Julie gently nudges the clock to the left and glides the duster over the mantelpiece. The motion is slow and deliberate, as if by keeping her hands steady she can cradle the heaviness in her heart.
Her husband’s Christmas card can now take centre stage. She lifts it from the drawer still wrapped in yellow tissue paper that has grown thin and fragile. As she places it between the clock and the cactus, she once again reads his handwritten message. Familiar looping letters. A little flourish at the end of his name. His words carefully chosen, as if he knew they would outlive him, still make her breath catch.
The snowy garden scene on the front with a robin balanced on a crooked picket fence, summons a smile she cannot suppress. Such false nostalgia. He never liked birds, didn’t venture into the garden in winter, always grumbled about the cold, was annoyed by the ice on the windscreen and detested the damp. Yet, he had picked this card, of all things. Perhaps he wanted Julie to remember a softer version of him: one without complaints.
She lifts the card gently, tilting it toward the weak afternoon light. Glitter used to glisten across the snow-covered lawn and over the tiny bird’s wings. Now it looks dull and patchy, as if each year has melted more of its shimmer. When she brushes the edge with her thumb, another dusting of silver flecks falls down onto the carpet where it disappears forever.
Every year the card shines less and less.
Julie steps back, arms folded, staring at it. Time is cruel in its own quiet way. The clock ticks beside it, steady, indifferent, unaware of its own power. The cactus has grown taller and is leaning toward the window: alive and stubborn. But the card, like the man who once wrote inside it, fades with every passing year.
Sometimes she imagines that the falling glitter is him, scattering bit by bit. One day the thin card will be left only holding the words he never said aloud.
She has thought about buying a new card – something fresh, something that still sparkles. But she knows that wouldn’t feel the same. Only this old card carries his hand, his touch, his ‘love you as always’.
Julie picks up the card, kisses the robin, and places it down where it features every Christmas.
For a few seconds her lips sparkle.
