Part One: Christmas Surprises OOC: Co-written with wilde_at_heart.
Nathaniel did not realize something was wrong the moment he stepped into the house; he was too busy letting his eyes adjust to the light, and enjoying the familiar sights of what was effectively his second home. However, he was no more than two steps into the family room when he realized something was, in fact, very wrong.
He glanced toward his brother and cousins to see if they noticed it, too: the excessive distance between his mother and his aunt and uncle; the tension in the air, the way Uncle Alexander was turning a button on his sleeve. Before he could analyze their expressions, though, his eyes moved of their own accord back to his mother, thinking there was his best chance to figure out what was wrong: he hadn’t, after all, spent the past several years carefully analyzing every muscle twitch and intonation of Uncle Alexander or Aunt Avery’s, trying to figure out what would be the least bad thing to say. He always wanted to respond correctly to his uncle and aunt, of course, but he didn’t worry about breaking them to pieces with one wrong word.
His mother wouldn’t meet his eyes. Why wouldn’t she meet his eyes? What was going on?
Sylvia was, at this moment, the opposite of her cousin. She had noticed that something was bothering her father the second she had hugged him. He had had a big enough smile for her, and he scooped up with the usual ‘There’s my princess’ but there was that slightly weary, distracted air that there sometimes was about him. But that was thing - that was just there sometimes. Father was busy and important and that was stressful. Sometimes he was tired or preoccupied. She had assumed it was just one of those things, and put it out of her mind as they were pulled into their parents’ arms to be side-alonged back to the house. It wasn’t even a big surprise when they all went back to Sylvia’s - after all, they were one big family. And there was Jeremy. Jeremy had been awkward to deal with around going home for summer, so maybe this would just smooth that over nice and easily. They could all celebrate being home together. Although, much as Sylvia didn’t mind Nathaniel staying as long as he liked, she did hope Jeremy wouldn’t be hanging about any extra than was strictly necessary. It was starting to feel like he was moving in sometimes, and there was only so far that her patience extended with him.
She noticed Nate looking at her worriedly, but… well, that was about akin to saying Nate was present. The first hint that she got that something was wrong, that maybe her father seeming preoccupied had anything to do with them, rather than his work, was when he spoke.
“You should all sit down,” said Alexander at last, indicating the sofa across the rug from the chairs the adults occupied. “Your aunt – and your mother – “ he added with a shadow of a nod to Nathaniel and Jeremy – “has some news. Something she insisted she would be the one to relate,” he added, and his eyes narrowed slightly, “The floor’s all yours, Cynthia,” he invited, and though the words were gracious, and he even attended them with a small bow, there was something hard in his tone that suggested the veneer of civility that he had always put on for interactions with his sister-in-law was gone, and that this display of manners was intended more as an insult than a courtesy.
Dad’s dead, thought Nathaniel, and with that thought came a wave of relief, followed immediately by a pang of – something unpleasant – which he tried to ignore. He had good memories of his father, but they had all been lies, and anyway – his father’s death was really immaterial now, wasn’t it? He hadn’t been part of their lives for years. His death would be something to work through privately, but it was easily the least awful thing that he thought could provoke all this tension.
His mother glared at Uncle Alexander, her expression somewhere between furious and defiant – but also anxious. Nathaniel’s heart skipped a couple of beats, mirroring the anxiety. Maybe they argued about it because he was Uncle Alexander’s brother, he thought desperately, reaching for anything that seemed at all helpful.
Cynthia started to stand, hesitated, then finished standing. She tried to keep her face as smooth as possible, but her hands gave up the lie, clenched tight in front of her. “Yes,” she said, a touch breathlessly. “I do.”
Here it was. The only option she had. For a moment, she almost regretted flying at Alexander and Avery when they had tried to threaten her – regretted not only refusing to be told what to do yet again, but also subsequently announcing that she would tell the children herself. However, it was too late for that now, and anyway – she only almost regretted it.
She had never really been part of this family, she thought mutinously. They had never respected her, even when she had tolerated all she had during her marriage, even when she had given them two sons, even when she had spent all these years submitting to every whim of Avery’s and keeping her mouth shut no matter what was said behind her back to protect all of their reputations. To hell with them. To hell with Nicky and Alexander and Avery and everyone who had ever used the name Mordue, except of course for her boys. They were the only ones who mattered at all. To hell with Alexander and Avery and their demands and their threats and their picture-perfect lives –
“I’ve made a friend,” she said. “A very good friend. And I’m planning to marry him.”