A Touch of Grace

"I've been telling her that ever since she started eating it." Bryan shook his head with a soft laugh. "She's treating it like the last ice-cream left on this planet."

"She's really sweet," Claire smiled, looking out of the window.

"She is," Bryan said. He was a slow driver, the main reason, she understood, was the little person in the backseat. "You look nice."

"Me?" she looked at him, eyes wide. "Oh...umm...thank you," she smiled, looking down at the black cardigan and jeans she had on. She never took much care dressing up ever since she left Brad. Pauline had been telling her to get a haircut before Christmas but she wasn't sure she wanted it.

"How was house hunting?" he asked, his eyes on the road ahead.

"Good. I picked the place."

"Really? Congratulations," he smiled, giving her a sidelong glance. "Housewarming party, then?"

Claire laughed quietly. "I don't have anyone to invite, except my brother and his wife. But I'm living with them right now and they'll probably help me move...so they're not guests..."

"I know how it is when a relationship ends." He sighed, tapping his fingers on the wheel as they stopped at a red light. "I understand your state of mind. You don't have to explain."

Claire glanced back, found Grace wiping her hands on her top. Bryan shook his head.

"That's what the napkin is for, sweetheart," he said.

"This is more fun," Grace giggled. Claire laughed.

"Where are we going?" she asked, as they got moving again.

"There." Bryan pointed at the shopping mall in the distance which Claire realised was the Hamley's toy store. When she smiled and shook her head, Bryan laughed, nodding.

"Yup. I promised her a toy helicopter."

"Remote-controlled." Grace added from the backseat.

"Yeah, remote-controlled." He sighed, then laughed again. "We come here every year. I usually let her pick and choose, and we go home with a bag full of toys." He looked at her. "You don't look like you get bored around kids, do you?"

"Never," she smiled. Bryan smiled back.

"Well, that's a comfort. It's so hard to find women without kids who actually love being around them. Ummm..." He turned left, slowing down, looking for the parking. "I'm right, I hope?" he said, hesitantly. "You don't have kids?"

"Nope. I don't." She found herself laughing again. "Can you imagine the disaster it'd be if I had a child and then found my partner cheating on me?"

Her heart lurched in her throat when she realised what she'd said. She swallowed, looked out of the window as they went inside the underground parking.

"I'm sorry." Bryan's voice was soft, comforting. Claire swallowed again, trying to make the lump in her throat go away.

"No, I'm sorry." She shook her head, feeling really bad about having said that. "I shouldn't have..."

"It's okay." Bryan turned off the combustion, looking totally nonchalant. Claire was kind of grateful to him for not asking anything more. He got off, opened the door on her side, shut it when she'd got off. Then he went over to Grace.

"Gosh, your top is all sticky," he exclaimed, picking her up from the seat. "You'll have ants crawling over you."

Grace only giggled, holding on to the end of her dad's jacket as he properly wiped her hands. Then she came over to Claire and held her hand as soon as Bryan let her go.

"Let's go," Bryan smiled at them. They went inside the huge store, full of other people who were also on an early Christmas shopping. Grace seemed to know every part of the store; where the best airplanes were to where the cutest dolls were displayed. She was the first child who loved both automobiles and dolls.

"So what do you do?" Claire asked Bryan as they wandered through the aisles, trying to locate the helicopters.

"I manage the finance department at Fielding Furniture," he said, stopping when Grace stopped before a display of toy boats. "It's our family business."

"Oh. That's your family business?" Claire smiled softly, remembering an armchair she and Brad had once bought from that store. "I like the designs. Very refined. Contemporary."

"Hmm. My dad started the business. My brother and I became part of it later."

"You have a brother?"

"Yes. Younger." Grace located the helicopter display, stood awestruck in front of it. Bryan smiled fondly.

"If she didn't like dolls," he whispered to her. "I'd think she was a boy in a girl's body."

They laughed together. It caught Grace's attention, and she turned to look at her dad.

"Daddy, I want this one." She pointed to a big, life-like helicopter that looked like it would start flying anytime. Bryan went closer, took a good look at the toy.

"That one?" he asked. Grace nodded. Bryan called one of the storekeepers patrolling around, requested him to show her how to operate it. The man happily obliged, a delighted Grace beaming the whole time. Claire looked up at Bryan, noticed the fondness on his face. Bryan turned his head, met her eyes.

"She's so happy," Claire said to him, smiling at Grace.

