Alone but together over the Christmas days time was not running out for once the kitchen clock had stopped looking at him meaningfully and she
today a thing of beauty of gathered curves flowing in and from that special frock bought for an opening (and perhaps worn once?) she was lovelier then than any woman he had known or seen.
Earlier that morning in place of falling ever falling towards passion’s state he had lain peacefully beside her and from his pillowed space in bed had gazed . . . instead
They did the usual things but with an unusual care taking time with presents’ paper savouring wine between sips of water cutting into that well-iced cake and sensing from a distant room the scent of candles glimmering
On St Stephen’s Day they’d upped and offed into the glen that rose above the town that held her world of work of children house and home walking up through bare winter trees where far below a stream rushed valley-ward undrowned for once by the traffic’s noise and the sudden rush of the railway's train.
About to turn for home he saw her stoop to look to gather to pocket Some sixth sense told him then an idea had formed itself when as between her fingers she held five acorns from the path not squirreled-perfect shiny ones but damaged and in need of care these cups and fruit garnered about with slivers of broken oaken bark
Later she left them lying on a sheet of card their winter colours true but hard in the kitchen’s light objects suddenly removed from all disorder of a woodland way.
An hour or so perhaps later still with her small fingers she had stitched until . . no not stitched she said darned with blue and red and silk-golden thread in between and then around these fractured acorn shells picked from the path with the cracked and shattered broken bark now made good as new and mended well
Her smile expressed a triumph and a joy of a doing done and from laughing eyes and heightened voice he sensed something stretch into time’s distance something wholly private she would guard and hold and own to be only hers and only hers alone.