Christmas Eve
He loved
this girl. Really loved her. He put his
Christmas gift into her hands. She
carefully unwrapped a small box about 12 by 6 inches, covered in snowflake
paper.
“Oh, I love
it!” she exclaimed, eyes sparkling. She lifted a stuffed lion sitting on its
haunches.
“He has
more of a purr than a growl about him though,” she said, rubbing its soft mane
on his face. She purred. She had often
called him her lion.
“No, look
closer,” he corrected her.
“What?
Where? Oh, there’s something around his neck.”
She peered at the tiniest of gems
hanging from a thread-thin gold chain wrapped twice around the lion’s
mane.
“It’s a
diamond,” he said, his embarrassment evident.
“Oh.”
“You can
wear it.”
She
carefully removed the delicate necklace from her lion and held it to the light.
“”It’s very
nice,” she offered, then dutifully put it around her own neck
“I know
it’s small,” he said lamely,
“Oh, but
it’s pretty,” she said and smiled too brightly.
He saw a
complexity of doubt, surprise and resignation cross her face. He thought of the leather wallet that he had
already stuffed in his pocket that he had been very glad to receive.
On his
drive home to Bellerose his thoughts bolstered his resolve.
“What did
she expect? For me to spend a
fortune? I have my relatives to buy for.
It’s perfectly fine the way it is.”
Thoughts like these drove him the whole way home. They put him to bed and sang him to sleep.
He woke and
opened his eyes to complete darkness. He
heard a distant rumbling. A purr. No, a low growl. He turned on his bedside light and there on
the end of his bed was seated the same lion he had given to Eve. It bared its
teeth, and roared.
“I did the
best I could,” he told the lion. It bared its teeth and hissed.
“I thought
she’d like it,” he continued. The lion
growled again, more menacingly.
“She didn’t
though; her face gave her away.” Another
roar.
“I made her
feel (a ferocious snarl from the lion) small.”
He looked
into the lion’s angry eyes. “I didn’t mean to.”
The lion
charged, landing on his chest, pushing him backward, paws pressing painfully on
his throat.
“And I made
her comfort me and insist that it was OK,” he said breathily.
The lion
sat back and glared at him.
“I wish I
could do it over. I never want to see
her eyes like that.”
The lion
stood, turned its back on him and walked to the edge of the bed. It jumped down
to the floor and was gone.
The next
day he pulled up in front of her house but she came running out and threw her
arms around his neck.
They got into his car and before he
drove off she turned to him and said, “Look, isn’t it gorgeous?”
The necklace dangled against black
velvet. A heart of diamonds.
(502 words)
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