"Yeah. She's always happy." Bryan sighed, shoved his hands in the pockets of his jacket. "While it lasts, right? I kind of know this isn't forever, so..."

"Please. Don't say that." Her hand involuntarily reached out to touch his shoulder. She quickly moved it away when she realized she shouldn't be doing it. The helicopter was mid-air, as Grace looked on in wonder. Bryan went closer, held her hands as she attempted to operate the remote. After a few wobbly attempts, the helicopter started to fly.

"You want this one?" He asked her, got a vigorous nod in response. The store attendant put the toy back in the box, and Bryan put it in the trolley.

"That's a lovely toy," Claire said to her when she came back to her and held her hand. Grace giggled, holding her dad's pocket with the other hand.

"Thank you, daddy." She beamed. The smile on Bryan's face conveyed everything. They walked around the store, seeing the thousands of different toys on display and excited little children wandering about trying them out. Grace picked up an Elsa doll, and Bryan put it in the trolley. She chose a large teddy bear, a penguin, and a talking bird, and Bryan obliged her by putting them in the trolley. At the end of an hour, she'd chosen about a dozen toys. Needless to say, she was sleepy.

"It's okay. I have her." Claire picked her up while Bryan paid the bill. Grace put her head down on her shoulder, visibly tired.

"Let's go." Bryan turned, motioning at the exit.

"Has she had lunch?" She asked carrying her while Bryan carried the bag. He nodded.

"The ice cream was her dessert," he smiled, as they took the elevator to the parking. "She usually cannot stay awake for too long, so I make sure she's fed before we go out anywhere."

"What happened at the doctor's yesterday?" she asked, as they exited the elevator and walked through a maze of cars in the parking.

"He changed her medicines." Bryan located his car, beckoned her to follow with a tilt of his head. "There can be side effects if she takes one medication for a long time, so it's imperative to change them every couple of years."

He put the bag under the backseat, and then picked a sleeping Grace from Claire's arms. She watched his gentleness as he reclined the seat, laid her back, secured her with the seat belt, and covered her with a blanket. Then he shut the door quietly.

"Would you want to have lunch somewhere?" he asked, opening the passenger door for her. The idea stopped Claire in her tracks. This wasn't supposed to be anything. She didn't even know Bryan. There was something likeable about him, but then...

"You haven't eaten?" She managed to ask.

"I have. I was asking for you." He smiled, motioning her to get in. "You look hungry."

Claire laughed nonchalantly, got into the passenger seat. "I'm fine. I'm supposed to be meeting friends in a while, so... Drop me where you picked me up?"

"Cool." Bryan got behind the wheel, fastened his seat belt. Claire noticed his hairy arms when his jacket sleeve rode up, turned her face away and smiled to herself. Brad liked to manscape, to the point of weeding out every single hair strand from his body. Whenever they made love and she felt smooth skin against hers, she'd wonder if it was a man's or a woman's body.

"So how long have you been doing this?" Bryan asked, shaking her out of her thoughts.

"Since high school," she replied. "That's when I started to volunteer with summer camps, and while in college, I did a training on how to work with special children, and joined Blooming Buds at 22."

"Why special children?" Bryan slowed as they approached a red light. "I mean, normal children are hard enough to manage. Special children would require more effort, right?" He looked at her face. "Why would a young girl want that?"

"Maybe because I'm different?" Claire laughed. "Or maybe because I always wanted to do something for the differently-abled...you know...the people who don't get included everywhere... And I loved children since my camp days, so I didn't find it all that different."

"To tell you the truth, when I took her there for the first time, I thought the staff there would all be like Ms Cameron," Bryan laughed. "You know...middle-aged, greying." Claire laughed too. "I hadn't expected to find you there, or girls younger than you. When Ms Cameron said that the program coordinator was really adept at handling challenging children, I thought it must be someone older."

"Yeah. Like a granny." They turned their heads at the same time, met each other's gaze. They laughed quietly. Claire glanced at the backseat as they started to move again, where Grace was fast asleep.

"When will she wake up?" she asked.

"In a couple of hours. We were supposed to go clothes shopping too, but..." He looked at her reflection in the rear view mirror. "She needs regular naps or she runs out of energy."

"I understand." She leaned back, gazing at the other vehicles, the buildings in the distance. It was bright and sunny. Didn't seem like Christmas was only a month away.

