to tell him what she’d wished for and him dying to know so he could fulfil it. The sickly sweet icing on his lips, the warmth of the sun as they explored rockpools on the beach.
A birthday card he had written her, including a crayon drawing of his family and Anne’s with stick legs and arms, is slotted opposite.
“I don’t know if your art’s improved much, Rich.”
“Watch it.”
As they move towards the middle of the book, teenage Anne’s short-lived fringe makes an appearance, as does Richard’s equally short-lived relationship with eyeliner that has Anne wheezing before he even turns over the page. He groans “Never again” while she holds her stomach with laughter but he notes smugly that she has drawn little hearts around it, so it couldn’t have been too bad.
Scrappy notes written in school and passed under desks are folded with care in individual envelopes with a synopsis of their contents – “Noughts and crosses, a game of hangman and a tally of the minutes going by. Surely maths wasn’t that bad?!”
He stops short at a page near the end, before, he assumes, the next chapter, dumbstruck. It is sparse compared to the other pages, just one photo pasted in the middle. It is almost the same photo of them pinned on Richard’s board but not quite. Francis has ducked out of the shot and it is just the two of them, blurry at the edges and unaware that Isabel has taken another photo. They are not smiling for the camera, but each other. Captured in one shot is the unmistakable longing, honey-brown eyes meeting dark ones, a fleeting smile lighting up Anne’s face and a blush spread over her cheeks, Richard flashing a shy one back. He thought that the truth couldn’t be captured on frame but this picture is living proof of it.
Above it, Anne has written I don’t think either of us are very good at hiding things and he has to bite back a laugh because of the truth of the matter. It is the smaller print below that makes his heart swell though, overcome with something he has known all his life.
I knew even then.
All he can do is press his mouth to her temple and wrap an arm around her side, squeezing tight. He remembers being sixteen and glancing her way, feeling like he couldn’t, Anne, Anne, Anne like an ache in his chest.
“Christ,” is all he can say at last, shaking his head as his eyes prick with tears which he tries to blink away. “We are the furthest thing from subtle.”
She leans into him, cheek burning on the skin of his neck. “I didn’t even know I had it,” she reveals, “but I found it when I was looking for the other ones and well… I just thought it was perfect.”
Time jumps forward again and suddenly they’re eighteen and headed to uni, all nervous smiles and fresh pages of new books. The two of them outside their halls, at flat parties and Ned’s soirees. His favourite on the page is a photobooth strip from Eliza’s wedding last year the two of them ridiculously drunk and eyes luminous. He is kissing Anne’s pink cheek in the first shot and in the next her whole face is ablaze, bright with affection.
Cheap polaroids and club photos fill the next couple of pages with nights he can’t remember all too well, nothing coming to mind but the red of Anne’s hair in the dark of night as they walked home arm in arm.
To top it all off, she’s even included a copy of her essay on property law which she’s gotten a 2:1 for – “All thanks to you!” written below.
“Well, well, well, what’d I tell you! Plagiarism does work after all,” he revels, skimming over the lecturer’s praising comments (“Not what she normally says, I can tell you that for sure” Anne adds).
“I’ll have you know I’m passionate about the rights of landlords and tenants over shared accommodation!” she replies with a straight face. This suggestion is so ridiculous that they both collapse into a fit of laughter, eyes welling up with tears.
When they’re recovered, Richard is suddenly serious again, sliding the essay back into its place.
“I don’t know why you don’t just talk to your tutor and switch to philosophy. You must’ve built up enough credits.”
She shakes her head, nonchalant but something underlying that he would have to press later. “One crisis at a time please. Besides, it’d break Mum’s heart. I can just hear it now,” she sighs, shifting her voice up the octave, “‘What can you do with a philosophy degree Annie?’”
“Talk all day. Sounds perfect for you” he replies, winding a strand of her hair round his finger.
“God, I hate it to say it but you’re right.”
Finally, at the back of the book is a blank space, empty and full of possibility and he looks up at Anne, the corner of his mouth twitching upwards.
