“Okay, I defer to the ladies,” he replied, feigning a grin in an attempt to break the discomfort and retain some of the Christmas cheer.
But his nerves were in tatters, and given what had just happened, Daisy was edgy too. And while he could very well be imagining it, he was certain that Vanessa also knew something was off.
He sat back on the floor and leaned against the end of the chaise longue as he tried to stop his mind racing and focus on what came next.
“Here it is,” his girlfriend said, reaching under the tree, and he sensed a slight affectation in her voice as he took the long rectangular box from her hand. Perhaps it wasn’t intentional, but sure enough it was there, beneath the surface of her tone and the facade of her smile. She picked her now-cold coffee off a side table and looked away while taking a long sip.
Ethan felt the urge to say something enthusiastic again, but as he opened his mouth to speak, he realized that it seemed pointless now. How could he rescue this?
“Were you going to say something?”
“Ah, no,” he replied, peeling back the pieces of sticky tape with uncharacteristic deliberation.
“Hurry up, Dad,” Daisy urged, moving closer.
“Okay, okay.” Opening the box, a relieved smile (this one genuine) came over Ethan’s face. “Well, would you look at this? See, great minds really do think alike.”
With some relief, he held aloft a silver bracelet. It looked to be antique and very masculine, a series of rectangular pieces joined together. What were the chances?
“There’s an inscription,” Vanessa pointed out.
“Oh.” His immediate thought was to wonder whether the Tiffany’s bracelet she’d gotten by mistake was inscribed with anything. If so, maybe that would be a clue as to where the hell it had come from.
Then he read the inscribed words on Vanessa’s gift for him, and his heart fell into his stomach.She loved him with too clear a vision to fear his cloudiness, it said, the words delicately etched into the individual pieces.
“Vanessa…” He could hardly meet her gaze. “I don’t know what to say. Thank you.” He reached across to kiss her gently at the corner of her mouth and lingered there for a second.
The quote came fromHowards End, a story she knew he loved. During one of their arguments earlier in the relationship, she had told him that this particular line always reminded her of him, in that he always seemed to hover in haze within her reach.
It had become sort of a running joke since, one of those poignant references between two people that reminds them of how far they’ve come and unwittingly breathes life into the demons of their past.
They had both quoted it off and on, over dinner, wine, and conversations about the future and over the still-unresolved issue of living together. Regardless, the reference had always been intended as a loving and intimate exchange, but this morning, it felt more like an unintentional kick in the teeth.
Poor Vanessa. If only she knew that today was the day that his “cloudiness” should have been lifted.
“What does it say?” Daisy asked.
“Um, it says that I’m just about ready to open a gift from my beautiful daughter now!” he teased, tickling the sole of her bare foot. She laughed out loud and pulled it back.
“Okay, here it is,” she said, extending her arm proudly. “I wrapped it up all by myself at school.”
“At school?”
“Yeah, I bought it at the Christmas gift sale. People donate stuff so we can buy gifts for our parents without them knowing.”
Vanessa stroked Daisy’s arm. “I would have taken you shopping, darling.”
The little girl shook her head. “That’s okay. I wanted to do it this way.”
“But thank you, Vanessa,” Ethan said, reminding his daughter of her manners.
“Yes, thank you, Vanessa,” she echoed cheekily.
He unwrapped the gift with considerably more speed and grace than he had the previous package.
“It’s a book with nothing in it,” Daisy announced.
“Yes, I can see that,” he said, faintly puzzled.
