Seven years of marriage, fourteen years of loving her, and somehow I let it come to this.
Across the vast white expanse of the frozen bay, Aunt Jocelyne shows Corey how to spoon slush out of the holes to prevent the ice from forming back, while Cayce hovers nearby, pretending he already knows everything there is to know about ice fishing.
Despite not wanting kids of her own, she’s always been great with them. She catches my eye and gives me a meaningful look, tilting her head toward Rachel.
The morning light catches on Rachel’s hair where it escapes her wool hat. She’s working with Aisha now, the two of themsetting up some camping chairs around the fishing hut. Even from here, I can see the tension in her shoulders, the careful way she holds herself apart from the family’s usual easy affection.
It’s like she’s already starting to detach herself from them.
From me.
Mom and Dad are sharing worried glances again. They’ve known Rachel since she was seventeen—watched her grow from the shy, reserved girl into the accomplished woman and mother she is today.
They were at every CEGEP and university graduation with us. They celebrated her first official pharmacist job with as much excitement as we did.
To them, she’s not just daughter-in-law; she’s the daughter they never had.
Aunt Jocelyne approaches Rachel with a thermos of what’s probably her famous hot chocolate. I observe as she coaxes a small smile from my wife. The two of them have always shared a special bond, Rachel once telling me she admired how Jocelyne never apologized for choosing a life that made her happy, even when it didn’t fit others’ expectations.
The irony of that conversation isn’t lost on me now.
“You know,” Ajay says, “staring at her isn’t going to fix anything.”
“I'm not—”
“Save it.” He cuts me off with blunt honesty. “Look, you might still see me as a kid, and you might have more life experience than me, but even I can see you’re screwing this up. Rachel’s not the type to wait around forever while you figure out your priorities.”
His words hit harder coming from him. Ajay, who used to follow me around when we were kids—or rather, when he was a kid and I was a teenager—who looked up to me as the cousin who had life all figured out.
Now he’s looking at me with something like disappointment.
“I know my priorities,” I say, but the words ring hollow even to me.
The issue isn’t that I don’t know. It’s that I may have figured it out too late.
And the last thing I want is to hash it out and ruin Christmas for the entire family.
Ajay raises an eyebrow. “If you say so…”
But I can tell he doesn’t believe me, and truthfully, I don’t know that I truly believe myself.
Chapter 20
February 2022
The tension in the air as we sit at my parents’ dinner table is palpable. I swallow a bite of Mom’s roast chicken, hardly taking the time to savour the juicy meat.
It’s not that it’s quiet. Not at all. The boys, sat at their mismatched high chairs my parents found at a garage sale, are babbling and knocking things over and not quite eating as much as we’d like. Mom’s the one feeding them; she insisted, saying she didn’t mind eating her own plate after.
There’s something else, and I can’t put my finger on it. Rachel seems to be doing fine. I know some of Mom’s comments have begun to grate on her, but we’re leaving in just a few days, and she told me she’s okay.
Dad is quiet, but he always is during dinner. Still, I keep an eye on the lines of his shoulders for flashes of upset. Or rage.
Old habit.
And is that tension I see in Mom’s shoulders, or is that from the awkward angle she’s contorting her body in to feed the twins?
I continue to eat in silence, the weight of it threatening to crush me.
