"A capon? All you have left is a capon?" Caroline's pitch rose with each word sputtered out covered in disbelief. "But it's the holidays." She threw in the last as though it were a secret pass code to unlocking a magical freezer full of more desirable but unavailable meats.
"Ma'am, it's nine pm on December 23rd. We've sold out of turkeys and decent roasts days ago."
"That's unacceptable. And poor planning on your part." Caroline heaved her frustration off on 'Leslie' the hapless meat clerk at the Waitrose. She assumed she was wearing the right name tag, despite any other incompetency she'd already displayed. The woman's squared-off and asymmetrical haircut was as bad as her attitude and worse than Caroline's mood at shopping for Christmas dinner on her own, late at night after a bruiser of a day at school. The students might be gone for holiday but her troubles certainly weren't.
"I mean why do you even have capon in the first place? They're god-awful." She offered a humbled tone but couldn't bring herself to accept reality. This was her third stop in pursuit of a bird worthy of Christmas dinner. She'd already tried for lamb as plan B and each clerk had simply laughed at her.
"People want the craziest things." A shrug from the clerk and a set of her mouth Caroline read to say, 'Like the ability to buy a turkey long after anyone sensible would already be defrosting theirs.'
"Fine. I'll take it."
Caroline clipped up her long greying blonde hair as Leslie scurried through a door ostensibly to a back room - only to emerge with the scrawniest, loosely wrapped approximation of a chicken she'd seen since she'd been stupid enough to charge her ex-husband John with holiday shopping for the first and last time thirty years ago.
"How many pounds is that pathetic thing?"
"Eight pounds, ma'am."
"Eight pounds? I couldn't feed my wife and daughter with eight pounds, much less the menagerie I'm expecting."
"Well it's what we have." Leslie's dead-eyed stare indicated Caroline's sterile blue attempt at intimidation had little effect.
Without another word Caroline grabbed the package from the woman's hands and tossed it on top of the heap in her cart.
Under pallid fluorescent lights she shoved the trolley up and down the aisles. She swept the last of her list into it with little care about what survived. Though she did move the eggs to the top rack. Eleanor had requested two dozen, and Caroline preserved enough common sense to know that smashed eggs would be far too high a price to pay for the temporary satisfaction of living out her temper tantrum. There were pastries to be considered, after all.
Already gone almost two weeks, her soon-to-be-capon-eating wife wasn't scheduled to be back to Harrogate from Munich until the following day – Christmas Eve. Caroline was plenty petulant about being left to prepare for the holiday. They hadn't known Eleanor would be out of the country with a client when they'd asked both sides of the family over for dinner. A packed table of twelve. 'Plus Jane.' Caroline kept missing her best friend in the head count and feeling guilty each time she did.
And then there was that pesky film crew that was supposed to stop by. She shuddered. No. Caroline wasn't about to call that off - no matter how much extra work it piled on her plate.
This year had also been the one of the very few holiday dinner invitations that Eleanor's thawed but still chilly mother Margaret had deigned to accept and grace them with her presence. Honestly, Caroline couldn't take credit or even feel particularly crow-ish about it. Margaret and George had aged quite well, physically. But the eight years since she'd met them had started well and turned quickly for both of them. Which was a lovely distraction from thinking about the state of Celia and Alan.
Distracted, she slammed into an end-cap display featuring silver and gold boxes of truffles. A box tumbled into the cart. 'Must be a sign.' She reversed and shoved on to the checkouts.
Loaded down with grocery totes like pack mule, as she swung open the back door to the house she let out a stifled cry of relief. From the living room she heard the simple chords of Eleanor's current favorite holiday song ringing on the Steinway. Then, the peaceful warm flow of Eleanor's rich voice smothering and smoothing the frustration that had been building for days. The fact that Eleanor sounded more like Karen Carpenter than the woman herself when she sang certainly wasn't the only reason Caroline had fallen headfirst into her. But it hadn't hurt.
Her wife had managed to return early. Of course she had. Caroline set the bags on the massive wood block island dominating the mostly stainless steel kitchen and kicked the door closed with her heel. Eleanor likely hadn't heard her come in and that suited her fine, to listen and breathe in the calm that permeated her whenever both her girls were home. She tossed her keys on the counter next to the groceries, rested her palms against it, bent her head, and soaked up the warmth of the holiday spirit so recently come to her.
She always hated each night Eleanor was gone. No matter how comfortable their bed, she never slept as well as she did wrapped around her. And - she wouldn't have to unload the packed car all by herself. Win-win.
She pulled off her gloves, slipped out of her navy scarf, shrugged off her winter coat and laid it all over the groceries. With long strides pulling at her grey skirt she made her way across to the twinkle-lit living room on the opposite side of the house. She hoped to catch at least a glimpse of Eleanor playing before the song finished.
She arrived in time to see loose, waving, long brown-auburn hair shifting back and forth as Eleanor bent at the piano. The slightest change in the tilt of Eleanor's head told Caroline she'd heard her approach, so she came forward and sat next to her on the shining black bench.
