Patrick admired the extravagant beauty of the Swiss chalet and eyed Victoria with feigned concern, "We're going to have to review your definition of quaint." His mother exhaled an amused laugh and entertained a waking yawn in the same breath, still lethargic from the ten-hour flight. "This place is really beautiful." He openly commended, as he marvelled at the miles and miles of white mountain landscape which enclosed the chalet. Wall-sized windows permitted a 360° panorama view of their surroundings on the ground floor and pine wood stairs swirled tantalisingly to the various bedrooms on the upstairs second and third floors. He sighed, "I should have brought my canvas with me!"
The regret evident in his voice pleased Victoria, "How did I know you would say that?" She motioned silently to one of the staff, who remained incognito until their services were required, "It was going to be a Christmas gift but I think you would probably appreciate it more right now." Victoria noted, as a young man delivered a canvas and set it beside one of the windows.
"You really do think of everything, don't you?" Patrick shook his head with an incredulous expression, "Thank you."
Her ability to bring him happiness permitted a wide grin to grace her lips as she watched Patrick caress the high-quality wooden canvas she had presented him with. "You're welcome, sweetheart." The morning sun streamed through the windows as dawn started to break after the overnight flight, which had been commercial much to Victoria's openly-voiced displeasure. Patrick had insisted on it, in order to pay for his own flight ticket, and Victoria had to admit that her decision to fly commercial would certainly rid Conrad of any suspicions held concerning her decision to celebrate the holidays on her own. His eyes finally deviated from the newly-made canvas and fell upon the therapeutic rise of steam, which stemmed from a hot-tub installed on the wooden terrace which surrounded the entire building and Victoria followed his gaze to it. "Conrad had it installed a few years back, it's always the first thing Daniel and Charlotte do after the long flight. You're welcome to make use of it anytime!"
The way in which his mother lived baffled him, and Patrick hoped he would never become accustomed enough to the lifestyle for it not to baffle him. She lived like a queen, she had all the regal pretention of one too but she had displayed nothing but a heart of gold toward him. All in all, the woman before him was not the mother he had expected to discover. He folded his arms across his chest, "I wondered about my biological mother from the very day I discovered I had been adopted..." As Patrick continued, Victoria rearranged her dark curls and smoothed her hands to iron any wrinkles out, in an attempt to perfect her appearance for his observation. "...how she looked, the way she walked and talked, how she lived... but my imagination never stretched this far!"
"How did you find out?" Victoria's curiosity prompted the question before her brain could filter.
"That I was adopted?" Patrick double-checked and Victoria nodded her head in confirmation, as they sat beside one another. "I started looking through old family photo albums one day when I realised that I had never seen a picture of me from birth, nor of my mother pregnant, and I asked my father about it. I don't think I was much more than fourteen years old when I discovered the truth. He sat me down and explained that I had been adopted at six-months." He nonchalantly shrugged his shoulders, "He said he hadn't intended to keep the truth from me but he didn't know when the right time would have been... I don't think he felt comfortable shouldering the burden. He would have felt responsible for my reaction to the news and he couldn't judge it. And he didn't have the answers to the kind of questions he knew I would ask him; the adoption had been solely through social services and the mother was unknown." Patrick recalled the confusion and feeling of pure loneliness he had endured, "The frustration of having so many unanswered questions made everything harder and there were times when I hated him for letting me know the truth." The threat of tears in her eyes matched with the slight pink blush at the tip of her nose – the early sign of an oncoming winter flu – endeared Victoria to Patrick's heart and he deeply exhaled, "But that's all in the past, you know? It's Christmas! Now isn't the time to have any more of those heavy conversations!" His eyes returned to the window, "I think I'll accept that offer to jump in the hot-tub for a little while and relax after the flight. Will you join me?"
She shook her head and rose to her feet, "I should really check in with Daniel and Charlotte and let them know I won't be at Grayson Manor for the holidays should they need to contact me at all." In light of the emotional distance the family had suffered, Victoria didn't even raise her hopes high enough to expect either one of her children to call her on Christmas morning to wish her well but she wouldn't let their expressions of animosity frighten her away from any excuse she could find to communicate with them. "I'll have someone unpack your things for you, too!"
"That's alright, I'm more than happy to do it myself!" Patrick called back, as his mother started upstairs to the master bedroom. "Actually, Victoria..." She lingered halfway and glanced back, "Do you think you could possibly lose the staff?" He requested, "It is Christmas after all, and I had kind of hoped it would be just the two of us here."
"Sure!" Victoria granted, much to Patrick's delight and the delight of the various members of staff, who were silently poised in wait for their next instruction.