DAX'S POV
January had a different quality from December.
December was the month things completed — the framework signatures, the hearing date, the name, Christmas at the estate and Christmas morning at the penthouse with Marisol's stockpot on the stove. December was the month of arrivals. January was the month of what came after the arrivals: the work, the ordinary ongoing business of the things that had been built and now needed to be sustained.
He found he preferred January.
Not because December had been wrong — December had been the most complete month he could remember in recent years, possibly the most complete month he'd had since his grandfather had been alive and he'd been young enough to be in rooms without managing them. But the preference for January was genuine. The prefere
