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There’s a wedding in twenty-seven minutes, and Colm Fahey is not panicking.
Of course he isn’t. Why should he? It’s not his wedding; it’s not even being held at his house. His only job was raising the groom, and he considers himself having done and dusted with that a good few years ago. He should just sit back, relax, and take it all in.
He is doing none of those things.
Currently, he’s lost in the Van Eck mansion, trying desperately to find his way to the reception hall and almost as desperately to keep his breathing at a semi-normal rate. Saints, Jesper gets that restlessness honest. Just because Colm has had half a century to learn how to manage his own doesn’t mean it can’t flare up like a bitch on days like this.
He passes studies, sculleries, spare bedrooms and what looks like the hollowed out remains of a library, under construction to become something more like a watercolor gallery. All of it brilliantly embellished and immaculately clean, a far cry from Colm’s own two-room cottage in Novyi Zem. Colm feels anxiety twist in his chest; it’s no wonder Jesper hardly visits, if these plush carpets and tulip-patterned hallways are what he gets to call home these days. After the wedding, Colm will be lucky to see him once a year.
It isn’t that Jesper doesn’t love him. It’s just that Colm’s never been able to give him enough. Even as a child, Jesper used to tear off down the fields the second Colm turned his back, as if desperate for a taste of whatever was over the horizon. The love of a father is no substitute for the world’s wild, windswept embrace—not for someone like Jesper, at least.
And that’s okay. Really, it is. Colm knows that even with Aditi being the bold one, the bright one, it’s Colm that gave up everything he’d ever known to start a new life in her country, her home. Why lament that Jesper is doing the same? It’s what he wants. It’s what he deserves.
But damn, if it doesn’t break an old man’s heart.
Colm cuts through a study, finds himself standing exactly where he was five minutes ago, and reverses. Wylan’s a lovely boy, but would it kill him to have a few maps put up? How does he expect anyone to get to the wedding? The boy’s going to be walking down an empty aisle, at this rate.
He’s so busy fuming at no one that he doesn’t look before turning what must be his millionth corner, and ends up colliding at full speed with—
“Da?”
”Jesper,” Colm gasps, taking hold of Jesper’s arms and righting himself. “Oh, Saints, you startled me.”
Jesper looks pretty startled himself, pale and fidgety in a suit of deep green, trying to regain his shiny-shoed footing. He pushes some nervous energy out of his lungs. “Da,” he says again. “What are you doing here?”
”What am I—“ Colm checks his watch. “Your wedding is in twenty minutes, Jes! What are you doing here?”
”I live here. I can be wherever I want.”
And while that is technically true, Jesper says it with the same unsure cadence he’s used since he was a boy trying to explain away his role in the chickens escaping from the coop.
”Right,” Colm says. “So then why, exactly, is this random hallway where you want to be, when all your best friends are gathered and waiting on the other side of the house?”
“They’re not on the other side of the house,” Jesper says. “We’re not even that far.”
”That wasn’t an answer, Jes.”
Jesper acts like he hasn’t heard him. “We’re only in the East Wing. It’s smaller, don’t use it as much. Pretty sure there’s a ninety-year-old bottle of cognac squirreled away in one of these damn rooms, but I haven’t been able to find it. Not for lack of trying,” he adds, and Colm gives him a laugh, just to settle him. Because even if it’s been years since they’ve spent more than a few days together at a time, Colm still knows his son. And this is a version of him he knows well—the one who’s scared, terrified, and desperate not to let it show.
”Well, then,” Colm says, adding the gentle note to his voice he uses to calm riled-up livestock. “I’ve been lost in this wing for quite a while. How about showing me back to the reception room?”
Jesper looks like there’s nothing he’d like less, but Colm gives him the look he learned from Aditi, and Jesper just bites his tongue and nods. “Just this way,” he mutters, directing Colm around the corner to lead him sheepishly through the hall, hands in his tailored pockets, looking for all the world like a scolded schoolboy rather than a man on what should be the happiest day of his life.
Colm gives him a minute or two to start speaking, get whatever’s on his chest out in the open on his own terms, but is quickly becomes clear Jesper’s hoping for a silent walk, and then—what? Walk away from the room his own wedding ceremony is happening in? Colm loves his son to death, but he can’t say his forethought is a winning quality.
”Jes,” he says softly—but not too softly, because there’s nothing Jesper likes less than knowing he’s being helped, “why were you wandering around the halls?”
