As I said I would, I slept and read. And then I ate and slept some more. It was a totally uneventful Christmas.A is now part of normal conversation. I think the bad feelings are gone, and whatever happens next will presumably be pretty unremarkable. Both dad and B have met him, B even visited when she was on a job in the city he lives in. Her report, if I can call it that, was that it was a little tense. A's wife had at one stage left the room to give A and B the opportunity to 'bond' in some way, which lead to some rather awkward silences and bland conversation instead.
We all received a Christmas letter from A's wife. A round-robin poorly laid out with a bad picture of the family (not their fault, entirely the photographer's fault -- there are some shit portrait photographers out there in the world) and one factual sentence for each about the doings of each of them. My friends are probably too clever; I have high expectations of round-robin letters, even of the Christmas kind. Of course, I have no excuse. I didn't send out a single Christmas card this year, to anyone, A inclusive. And I have no idea when I can make up for that. Perhaps I have to sell my body to the highest bidder and then make the trip to visit him instead. I'm sure that would make me feel a whole lot better.