The song ended with the same simple notes it started. Eleanor's fingers finished their certain, delicate play on the keys and she turned with pert lips bowed upward just at the corners. Caroline felt silly at her own anger. The last of any lingering ire at the day melted as Eleanor placed a firm hand at her waist and favored her with a wanting kiss. She leaned further in to whisper at her ear.
"Welcome home, Caroline. I've missed you terribly."
"Because we need a little Christmas to make it pop." Eleanor peered from the kitchen this way and that at bare walls and windows. "Right this very minute, Caroline Strathclyde." She wagged a finger that shot disapproval and a blanket of cold water over Caroline's warm glow. "You agreed to that film crew invading our house, Ms. 'Woman of the Year,' and I won't have us looking like we hired Bad Santa to decorate."
Caroline's previously dormant volcano of frustration erupted and she skipped over any notice she might have made of Eleanor's occasional jest about her refusing to change her name.
"You're the one who's gone most of the month in Germany – leaving me to do all the work to host your family for Christmas dinner. And you're telling me I haven't put up enough tinsel to suit you?"
She didn't need the ridiculous 'Woman of the Year' honor from the Harrogate Chamber of Commerce thrown in her face either – considering the fact that her school was currently down and at the nine count on the mat. Elite music academies with commitments to access weren't exactly an easy sell in the current political climate. Add in an endowment that never rebounded after the 2018 crash? Caroline might be responsible for keeping the school from shuttering when she arrived, but the fight was still daily.
"Oh Caroline – " Eleanor dragged out the pronunciation and her voice dripped honey. "It's just a little stark in here, that's all."
She moved to pull Caroline to her and Caroline stepped right back.
"Don't you 'Caroline' me, Eleanor." She wagged her own finger and crossed her arms over her chest.
"Darling." Eleanor's deep brown eyes tapered in concern as she pouted.
"Don't 'darling' me either. You're years late with that tactic."
"Now that's something I never want to hear, no matter how cross you are." Eleanor stopped pouting and her voice dropped. "When all my charms have worn off we're in dire straits. Nothing left but your withered wife pleading for mercy and it falling on deaf, callous ears." She tossed her hair over her shoulder and threw in a shiver. "Say it won't ever be so."
Caroline narrowed her eyes and didn't uncross her arms. Eleanor wasn't yet offering anything that made her feel any better.
Eleanor scowled, then sighed. "I'm sorry. I am. I do know what I've asked of you." She cast a contrite look at the hardwood of the kitchen floor before she looked up and her eyes sparked. "I also know I offered to help in any way that I could, even if it meant throwing money at the problem." She stepped into Caroline and laid a finger on her sternum, right at the last button she'd done up. "You're the martyr who said no."
"My god but you're dramatic, aren't you?" Of course that wasn't anything new. She'd wondered for a year or two if Eleanor's affected veneer would wear off once the honeymoon were over. It hadn't. It had pricked at the practicality in her, when she realized its endurance, until she settled in eventually to love it in a completely different manner. She tried very hard to hold on to her irritation. But the truth was she had missed Eleanor, and with her wife home early they'd have the house and Christmas dinner fixed in a jiff between them. Even if they didn't do a thing about it for the rest of the night.
She knew Eleanor would feel her change of heart before she realized she'd even had it. Eleanor had read and played her as easily as she did sheet music from day one. On cue, Eleanor unleashed a wide smile full of white teeth and satisfied triumph. "I am dramatic. And your adoration of that's long been written into the marriage contract."
"Your list of what I've signed off on lengthens faster than Pinocchio's nose." Caroline circled the island counter top putting away groceries, Eleanor trailing her and collecting and folding totes.
"When I stuck my head in to say goodnight, Flora said you promised her three full brackets in the holiday carol competition." After saying a long hello to Eleanor, Caroline had popped upstairs to check in on the blooming teenage daughter who hadn't yet turned on them.
"I did. Prepare yourself for all the cheer you can handle."
Caroline tilted her head side to side. "It'll be a nice break from the minor key. She's on a tear. I fear it's a harbinger of hormones to come. I think that might have been dampening my spirit before you even left." She wasn't sure if the log of chevre she waved in her hand underscored or undermined her point.
"Well good for her. Mastering the fundamentals makes all the difference when you want to move on to more sophisticated applications of any skill set."
"No doubt." Caroline pulled the cork on a long-lost bottle of Beaujolais from last month and eyed Eleanor down as she poured. "It's too bad you're back to Munich so soon after the holidays." She turned her back and scattered crackers next to bits of cheese she'd shaved from what she'd scavenged at the market.
She turned again to Eleanor who was tracing circles on the wood top with manicured fingertips. "I'm only gone for another two weeks after New Year. And then I'm supposed to be back home – for months."
"Months? Really?" Her tone was as dry as the wine, if it had been any good. No wonder the bottle went missing. It was a promise she'd heard before. Caroline nodded and leaned on her elbows. Her hair came forward and they both studied the counter.
Eleanor's stool scraped across the kitchen floor and then she was standing next to Caroline. She rested a hand on the small of Caroline's back and laid her head on her shoulder. "Months. Really."
She brought her hand up to rest on Eleanor's and she leaned against her with a slim smile. "Okay."