The December House

Sometime mid August The notification banner flashes across my screen before I even finish my coffee. URGENT: Deployment Failure – Client Live in 2 Hours Perfect, exactly the way I wanted to start my Monday. I shove my hair behind my ear, tighten my headset, and pull up the logs faster than the junior analyst on the call can even explain what went wrong. The office around me hums with activity, keyboards clacking, phones ringing, people talking in low, sharp voices. Glass walls. Steel fixtures. Everything sleek enough to reflect my face back at me. I look tired, not exhausted, not unwell, just tired in that deep, soul-level way I’ve been studiously ignoring for years. “Clara? You seeing this?” Martin asks through the call, his voice tight with panic. “Yeah,” I say, already scanning error codes. “Your webhook timeout isn’t the issue. It’s the third-party endpoint they pushed on Friday. Roll it back to v4.2.” He stammers something about needing approval. “Martin,” I say, “either roll it back or call the client and tell them the promotion they spent four months planning is going live with a broken checkout. Your call.” There’s a beat of silence. “Rolling back.” I mute my mic, lean back in my chair, and pinch the bridge of my nose. It’s not even nine-thirty. My desk looks like I’ve been living at it half-drunk coffee, sticky notes with deadlines, a calendar so full it makes my eyes twitch. The office lights blink on and off overhead in a slow, polite pattern, like they’re afraid of distracting us from our burnout. I’m about to turn my mic back on when my mobile buzzes. Mum. I sigh. She never calls during work hours unless something is wrong. I accept the call and swivel my chair toward the window, away from the wall of glass behind me. “Hey, Mum. Everything okay?” Her voice comes through too warm, too careful. “Darling… are you busy?” I look at the twenty unread emails on my screen. “Always,” I say, softening my tone. “What’s going on?” “It’s your great-uncle Hugh.” I blink. The name doesn’t immediately connect to anything real. Hugh Wardlaw. A vague, bearded man in a heavy wool coat from when I was maybe eight years old? A Christmas card once every few years written in tight, looping handwriting? Mum exhales shakily. “He passed away yesterday morning.” “Oh,” I say. Because I don’t know what else to say. “He was very old,” she adds, as though that softens it. “But it was still sudden.” I rub at a faint smear on my laptop screen that won’t come off. “I’m sorry, Mum. Are you alright?” “We’re fine. But the funeral is on Thursday, and your father and I thought, well, we assumed you’d want to come with us.” Thursday. Two days before the quarterly release deadline. The most catastrophic week of the year. My throat tightens. “I… don’t think I can get leave.” “Clara.” Her voice sharpens. “This is family.” “I know,” I say quickly. “I’m sorry, I just, work is a lot. And I barely remember him.” “You used to adore him.” I stare at the street below the office: taxis sliding through traffic, people clutching overpriced coffees, the kind of sunlight that feels exhausted before noon. “Did I?” I murmur. “You did. Every Christmas we took you up there, remember? The house in the Highlands?” Something flickers at the edge of my memory, frost, pine needles, the smell of peat smoke, the shape of an old stone house against a white sky but it slips away before I can catch it. “I’m sorry, Mum,” I say again. “It’s just not possible this week.” She sighs, heavy with disappointment. “Well, at least think about calling the solicitor. He said there were… matters of inheritance to discuss.” “Inheritance?” I echo. “Yes. Hugh left you something.” I blink. “Me? Why me?” “No idea,” she says, clipped. “We’ll talk later, alright? I need to go your father’s driving like he wants to join Hugh in the afterlife.” She hangs up before I can answer. I stare at my phone. Inheritance? From a man I haven’t seen in decades? Something uncomfortable shifts under my ribs. Behind me, Martin unmutes his mic and practically shouts, “Rollback completed!” I turn back to my laptop, slip my headset on, and say, “Great. Let’s test.” My voice is steady, professional. Reliable Clara Wardlaw who saves everything at the last minute. October By the time October crawls in grey, damp, impatient I’ve learned how to move through my days without really inhabiting them. I drift from meeting to meeting, sprint to sprint, deliverable to deliverable, and somewhere along the way I’ve perfected the art of looking endlessly competent while feeling absolutely nothing. It’s almost comforting, in a strange and hollow way, like living inside a machine built to keep me upright and productive even while the rest of me quietly dissolves behind my ribs. The office is decorated for autumn now, tiny pumpkins on people’s desks, corporate-approved fairy lights looped across the kitchen window, an aggressively cheerful paper banner that reads HELLO FALL! as if the season cares about our enthusiasm. Every morning starts the same way: I tap my ID card, smile at the receptionist, pretend the silence in my chest is peace rather than apathy, and settle in front of my triple-monitor setup while the sky outside stays stubbornly dark. Today is no different. I’m halfway through rewriting an entire data flow that someone else butchered, when my phone buzzes on the desk beside me. Daniel’s name lights up the screen, followed a moment later by three more notifications, a text, another one, then a call that flashes for a second before disappearing because I’m mid-sentence, mid-system, mid-something that apparently can’t wait. I let it ring out. I’ll call him back. I always do. I finish the revision, send the changes, and only then allow myself to reach for the phone. Daniel rarely calls during work unless it’s about scheduling or reservations or something he wants me to remember for him. I brace myself in that small, quiet way you do when you know a conversation will require more emotional bandwidth than you have available today. “Clara. Finally.” There’s no greeting. No warmth. Just the kind of clipped relief someone might use when a package arrives late. “Sorry,” I say, already rubbing at the knot forming at the base of my neck. “We had a last-minute rollback. What’s going on?” “There’s a letter here for you. Delivered by courier. Looks… official.” He stresses the last word like it’s supposed to make me sit up straighter. “A letter? From who?” “A law firm. Something about an estate.” A pause. “Did you forget to pay something?” Despite myself, I laugh softly. “No. I think it’s my great-uncle Hugh. Remember? Mum called about him in August.” “Oh.” Another pause. “Right. The one you didn’t go see.” Guilt pricks me, sharp but brief. “Work was impossible, Daniel. You know that.” He exhales the way he does when traffic lights don’t turn green fast enough. “Well, it’s on the counter. Try not to leave this one unopened.” We hang up, and I stare at the screen for a long moment after it goes dark, feeling something shift painfully and invisibly under my ribs. I push it aside. There isn’t time for feelings, I have stand-up in ten minutes, then two back-to-back meetings, then a system handover that requires everyone to pretend they read the documentation I spent all night writing.