Lucas arranged the ornaments on the mantelpiece, then looked back in the box. ‘We have more.’
He found twelve different ornaments that he placed around the lounge and soon it looked more festive. There was also a fake holly and ivy garland wrapped in tissue paper that he draped carefully around the mantelpiece.
‘It definitely looks like your mum has been here now,’ his father said, his voice thick with emotion.
‘It does.’ Lucas had put the tree up in the corner of the lounge that morning and added some fairy lights that they’d picked up at the tree farm, and now the lights twinkled prettily. ‘Hopefully there will be some baubles in the last box that we can hang on the tree.’
He moved the second box to the floor, then opened the last one. There were three smaller boxes inside, so he got them out and opened one. ‘And here we have some baubles.’ He started getting them out and lined them up on the table. There was a snowman made of clay, crudely painted with eyes and a mouth made of small black dots to resemble stones, and an orange triangle that he guessed was a carrot.
‘Oh…’ His dad blinked, and the line between his brows deepened as he frowned. ‘She kept this all those years.’
‘Did I make that?’ Lucas asked.
‘You did. In primary school. I think you would have been about six. You came home with it and were so proud.’ He held the snowman up by the ribbon attached to it and it twirled around like it was dancing.
‘And Mum kept it.’ Lucas thought of how long the snowman had been in the house and how carefully his mum must have packed it up every year for it to last. ‘What a softy she was.’
‘Always.’ His father gave a slow nod. ‘She deserved far better than she got from me.’
Lucas took the snowman and hung it on the tree, then returned to the small box and pulled out some bubble wrap that enclosed a small oval shape. He unwrapped it to find a locket with a wintery scene painted on the front. He pressed the small button at the locket’s base and the lid sprang open, revealing a mirror.His reflection stared up at him, so he closed it again. ‘This isn’t a Christmas decoration, though?’
‘Your mum used to hang it on the tree. It was her grandmother’s, and she kept it with the Christmas things because of the wintery scene on it.’
‘It’s beautiful.’
‘It is.’ His father held out his hand and Lucas set the locket on his palm, then went back to the box.
They spent the next half an hour going through different baubles that included some from France where they’d visited a Christmas market, some from Tenby in Wales where they’d gone for a holiday when Lucas was a toddler and others from holidays over the years. His mum had clearly enjoyed collecting souvenirs. Lucas liked that the decorations were different, and all had significance from places they’d been as a family. It also reminded him about how much his mum had cared about her husband and son and treasured the time they spent together.
The other small boxes held some glass baubles wrapped in tissue paper that Lucas hung on the tree and a card envelope that he opened. Inside were some Christmas cards his father had given to his mother and some photos. He set the cards down and looked through the photos, and his throat closed up with emotion.
‘Let’s see,’ his father said.
There was one of Lucas as a baby lying on a sheepskin rug in front of the fireplace. He was wearing a white knitted outfit of leggings and a jumper with tiny buttons on the shoulder. On his feet, he wore green velvet booties, and he was smiling up at whoever was taking the photo.
‘Ahhh … Your mum knitted this outfit for you. We had little cash to spare so she scrounged up what wool she could and knitted you an outfit. You were adorable in it.’
‘Mum enjoyed knitting, didn’t she?’ Lucas asked.
‘She did. And she was very good at it.’ His father touched a finger to the photo and then looked at Lucas. ‘Crazy to think you were once that small. You were about four months old there and a very happy little chap.’
Lucas handed his father the photo. The next one was of his parents. They looked very young, and they were holding hands and standing in front of the harbour in the village. His mum was smiling at the camera, but his father was gazing at his mum like he had eyes for nothing else.
He handed the photo to his father and watched as he looked at it, his Adam’s apple bobbing furiously. After a while, his father looked up and Lucas saw his eyes were glistening. ‘I loved your mum. Very much. There are no excuses for what I did later on in our marriage, but all I can say is that time and experiences wear us down. They wore me down and soon I forgot to appreciate what I had and thought I’d be happier with something … someone different. I was wrong. I was very wrong, but by then, I had done the damage and caused the hurt. And yet your mum stuck by me and never left. She was an angel. If only we had hindsight before we do something; it would help us avoid doing things that hurt the ones we love. But then it wouldn’t be hindsight if it came first, like some sort of vision. Look how beautiful your mum is there and how happy she is.’
Lucas nodded. His mum was glowing, and the way his dad was looking at her reminded him of how he used to look at Thora. Love like that was precious, and it was so sad when people lostit or … when they forgot to look for it. Lucas had read once that a person could be as much in love with someone as they wanted to be, and he sometimes wondered if that was true. Could you choose to be in love, as much in love as you liked, with someone for all of your life? There must be ways and means to ensure that you didn’t tire of each other. True, physical beauty faded and so did initial attraction, but what if it could morph into something lasting, something that endured because you loved and respected your partner and didn’t feel the need to look for a fresh ‘hit’ of attraction with someone else. Yes, sometimes people couldn’t reconcile with their partner and that was when it was better to part, but sometimes a love was so deep, intense and real that letting go of it was a huge mistake.
They looked through some more photos and reminisced as they found ones of Christmases gone by, of snowstorms that had swept over Cornwall and shut roads and businesses for weeks at a time. There were also some newspaper clipping and coupons cut out of magazines. He’d been an adult when his mum had passed away and so he’d known her as an adult, but some memories had faded over the years and seeing these things gave him fresh insight into who she’d been. Hoping to save money, she had saved coupons. She had kept cards that had sentimental value to her. She had treasured a locket that had belonged to her grandmother. And she had loved her family more than anything in the world. His heart ached as he looked through the things she’d kept, and then he came to the last photograph.
‘Thora,’ he said, as he gazed at the photo. It showed him and Thora standing with his mum back when they were about eighteen. He was in the middle with his arms around their shoulders and they were all smiling at the camera. Behind them was the sea and a clear blue sky.
‘You were young there,’ his dad said.
‘Very.’ Lucas frowned. ‘Why is it in with the Christmas stuff?’
‘Who knows? Perhaps your mum packed it away by mistake one year.’ His dad gave a small shrug. ‘Or perhaps you were meant to find it today…’ He trailed off and Lucas looked at him.
‘You think?’
