This piece of card is folded perfectly, its edge smoothed down so crisply and neatly you'd suspect a machine were involved. It was not. My beloved uses a bone to press the leaves of card together, drawing it swiftly but firmly down the fold with the precise confidence of a year's practice. She's not been doing it long, but she's doing it well.
My tiny silver trees are mis-shapen and wrong. She accepts them anyway, puts them into the pile that grows before her, and when she thinks I'm not looking carefully puts them to one side. It's sweet at the moment, so I decide to test her. My trees become increasingly wrong; this one has four branches on one side, and three on the other. This one's missing a trunk, and the final one she accepts has a Charlie Chaplin hat sticking out of the top. She laughs as she finally works out that I know.
'You shouldn't do that, you know,' I say, surprised to find that I mean it. 'You can't compromise yourself for someone else. If I'm doing it wrong, tell me.' I feel my lips go into a pout, and realise that I'm actually cross. I make a conscious effort to breathe in, and shake it away with a quick exhalation.
'It's only card-making,' she says. 'It's not important.'
'This is only card-making,' I say. 'Next time, it might only be love-making, might only be wedding vows. You have to be more careful. We could go through the next twenty years with you only pretending to come.'
She smiles at me, and I know she's joking when she says: 'It's worked so far.'
I take over the folding, and she cuts the trees. I'm slower, but the trees come out better.
Previous | Next
| 