Jesper shrugs, a sharp, unsteady motion. Colm levels, taking hold of Jesper’s arm and forcing them both to stop in front of a sun-bright window. “Jesper,” is all he needs to say.
Jesper’s shoulders bunch tight, as if bracing himself for a blow. “Dunno, Da.”
”It’s okay to be nervous. Saints know I was when I married your mother.”
That draws out a small smile, but it disappears as quickly as it came. “Yeah, well. That all worked out, so.”
”Is that what you’re worried about? You don’t think this will work out?”
”Who said I was worried?”
Colm just stares.
Jesper shuffles his feet, unwilling to look up from where the soles of his shoes meet the polished floor. “Saints, Da, I don’t know. He’s…” Jesper laughs. “I think it’s pretty safe to say he’s out of my league.”
”What, because he’s got money? That doesn’t mean a thing. All the kruge in the world can’t buy the five inches of height you’ve got on him. Do not make the joke that you’re about to.”
Jesper, who had been starting to smile, presses his lips together and nods.
”But, Jes, do you really think that’s an issue? Because I’ll tell you right now, I’ve seen how that boy looks at you, and I think he’d give up his whole fortune in a heartbeat if you asked him to.”
Jesper’s cheeks darken. “Da…”
”I mean it. And if it would turn out not to be true, well, then he never deserved you in the first place.”
”It’s not the money, Da,” Jesper scoffs. Half-annoyed, like he always is when he refuses to admit a problem then gets upset when people don’t understand it. Saints, that kind of thing used to drive Colm nuts when he was younger.
“Then what is it?” Colm asks, determined not to let his own annoyance, anxiety, confusion show—not now, when Jesper needs him.
”It’s just—I don’t know. He’s all—you know, he’s him. And me, I mean. What if I’m…?”
Jesper trails off, looks away. There’s a fragility to him, Colm notices, the brittle tension of a wire stretched to snapping. Colm leans in. “What if you’re…what?”
When Jesper looks up, his eyes are suddenly brimming with tears. The sight of it breaks Colm’s heart, just as it always has; you never grow used to seeing your child in pain. “What if I’m not good enough?” Jesper asks, voice hoarse, just barely breaking at the end.
“Oh, Jes,” Colm breathes. He brings a hand up to Jesper’s neck, fingertips resting just below his ear, a spot Aditi used to kiss before bed. He knows Jesper remembers, because he blinks, hard and fast. “Is that what you’re worried about?”
Jesper swallows around the lump in his throat, but his words are still strained, still holding back errant tears. “He’s a genius, Da,” Jesper says, voice going in and out of a whisper. “He just—he thinks better than I do. And he always knows what to do, you know, when other people need things. It’s just—I’m such a mess, you know that, and there’s only so long you can live with that before you grow tired of it and—“ Jesper’s voice breaks. He sniffs and swipes a hand over his eyes—a hand that Colm catches and holds fast.
”Jesper,” he says. “I did not grow tired of you. If it were up to me, I’d have you living under my roof until they bury me next to your mother. And last time I checked, anyone going off to university at fifteen is nothing to sniff at.”
Jesper’s fingers tighten over Colm’s ”But I failed. I failed because I’m—I don’t know, crazy, or dull, or something, and I’ve tried so hard not to be but I just—I can’t change. I just can’t. And what if he decides he doesn’t want to put up with me, anymore, Da? What then?”
Colm surveys Jesper’s face for a moment, broken open and earnest in the golden afternoon light. Then he folds him into his arms, having to pull Jesper down in order to rest his chin on Jesper’s shoulder.
”Oh, Jes,” he whispers. “We don’t love people because of what we want them to become. We love them because of who they are.”
Jesper doesn’t reply, just hugs Colm back and holds on tight. It eases Colm’s own fears, to be there for his son. That’s how it’s always been, being a father: a whirlwind, a house fire, but at the right moments, almost painfully steadying. An anchor has no room for doubts when a ship is unmoored and in need.
When Jesper finally pulls away, Colm keeps his hands firmly on his shoulders, looks him square in those Kaelish eyes. “I’m scared of today, too, Jes. Because it’s killing me to hand you over to someone else. But I wouldn’t do it if I wasn’t sure this was the right thing for you, yeah? You’re in safe hands, with him. I promise it. And Saints forbid, even if there ever comes a day when that isn’t true, then I’ll be waiting. There’s always going to be a chair for you at my table—but that doesn’t mean there’s not one at his, too.”
Jesper nods with a thin smile. He wipes his eyes again, and this time, no tears rush to refill them.