"You know...I don't know why she asked you to come along," he said. "But I liked having you with us. You're good company. Maybe you could've bought something for yourself if we went clothes shopping."

"It's okay. I'm not much of a shopper." She smiled, finally checking her phone. Pauline had texted to say she had cancelled meeting friends and gone home, adding that she was making lasagna for the first time that night. "I liked coming along as well. It was a good change from a typical Sunday."

"Yeah? What do you do on other Sundays?"

"Make stuff. With Christmas coming up, my hands are full with orders."

"I wish I could be that creative," he sighed with a smile. "You pack a lot of talents in your slender form. Maybe I should hang out with you more, hoping some of it rubs off on me too."

She laughed, shaking her head. She wanted to say her talents were never appreciated by anybody but kept quiet anyway. He didn't need to know her soppy life story.

"Starbucks." The car slowed again in front of the café. "Ooo, looks packed."

"Sunday crowd." Claire smiled at him. "I'll see you guys on Saturday, then?"

Bryan nodded. "Thanks for today," he smiled, glanced at his daughter. "She had a great time. So did I."

"Me too." Claire shook his hand, noticed how warm and soft it was. "Take care. Both of you."

"You too." He nodded, smiled, opened the door for her. She got off quietly, shutting the door as gently as possible.

"See ya," he waved at her. She waved back, staring as long as she could see the back light of the car.

*

If there had been anybody home they probably would have closed Claire's laptop, taken the bottle out of her hand, and engaged her. Instead she was doing something that was objectively stupid but had ceased to matter around the halfway point of the bottle of Jack Daniels.

Stalking her ex-boyfriend on the internet. That was a quality idea.

She'd just started out looking for some movies she could download. All her orders had been delivered, and even though she was richer by a few grands, she had no other order in the next few weeks. So she needed to find something to do at home. She was anyway moving next week. This was her last Thursday evening at Peter's house. She'd got home thirty minutes ago, was sitting on the sofa still wearing the flannel dress and leggings, the car keys still in her pocket.

And then she'd just started clicking around.

She'd found Brad's work page first. It was the same as always. Lots of pictures from shoots he'd done, though there were a few new ones. Then she started poking around and ended up on his Facebook page. She still didn't have an account, but Brad always did.

The picture of him was cute. Smiling away and waving at the camera. He had it set to private, so all Claire could see was a bunch of profile picture updates. She clicked on 'About', wondering if she could find anything there.

Bradley Mathews is in a relationship with...

Well... fuck.

The phone was to her ear before she even knew she'd dialled it. She was past the point of caring now. Voicemail kicked in and when she heard the familiar voice she almost fell off the sofa.

It beeped.

"Hi. So. Fuck you." She managed, then paused, staring at the screen. A cheerful face looked back at her, hand raised in a wave. "You fucking...prick. In a relationship, right? The day after we..." She couldn't finish, knew this sounded bloody ridiculous, and she wanted to throw up a little bit. She thunked her head against the coffee table.

Whatever. The girl Brad was with was better looking than her anyway. Of course she was. She had seen her naked, sitting on his face, eating him out.

Damn.

The phone beeped. An upbeat female voice came on the line.

"To save your message, press one. To delete and record again, press two."

Claire pressed two, ended the call, and buried her face in her hands. She knew there would probably be a missed call showing on Brad's screen but couldn't bloody care.

She was about to close the laptop when she paused, setting the bottle down on the table. She hovered over the recycling bin for a long moment, full with the pictures she'd deleted a few weeks ago and hadn't been able to get rid of for good.

Right click.

Are you sure you want to permanently delete these 147 files?

She pressed yes. Sat back, staring at the screen for a long time while it glowed pointless and blue back at her.

Then she closed the laptop, picked up the bottle, and was about to head upstairs, when the doorbell rang. She discarded the bottle in the bin, shuffled to the front door and opened it to find Pauline standing there, looking...strange.

Without a word, she walked past her and collapsed on the sofa, leaving Claire to look on like an idiot. She closed the door and walked back to the sofa, sitting beside her.

"What's up?" she said, staring at her face. Pauline closed her eyes and shook her head, like she'd just woken up from a nightmare.

"What?" She put a hand on her shoulder. "Is everything okay? You look like you saw a ghost."

Pauline opened her mouth, fumbled for a moment. "Claire...I..." She held her hands, and Claire flinched when cold palms made contact with her skin. "I...I think..."

