I couldn’t help but smile over my notes from my surgery this afternoon as the argument in the kitchen continued, each combatant growing ever more exasperated with the other.“Have you been at the whiskey then?” Jamie asked, a small note of hope in his voice that, perhaps, his daughter had not run completely mad.“Of course not! Why is it so hard to understand that I want you-”“You want me to traipse out into the woods in the snow to find a half-grown tree, cut it down, and bring it back to… plant in the parlour?”“Not plant, just… you know… set up. Like a decoration!” Brianna was reaching, knowing that neither Jamie nor I was much a hand at decoration beyond the utilitarian.“And then,” Jamie roared, cutting off Brianna’s next explanation, “you want to cover it in bits and bobs and I don’t know what. From my fly-tying equipment.”“You can have it back on Boxing Day,” Bree said, trying to quell her father’s fury, “but yes, I want to decorate the tree.”“Why?” Jamie sounded like he might start weeping in frustration soon, and I began to write more quickly in case I was needed to sooth feelings.“I…” Bree began, but stopped, thinking. “Jemmy would love it,” she tried, and I knew she was playing her trump card- her father’s feelings about his grandson were near legendary. “I’d have Roger do it- he doesn’t think it’s silly- but we don’t have the space in the cabin.”“There is absolutely no way your mother would allow some great tree to dry itself up and spread needles all over her floor.” I wondered at Jamie’s invocation of me in this moment. Not only was I something of a haphazard housekeeper in any part of the house but my surgery, I felt that he was perhaps setting himself up for-“Mother loves Christmas trees,” Bree said, triumphantly.This was, perhaps, overstating things. I found the tradition charming, but had never missed it upon returning to the past and leaving it (and so many other things) behind.I should have expected what came next. There was an ominous silence for a few long moments and then, at the same time, two voices raised.“Sassenach!”“Mother!”
annaxmalina
andulkaphoto
dailybridgerton
kianamaiart
kaledo-art
blakekathryn
tangentwithtanner
jacobvanloon
turnnoffyourmind
