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Lando turns over slowly, vision hazy with sleep and finds Oscar awake.
“Morning sweetheart.” Lando has never quite gotten out of the habit of pet names, even after a good sixty years of marriage, and seventy years of being with Oscar.
Oscar reaches over and fixes a stray strand of hair, and Lando smiles. Oscar too, is unchanged. His hair may be grey instead of brown, and he might not be able to bend his wrists all the way backwards the way He could at twenty-two, or have the reaction time he used to have but when Lando looks at him, he is as beautiful as the day they met.
“Did you sleep well?” Oscar’s voice is soft and so is Lando's smile.
“Yeah” Lando hums. “I’m starving though.” He sits up and swings his legs out from under the covers as if it was just yesterday that he was in the Mclaren car, going 200 miles per hour round a track. "Breakfast?”
Oscar stretches in bed like a lazy cat basking in the morning sun. “I think I’ll sleep in for a bit, I’m not really hungry anyway.” Lando nods and makes his way downstairs, where the housekeeper is making breakfast for him
“Smells amazing Hannah” he greets “any chance I could get some bacon with that?”
“Lando,” Hannah’s tone is disapproving, like she’s telling off a little kid. “You know your doctor said no high-cholesterol foods”
Lando sighed dramatically but sits down and pulls the bowl of porridge towards him anyway. He had initially been opposed to the idea of hiring a housekeeper, but Jack argued that his parents needed someone to make sure they were sticking to their respective diet plans. Lando had relented in the end. Their son’s charming smile and his husband’s determination. A lethal combination, he muses.
“Oscar isn’t having breakfast today, by the way.” Lando blatantly remembers to inform Hannah. “He said he isn’t hungry.”
Hannah’s back is facing from where she stands by the kitchen sink window, but she nods in acknowledgement, not making any comment. The way her shoulders tense goes unnoticed by him.
Lando notices that she hadn’t even prepared a second bowl of porridge, and frowns slightly. To be fair Oscar has been skipping a fair amount of breakfasts lately. Something about his appetite shrinking with age, though Oscar had never been a light eater.
“I’m going to clean the shelves today” Hannah says as he finishes breakfast and puts his bowl into the sink. “They’re getting dusty. What are you planning to do today, Lando?”
“I think I might bring a book up for Oscar,” Lando muses “He’s been wanting to read more lately.”
“Ah” Hannah says, she keeps her eyes on the pot she is scrubbing and is silent for a bit before she speaks again. “I think the weeds are starting to grow in the flower beds again. How about some gardening? The weather is beautiful today.” Hannah pauses, sensing his hesitation she presses on “I’m sure Oscar would like to rest too.”
“Right you are.” Lando's gaze clears, and he smiles brightly at the little pot of sunflowers outside the window. He doesn’t notice the line of tension in Hannah’s shoulders relaxing at his agreement.
In the garden Lando gets the woven basket of tools from the shed and settles down onto a small stool to start his weeding. His neighbour, a friendly middle-aged woman is out in her garden too, tending her tomato plants with a giant sun hat on her head. She reminds Lando of his mother and he smiles fondly. “Oh, Diana, I forgot to tell you, Paul won first place in his art competition last weekend.” Lando says proudly “heaven knows where he got that art flair from, because he certainly didn’t get it from his parents or his grandparents!”
Diana chuckles heartily and gets back to her gardening. Lando wipes a bead of sweat from his head and turns to see Oscar watching him, elbows resting on the windowsill. he looks like a fairy tale, perfectly framed by the ivy-covered walls of the house. He waves up to him. “Is Oscar up there?” Diana asks, squinting at the window behind Lando He’s backlit by the sun so Lando can’t quite make out his expression.
“Yeah, he’s resting again today. Probably the joint pains again.”
“I see” she says and gives a little wave to the now empty window. Lando frowns a little.
“He’s gone back inside,” he says, “I’ll tell him you said hi later.”
She pauses for a brief moment, then nods. “Of course, must have been a trick of the light.”
At 3 pm Lando calls his brother, their weekly phone calls becoming practically a tradition, as their lives took separate trajectories and their backs could no longer stand the three hour journey between them. “How’s Oscar?” Oliver asks suddenly. Lando turns to where Oscar lays on the pillow next to him as he cards a hand through his hair, still soft after all these years.
“Better today” he says, still looking at his husband, committing the domestic sight to memory. “Hey Ollie?”
“Yeah Lando?”
“I’m really happy.” The speaker crackles a little, Lando thinks his brother is suppressing a snort
“Whatever you say Lan.” They chat for a little longer but soon end the call.
“Television programs are so lame these days.” Lando complained as he flicks off the TV. “I’d much rather watch old races than whatever silly dramas they have on now.”
Oscar puts his book down on the coffee table. “Do you want to go to bed?”
“I’m not tired yet.” He says, not caring that he sounds like the bratty teenager that he once was long ago “I don’t want to sleep.”
Oscar walks over to the radio, fiddles with it for a bit before an old song echoes through the living room. He turns back to Lando, hand outstretched. “May I have this dance?”
Seventy years and his heart still skips a beat with the way Oscar’s eyes twinkle in the golden hour lighting. He takes his hand as he lets Oscar pull him up “you’re so cringy, Oscar” he earns a light laugh for the comment as they start swaying to the old, slow tune.
“I love you, Oscar.”
“I love you too, Lando.”
Outside, their neighbours pass by the house on their way home. “Mama” the young girl asks. “Why is Mr Lando doing that?”
Their neighbour follows her daughters gaze into the illuminated living room of the Norris’s house, a lone silhouette swaying in the quiet evening. She smiles sadly at her daughter.
“He just misses someone a lot, darling.”