"What's the matter?" Claire moved closer, put an arm around her. "Did anything happen?"

"I think..."

"You think...?"

Pauline quietly folded her arms around her belly, then looked back at Claire and faintly nodded. Claire's mouth dropped open.

"You...you are?" Her eyes were so wide, they would roll off her face any moment. Pauline nodded quietly again.

"Oh my god!" Claire laughed, wrapping her in a crushing hug. "I can't believe this! You... Oh god... You know what that makes me? An aunt! Pauline...Oh god, this is great...!"

When she pulled away, there were tears in Pauline's eyes. That was surprising. She hadn't seen her crying in....ages.

"Are you okay?" Claire cupped her face. "What are these tears for?"

Pauline only bit her lip, kept nervously fidgeting with her fingers as the tears welled up and rolled down her cheeks. Claire sighed.

"Pauline, what's happening?" She put her arms around her again. "Tell me?"

"Peter doesn't know..." She mumbled.

"Not yet, but when he comes home tonight, you have some surprise to give him."

"No...he..." She looked away, wiped off her tears. "He doesn't know I had gone off the pill last month." She turned back at her, her face dark with worry. "What if...what if he doesn't want this? I never cared to ask him..."

"Why did you go off the pill?"

"Because..." She swallowed audibly. "I'm 33 now. I want a baby."

"And Pete doesn't?"

"He'd said he wanted to wait awhile... When we got married..."

"You got married four years ago. You've had enough of waiting." Claire stroked her hair, smiling. "Knowing how my brother is, he'll be overjoyed. Maybe you can have some celebratory sex tonight?"

That got her a small laugh. Pauline sniffed back tears, looked at her with eyes that were slightly red.

"I'm so nervous," she whispered. "I don't know how to tell him he's about to become a dad..."

"Did you see a doctor?"

"No...I..." She glanced at her bag. "I took a home test."

"Seriously?" Claire laughed. "In the office toilet?"

Pauline nodded shyly, laughing. Claire laughed louder.

"So when he gets home, hand him the pee stick. And then make him take you to the doctor tomorrow."

Pauline laughed, then nodded. "He won't be pissed off, will he?" She asked hesitantly. "I didn't even tell him I wanted a baby. I just went off the pill without consulting him. Thought it'd be a nice surprise."

"It is. Trust me." Claire squeezed her hand. "He loves you. He'll be delighted. What---aren't you delighted?"

"I am. It's just a little unexpected."

"It's brilliant." She hugged her again, patted her back. "Congratulations. I couldn't have asked for a better Christmas gift."

"Thanks." Pauline's voice was quiet, different from what she was like on other days. "I hope it goes well."

"It will. Don't worry."

The doorbell rang. Pauline froze.

"Shit." She looked at the door and bit her lip again. "Is it him? He's early."

"Of course he's early." Pauline winked. "He wants you."

Pauline reached out to smack her but she gave her a miss, giggling all the way to door. It was Peter.

"Hi girls." He smiled as he came in, briefcase dangling from his hand. "What's up?"

Claire looked alternatively at her brother and his wife. Pauline still seemed frozen. Peter was blissfully unaware.

"I'm going to cook tonight," he announced, dropping his briefcase on the coffee table. Claire moved her laptop, put it on the sofa. "I learned a new recipe today."

"Oh." Pauline shifted uncomfortably on the sofa, like there were bugs biting her. "That's...that's... umm..."

"Are you okay?" Peter narrowed his eyes at his wife. "You look...."

"I'm going for a drive," Claire piped in, turning around. "You guys need a...moment." She giggled quietly, heading for the door. From the corner of her eyes, she could see Peter's confused look and Pauline's nervous one. As much as she wanted to witness the moment of revelation, she decided it was better to leave them at it.

She drove aimlessly for a long time, stopping at traffic, and then driving again. There were lights and decorations everywhere, stores offering huge discounts, people looking happy and excited. Claire didn't seem to notice anything. She drove on, trying to bring her racing mind back under control.

So her brother's life was sorted. He had a good job, a great wife, and would soon have a family. In comparison, she was still living in a rented house, was still making nonessential stuff like wall decor and jewellery boxes, and was single. And miserable.

She couldn't complain, though. She chose this life. She chose this career despite knowing it would never make her rich. She chose to leave Brad when she could've just forgiven him and taken him back. It was her fault that she was miserable.