Colm cocks his head. “And so what if you’re a mess? The boy’s sure got enough staff to clean it all up in no time.”
That draws out a laugh—a real one, the sound bright and clear as a bell. Colm savors it, tries to commit it to memory. That’s Aditi’s laugh.
“Now,” Colm says as Jesper brushes a wrinkle out of his jacket. “You’re expected at an altar in about ten minutes. Are we heading that way, or should I go ahead and call for a carriage back to Novyi Zem?”
Jesper looks over Colm’s shoulder, skims his eyes over the rose garden, the cobblestone wall, the wooden bench that looks ten years past replacing, all of it painted gold in the steady light of day. “No,” he says, eyes meeting Colm’s with a new surety. “I think we ought to head to the reception room.”
Colm nods. “Lead the way, then.”
There isn’t far to go, even Colm can tell that. Within a minute he can hear muffled voices, the thin echo of a string quartet. His own wedding to Aditi was just her family and a couple of his buddies in the orchard, playing whatever instruments they had on hand and could whittle a decent tune out of. His chest swells with pride, as much now as the first time he saw this place. Maybe Jesper never got his degree, never climbed the ranks of businessmen and ran the farm’s accounts. So what? He’s happy, so happy that he finally feels like he’s got something to lose. It’s all Colm ever wanted for him and more.
Outside the left side door, they pause. Colm straightens Jesper’s lapel, and feels the quickness of his pulse beneath his hands. “Alright?” He asks.
Jesper takes a deep breath, stills the jittering in his hands. “Alright.”
Colm smiles, and for one last time, takes Jesper’s naked, unringed hand. “I love you, Jes. And so does he. Don’t think about anything but that.”
Jesper nods, smiles, squeezes his father’s hand. Then he slips through the door, and he’s gone.
Colm stands there for a second, staring at the place Jesper had been. In it he sees a fifteen-year-old with a suitcase, a preteen caught chewing the jurda harvest, a gangly child with perpetually scraped knees. He sees a boy knee-high to a grasshopper, who hasn’t yet learned the world was unkind. He sees a toddler, and a baby held fast against Aditi’s breast. He swears there’s a whole lifetime lived in the moments between Jesper leaving and the air rushing to fill the empty space he left behind.
But that’s always the way, isn’t it? A life in a moment. A million moments in a life. Too much to measure, too much to even try. Colm has learned just to appreciate them as they come, and remember them once they’re gone. He hopes he’s taught Jesper to do the same.
Blinking away tears—you sentimental sap, Aditi’s voice laughs in his head—Colm heads towards the guest entrance, as prepared as he can be to watch his little boy grow up for good. But he stops when he spots two figures at another side entrance, whispering with their auburn heads close. Colm recognizes them in an instant as Wylan and his mother, gathering strength together.
He doesn’t move, only watches as Marya says something to her son, who nods and replies with only a couple of words. She pulls him into a hug, determined to nestle his head beneath her chin despite her solid couple of inches he has on her. When they separate, she reaches up, rearranges some squashed curls. It’s a sight so tender and familiar that Colm has to swallow back his emotion.
She sends him off with a kiss on the forehead, and just like Colm, spends a long moment with her eyes stuck on the shut door. It’s when she turns to leave that she notices him, and sweeps over to meet him by the guest door.
”I’m willing to bet,” she says, “that we just had the same conversation.”
”Well, you know. It’s our job to massage those cold feet.”
She laughs, smile lines crinkling in the corners of her eyes. “I suppose it’s easier for me, since mine isn’t leaving.”
”None of it’s easy,” Colm tells her. “Whenever I imagine Jesper, he’s just a little boy. My mind never seems to remember that he’s all grown up.”
”I just…” Marya breathes. “I just missed so much.”
Colm softens. He doesn’t know what, exactly, Marya’s story is, but Jesper’s confided enough brief whispers in him that he knows it can’t have been nice.
He offers his arm. “Well, then,” he says. “No use standing here when we could be making up for lost time.”
A twinkle finds its way into Marya’s amber eyes, one that Colm has seen on Wylan more than a couple of times over the years. He’s all the best parts of her, he imagines, just as Jesper is all the best parts of him. He can only imagine the life they’ll have together.
”Help me find a glass of champagne on the way?” Marya asks when they reach the door. The curve of her lips tells him she wants it just as much as she needs it, to soften this blow. To warm this beautiful light.
Colm grins. He could use some of the same. “Absolutely.”
He pushes open the door just as the music swells and his sons’ futures begin.