February 2021 Flash Lit 3 - Third Time's the Charm

At the two-yard peg she faced round, and said, ‘A pawn goes two squares in its first move, you know. So you’ll go very quickly through the Third Square—by railway, I should think—and you’ll find yourself in the Fourth Square in no time. Well, that square belongs to Tweedledum and Tweedledee—the Fifth is mostly water—the Sixth belongs to Humpty Dumpty—But you make no remark?’

             ‘I—I didn’t know I had to make one—just then,’ Alice faltered out.

‘You should have said, “It’s extremely kind of you to tell me all this” Through the Looking Glass, Chapter 2

 

Amanda adjusted the belt of her dress to line the buckle up more precisely with the row of fabric-covered buttons.  She loved the yellow dotted swiss and the tiny daisies embroidered on the edge of the white collar.  She clasped her mother’s pearls around her neck, put on her watch, and then struggled with the charm bracelet.  The tiny nub that retracted part of the loop to catch the opposite side kept slipping away from the pressure of her fingernail.  It took three tries, but at last the bracelet jingled cheerfully around her right wrist.  “Are you ready, Alistair?” she called.

 

He padded into the hall outside the bedroom, one toe poking through a hole in his dress sock, holding two ties.  “Which one do you want me to wear?” he asked.

 

“Go change your socks!  You can’t wear holey ones today!” Amanda replied, turning from applying her pink lipstick.  “And wear the blue tie; it brings out your eyes.”

 

Maybe it was the bracelet making her sentimental, talking about Alastair’s eyes.  He had given it to her after they’d been dating for a month, just one little heart charm on it then.  Over the years, he’d given her others.  A cat because he always said she was as regal and precise as one, a little horseshoe for luck, a tiny car because he’d worked making them for so long.  She knew most of them by touch.  There was the prickle of the palm tree from their honeymoon trip to Hawaii, the smooth curve of the apple he had given her to tell her she was the apple of his eye.

 

And there were the three disks.  Amanda tried not to touch those, not today when they were going to celebrate Cal and Charlie’s tenth anniversary.  She could not afford to cry  now.  Angelica, Alexander, and Adam.  Three pregnancies, three miscarriages at six months, three thumbprints on her heart and preserved in gold.

 

She turned from the mirror to find Alastair, his tie perfectly knotted and his shiny shoes tied.  He wolf-whistled at her.  “I know I’ll have the most beautiful date,” he said.

 

“You’re a charmer,” she said and flicked invisible lint off his shoulder.