“And well… I thought we could take a photo tonight, beside the Christmas tree or in the garden. Wherever really. It doesn’t matter as long as I’m with you. Just… something to remember tonight by.”
Her hand is splayed on the page and he rests his over top, smiling at her averted gaze and then at the brown eyes meet his, so honest, so kind, and he wants to give her everything she could ever desire.
“You’ve given me everything to remember it by, Annie” he says, “But I’ve got my disposable here somewhere.”
He opens his chest of drawers, raking through their contents to no avail and then his cupboard, finding it rolled at the bottom with just one film left.
“Well, it’ll have to do” he says, throwing himself back onto the bed and turning it the camera towards them with a grin, eyes for Anne and Anne alone. “One, two–“
Snap!
“I think I blinked.” Anne remarks as she blinks furiously.
The photo prints with a whirring sound and they watch their picture come to life and they both look at it with a smile. Anne’s eyes are on Richard and vice versa, as if the camera did not exist, as if nothing else matters, just as though they were about to turn their heads towards but had simply forgotten it was even there. Why would he when he has a vision of loveliness right in front of him?
“I don’t know why we even bother with a camera,” she breathes, smiling to herself as she slots it into the space on the page. Linking Richard’s slender fingers with her own, they close their book together, content to start their next chapter.
“And now… you said you had something?” Anne says, eyebrow raised and mouth on the verge of laughter.
“Patience, patience!” he laughs, sliding her gift onto his bedside table, in pride of place. He pushes himself up on his elbows and says “Alright, just a sec” as he heads over to the cupboard where he’s stashed her gift away.
“Ah, so that’s what you were trying so hard to hide when I came in!” she exclaims, joy creeping onto her features.
“Oh, shut it,” he replies, hiding it behind his back, fingers trembling.
“And please, just before I give this to you, excuse how it looks. As you can see,” he says, unusually embarrassed and gesturing to the pile of crumpled letters he’d kicked under his desk, “there were a few attempts.”
She shakes her head as he holds out an envelope addressed to her, a dimple appearing in her cheek.
“Ever the perfectionist” she mutters, tearing the seal and smoothing out the letter with screeds of slanted script. All the while Richard watches in anticipation, palms sweating.
Annie,
Bear with me here. It’s difficult to put into words what we have but I’m going to do my best.
When we were five, you were the centre of my world and my best friend in everything. Always have been. You served me imaginary tea from your china teapot in the garden and in return, I told you stories from books or made up my own and they became ours.
When we were eight, my dad passed and when we came round to your house after the funeral, I was crying like I’d never done in my life. I don’t think I’d ever wept in front of you and you were scared, I could see it. To my utter disbelief, it was you who came and found me when I was hiding under the kitchen table. You hugged me tight and told me it was okay to cry too because “I do it all the time”. You made me laugh when all I wanted to do was cry and I loved you for it.
When were thirteen, I made you a CD (remember when that was a thing?) and I spent hours trying to download songs from our monster of a computer. Nearly broke the damned thing, had to ask Ned for help when it all froze up and pray Mum wouldn’t find out. I wondered if you ever listened to the songs I’d picked out like that Grieg concerto you said was your favourite, the songs we listened to at the bus stop when we shared earbuds and my dad’s old records that we’d put on when you were round at mine.
When we were seventeen, we went to the school dance as “friends”. Mum helped me pick out the roses for the corsage I gave you and looking back, she must’ve known before I did. When you walked through my front door, all wispy red hair and honey eyes you could drown in, I knew I was really, really far gone. It wasn’t until we were swaying on the dancefloor to whatever terrible ballad was playing though that I realised how much I wanted to be more than what we were – I just had to tell you so. Don’t ask me why I waited so long, we were both too stubborn to see what was right in front of us.
I don’t think you know how beautiful you are Annie, or if I’ve ever told you in those words – but I’m telling you now. You have this ability to draw people to you like planets orbiting the sun, me most of all, and when you break into a smile because of something stupid I’ve said, I know I’m lucky for it. I can only hope that I can show you how much you mean to me.
