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The reality is, he doesn't even notice he's doing it at first. It’s a reflex action, but one that's remained dormant for so long he'd never even realized he had the capability for it in the first place. His shriveled lonely soul barely remembers the people who showered him with the love he now showers on others, on her. The part of him that knows where it comes from, the part of him he resolutely ignores, hopes his parents would be proud. Because somewhere between buttering her toast and making her tea and gifting her jewelry does Anthony Lockwood realize he's seen these exact motions before, acted them out as a child as well, but they have never had so much feeling and intent behind them before now.
It hurts Lockwood to think about his parents.
He misses them so much it feels like someone is cracking his whole chest open every time he remembers them. He tries not to think of how his smile is his mother's and how his eyes are his father's. It’s easy to do that when he's locked away any and all photo albums behind the door to Jessica's room and buried what he remembers in a box in his soul. He wears his father's suits, oversized on his lanky frame, as a tribute to the battle they dedicated their lives to. He dons his father’s name with pride, the same armor as the elder Lockwood’s suits, as if it can protect him from the hurt life has been throwing at little Anthony since he was only six years old. He follows the manners his mother instilled in him while growing up because that's only proper and, while she didn't have much time, she raised him to be a gentleman in what little they were afforded together. He carries her old rapier even if it seems impractical and flashy to others because its like he’s carrying a piece of her protection wherever he goes.
These are all superficial similarities though.
These are the kind of traits easy to adopt because they’re physical, tangible. They run in his blood and sit around his family’s house in a way he can’t deny. They bring him as much comfort as they bring him pain.
Lockwood has never been able to stop wondering if he adapted parts of his parents that weren't so obvious to him every time he looks in the mirror. He's never had anyone left to tell him he walks with a stride just like his father's or his lilt while he speaks is just like his mother's. He's never been able to remember how his mother threw his head back in a laugh the same way he does or the way his father run his hands through his hair in frustration, messing it up until it stood in spikes in the exact same way his son does. He doesn’t remember clearly enough to draw the comparison himself. He’s walked around with pieces of his parents he no longer recognizes for seventeen years, none the wiser of where they came from. So it takes a while for it to sink in, that the reason the things he does for Lucy feel like déjà vu, is because they're all the ways he's seen his father love his mother.
When the weight of the grief that comes with the recognition settles, he realizes that knowing he's carried this part of his parents inside of him doesn't hurt as much as it might have once. It adds a paradoxical airlift to ease the sinking of his heart. He thinks it’s just because it’s for Lucy that it feels like healing instead of breaking. Lockwood’s more relieved than he’d ever probably admit to find his body and heart hadn’t forgotten the parents who’d adored him so, even if it gets harder and harder to recall them each passing year. So he continues doing the little things for Lucy. The little things that probably didn't mean much on their own but mattered in every way to Celia Lockwood which is why Donald Lockwood did them.
His son will carry on that mantle.