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J
anuary 7, 2018
"Darling, we're going to be late," Jaclyn calls from down the hall with footsteps following her statement. It only causes him to scramble more in search for the box that he was positive was just in his suitcase.
She's still talking to him, through the walls, but he's only mumbling responses, more focused on throwing open the drawers of the dresser. It's still dark outside, or grey and sunless, so every crevice is shadowed like a black hole that will suck down things when you most need them.
They arrived at Sandringham late last night, parting from her family on decent terms though Jaclyn and her mother were still avoiding each other. They considered declining his Gran's invitation to the morning church service, but they already got out of Christmas better not to push their luck.
Her heels stop, and he turns briefly to see her leaning against the frame of the door, her arms crossed, but her lips timidly smiling. "What on earth are you doing?"
"Nothing," he says, but it's at that moment that he remembers hiding the box in the closet late last night when they arrived. Jaclyn follows him, trapping him in the little cut out space in the walls, turning the lights on in the process so he'll hopefully stop running into things.
He takes the time to look her over. She's ten weeks pregnant now, and growing faster than she did with either Mia or PJ, but it's hard to spot the slight bump to her stomach through the loose forest green dress. Her brow is raised, disappearing into the brim of her hat that sits across her forehead sharpening her knowing eyes.
Slowly she scans the clothes he's thrown around from the dresser and the closet before her eyes land on the velvet box sitting in his palm. "Happy Christmas." He opens it, revealing two C shaped earrings studded with little diamonds, and he can see them sitting perfectly in her ears with her hair blending with the golden frames.
He's so caught up in this fantasy of her wearing them, that he nearly misses the downturn of her smile and the disappearance of her sharpness. It's not that he expects a big overblown reaction, he knows her well enough by now and they are just earrings, but he wasn't prepared for disappointment.
"Oh," she mumbles, pulling her lip between her teeth. Her eyes are glued on the diamonds, wide but mystified and beautiful. More distant with a glass sheen closing over them. Her hands don't reach up to take them, nor does she try to say anything else. She just shuts down.
"You don't like them?"
Her head snaps then, the light of the closet sitting behind her black hat until the world is blurred again. "No it's just… we agreed not to get each other anything."
He shrugs, shifting the box from hand to hand. "I didn't think you were being serious."
This is clearly the wrong thing to say. The reserved disappointment vanishes just like her excitement, and for a second he's cornered by her flaring glare and nostrils. Steam fills the air where she radiates and trembles, and her mouth screws up like it does before she snaps, but just like everything else it's gone before it's really there.
