In fact, he’s sitting up, rumpled and confused, as Tam levers himself from the floor and disappears into the kitchen, cursing the giant capon before he’s even shut the door.
Esme’s on my knee.
I hold out my hand to Galen. He takes it and slides from the couch to where we sit on the rug.
He winds a lock of Esme’s hair around a shaky finger. “You’d never leave her, would you?”
The whispered question feels out of context. And it shouldn’t. But we have time to fix that. Maybe not today, but soon. So I give him the truth. “Not for anyone or anything. How are you feeling?”
“I’m all right.”
It’s not really what I’m asking, but Esme notices Galen’s awake and her excitement shifts the mood. She bounces from me to him before I can catch her, flinging herself into Galen’s arms.
“Esme! Pas de saut, mon petit cœur. Il a des bleus.”
Bruises, I can see them under his clothes. And Esme, she wants to look. She rolls his sleeves up and peeks past his collar.
“Poor Galen,” she says so seriously I nearly break. “Faut du gâteau de Noël pour toi.”
Galen looks to me for translation.
“She thinks you need cake,” I supply. “When did you last eat?”
“I don’t know.”
I start to rise from the floor, but Tam pops up like a menacing matron, brandishing tea and a pile of Mr Kipling boxes that were definitely not in my house before he got there.
Then he disappears upstairs, taking Rudy with him, and he doesn’t come back for a while.
“I should go,” Galen says, his gaze drifting to the stairs. “Let you lot enjoy your Christmas.”
If Bhodi’s awake, I’m pretty sure my brother is enjoying his Christmas just fine, but I keep that to myself and ask the real question. “Do you want to go home?”
Galen’s staring into his empty tea mug. He seems to realise and sets it down. “No, but I don’t want to suck any more joy out of your life than I already have. Sab, I’m really sorry if I hurt you. I don’t know what’s happened to me since I met you.” He wraps his bruised knuckles to his temple. “It’s like I strangled myself with my own feelings.”
By chance, I’m on my knees at his feet, sweeping up magic sand while Esme plays with her precious fire truck, but I don’t feel submissive as I tilt my head to meet his gaze. “You didn’t do anything wrong. I should’ve told you I didn’t want to hook up with other people instead of going along with it.”
“That’s not just on you. I didn’t say anything either, about any of it. And then it got so messy in my head, I didn’t know how to fix it, and I should’ve done. It wasn’t fecking complicated.”
“It wasn’t?”
“Not for anyone with half a brain. I just…I don’t know. Did I ever tell you my dad left on Christmas Eve and I never saw him again?”
I blink. “No. When did that happen?”
“When I was eight. He was supposed to pick up the bacon from the butcher for my ma, and he got on a train to see his fancy woman instead. Last I heard, he’s still there.”
“He’s the someone who made you hate Christmas songs?”
“I don’t hate them.” Galen glances at Esme. “More it doesn’t take much for me to think I do. Even though my ma remarried and she’s happy as Larry with a fella we all callDathese days, you know?”
Based on what he’s told me about flashovers, extended hospital stays, and deadbeat dads, I’m beginning to. “I spent Christmas on a park bench once. Even though I knew my brother was running all over the city looking for me. That he’d have taken me home whatever state he found me in.”
“What state were you in?”
I don’t have the words for that. Not sure I ever will, but for Galen, I try. “The kind of state where I thought nothing could ever change. That it was pointless trying. Du désespoir…au-delà de tout.”
Despair, beyond everything.