And now, I am twenty and you are nineteen. You are sharp, quick-witted and ridiculously clever but more than that, you are tender-hearted and wear that thing on your sleeve. You see people for who they really are and sometimes when we’re studying together I wonder what the hell you’re doing studying law because although you’re a brilliant debater, I know you’d rather be arguing about Aristotle than case studies.
So from now on, I want us to do what we really want, this included. Take the leap Annie and do what you love. Follow your heart and see where it leads because you never know, it might be as surprising as these last few weeks have been.
This letter is another piece of my heart that I willingly give over to you because you have it Annie, always have.
Let this spring be ours.
With all of my heart,
Rich.
“Oh, Rich. Richard.”
His name sounds so soft, so vulnerable when she says it, lilting like the rise of a soprano’s song.
It is then that he reveals the other half of his present, a bunch of white roses, clipped fresh from the garden, frost melting into droplets of water that drip from the petals, cool to the touch.
“I just thought, they’re ours, for winter and for the rest too.”
He looks up and her eyes are glistening, a tear sliding down her cheek and he brushes it away, relieved that she’s smiling beneath the hand that covers her mouth. She is laughing then as she squeezes her eyes shut, breaking into laughter like the crescendo of a fantastic symphony.
“God, I love you Richard. You’re just ridiculous.”
He lets out the breath he didn’t know he was holding and when he takes another it is new and it is sweet and it is Anne. He kisses the corner of her mouth, the tip of her nose, the soft skin of her hands, the hollowed dimple in her cheek, everywhere that is red and blushing because of him and them.
“I love you, I love you,” he says, the only truth he has ever known, eyes ablaze as she pushes him into the mattress, never breaking their gaze. She rests on top of him, holding her hand over the hollow of his chest, over the heart which beats beneath for her.
“I always have,” he whispers, tugging gently at her wool jumper until her freckled shoulder is exposed and he leans forward to cover it with kisses as she knots her hands in his hair, gasping at the sensation of his lips on her skin.
“You think,” she says, eyes sparkling and lashes wet, “I don’t know that?”
He reaches out a hand to lift the underside of her jaw, feeling it burn beneath his fingers, and brings her mouth to his like so many times before. As if by instinct, Anne pulls at the jumper that covers Richard’s skin and he reciprocates, tossing it to one side as she runs a hand over the muscle of his chest, the breadth of his shoulders, careful to ghost over his bad one.
Soon there is a pool of wool and denim on the floorboards, the two of them long-limbed and lithe, skin scorching as they explore the places they have never been with each other. Rain runs against the glass in a comforting thrum to the beat of Richard’s heart, a flush spreading from his neck to his hairline in a prickling sensation.
He dances his fingers over the soft flesh on top of him, pale and gentle as the petal of a white rose. They are totally unhurried, as though they have all the time in the world, frozen like the snow outside, Richard kissing every freckle that marks her skin and Anne moving on top as he breathes in the faint smell of sandalwood perfume on her neck. She clings to him, red hair spilling like ink over her shoulders while she buries her face in his neck, whispering his name over and over like it is the only one she has ever known, Richard, Richard, Richard and it has never sounded more appealing to him than when she says it in her ragged voice.
It is new and it is sweet and it is Anne, but it is so loving that he could cry out as they reach their peak, shuddering with the bliss of it all as the storm outside lulls to a calm. Beneath the twisted sheets, they relish in the warmth of each other, the gentle rise and fall of their chests and the light which spills onto the bed.
He does not know how long they have lain there, hands knotted in the back of her hair when out of the darkness, Anne whispers, “Look” lifting her head from his chest and he does as she commands, as if in some dreamlike trance. Outside the window, the snow has been washed away by the rain, greenery blooming beneath in pools of water. As the morning rises beneath the grey mist and the white roses bloom in the garden, Anne lolls her head onto his side, their hearts in tandem.
“It’s spring.”