By the time he wiggled his way through the crowd, speeches were underway. Philip was telling a story about a family road trip when he was a child. Seb had heard it before. It ended in a tent with a leak so big they were floating by the time Dinah finally announced the vacation was over.
A hand on his hip was the only warning he got before Martin slid up against his side. “Where’d you go?” His smile was loose, and there was a glass of wine in his hand.
“I had to go bury a body in the backyard.” Seb pulled Martin close to him and nuzzled against his neck. Martin laughed and pressed a kiss to his hair. Being this close to Martin was warm and safe, and it seemed impossible that they had waited so long to get here when they fit so well together.
His father’s speech ended. Gillian took her turn. Then Parker. Oliver stood up, the golden son. What would it be like a year from now, when his custom suits were replaced with hemp? Oliver’s speech included the time he and Seb had run away from home when then were eight and ten. They’d gone about two blocks before realizing their plan involved leaving the house, but not a destination. They went to their grandparents’, where Dinah fed them grilled cheese and chocolate milk until their mother came to get them. Ollie left out the part of the story where Philip had been so furious he’d thrown out all the toys they’d taken with them and refused to replace them. Dinah’s face shone as she listened to Oliver recount the whole adventure. This wasn’t the moment to dwell on old hurts.
“And now I’d like to introduce my brother.”
It took Seb a minute to realize that Oliver meant for him to make a speech.
* * *
When Seb’s hand slipped out of his, Martin almost didn’t understand what was happening. But then Seb was crossing the open space, cutting through the crowd gathered around to share stories and well wishes. Instinctively, without Seb’s solid presence to bolster him, Martin slipped back between the people, or else they moved forward, and he stayed where he was. There seemed to be a lot of collective breath holding as Seb bent to kiss his grandmother’s cheek.
“Well, this is embarrassing,” Seb said as he turned. “Because Oliver totally took my story. Except he implied that we were brothers in arms on that little escapade, and I want to make it very clear, for the record, that Ollie was the mastermind, and I was just following orders.”
Quiet laughter rippled over the group, while Oliver called they would have to agree to disagree.
“My grandmother.” Seb’s smile was warm as she took his hand in hers and patted it. “My grandmother took me to see my first play when I was nine. We went just the two of us. Do you remember?”
Dinah beamed up at him. “Alice in Wonderland.”
“Alice in Wonderland. It seemed like a really big deal, because usually we went to see you and Grampie as a family, all six of us, but here was this time where I got to spend the whole day with just you. I thought it was going to be boring, though. Because I was nine andAlice in Wonderlandis about a girl, and those things together mean it’s going to be boring. But then it wasn’t. It was...” He tensed as he stared out over the crowd, his defenses starting to come up, warding off the invisible judgement radiating off his extended family.
It was unfair that Seb couldn’t even let himself have this moment.
Martin’s hands trembled. The last time he had been this uncomfortable in this suit, he’d been the one standing at the front of a crowd of people, trying to make himself heard. He had been so nervous until he had seen the bright shape of Seb in the back of the room. Then he talked to Seb like he was the only person there.
He shifted, finding an open spot where he had a clear line of sight. The movement must have caught Seb’s attention because he turned, and his blue eyes locked on Martin’s. His head tilted, and the tension in the straight line of his shoulders started to relax.
“It was magic. There were puppets. Everything in Wonderland was puppets. After the play, we went backstage, and you could see them. They were papier-mâché, and they had been made from the pages of old books. Do you remember?” He looked down at his grandmother, who nodded.
“I wasn’t much of a reader. I wasn’t very good in school at all. But that day...I thought, here is something I can do. Here is the way I can find magic in those books.” His eyes were shining as he turned back to Martin. Seb chewed on his lip and ran a hand along the back of his head, like the next part made him nervous.
“When I heard there was a party, I wasn’t sure if this was the kind of shindig that involved gifts. But the other thing my grandmother taught me was to never come to a party empty handed. So I brought you something.”
Behind the chair where Dinah sat was a small end table, probably meant to sit next to the chair, but moved out of the way to make more room for the afternoon. Seb pulled it out and set it in front of her. He turned, and Oliver started forward, but Seb spoke directly to Martin. “Can you help me?”
The box, the one they’d hauled in from the rental car, sat on another table by the door. It was just as heavy as the day before, but now Martin had an idea what was inside, and it felt even more precious.
They set it on the little table, barely big enough to hold it. Oliver joined them and helped Dinah to stand and pull the bright wrapping paper off the package. Inside was a heavy pressboard container, which explained a lot of the weight. Seb released a latch on the bottom with a snap. He gestured to Martin again, and together they lifted the top off, leaving the contents on the base.
A gasp sounded in the room, and Martin had a moment of disappointment that he couldn’t see whatever was inside at the same time as everyone else. He was setting the box down, but when he stood, it didn’t matter because everyone around him was enchanted, and there was lots of time to catch up.
On the little table was a square case with glass panels on all four sides. A small peaked top was finished with a wooden knob, and the same warm wood made up the base. The first thing he noticed was the little frowning man standing at the corner, back to the glass. He looked like a beach ball in a jockey’s cap, and the frown made Martin recognize Tweedledee.
Inside the glass, a black and white illustrated Alice looked up at the Cheshire Cat in his tree. Seb had split the image out, so the cat was set deeper into the case than Alice. Enhancing the depth was a forest of cut-out trees, each one made from faded yellow pages of text. It was a diorama, but under Seb’s skillful blade, it had life.
The crowd murmured again as Seb grasped the knob at the top, and then the whole creation turned slowly. The square case had been divided, wooden panels running from the corners, into four compartments, each one triangular. Each compartment showed another cut-out scene from Alice’s adventures. The Cheshire Cat. Alice playing croquet with a flamingo. The caterpillar on his mushroom. The white rabbit disappearing down a hall of increasingly small doors. All made from black-and-white illustrations and Lewis Carroll’s printed words.
“It’s Alice for Alice,” Seb said. He kissed his grandmother’s cheek and turned his creation again.
The room broke into applause. Oliver shook Seb’s hand and then helped their grandmother back into her chair. Seb slipped his arm through Martin’s and squeezed.
“It’s beautiful,” Martin said into his ear.
Seb grinned and kissed his cheek. “I think she liked it.”
“Everybody liked it. You did good.” They moved back into the crowd.
“I did, huh? Kenneth’s going to be pissed though.”
Martin frowned at the mention of Seb’s agent. “What do you mean?”
“That was supposed to be the last piece for the Schiller show, and I just gave it to my grandmother.”
