‘Erica?’ The shout wakes me and I sit up on the sofa and stretch my distorted body. The baby jerks, nestling its foot underneath my ribcage and I wriggle, nudging the little knot that juts out underneath my jumper.
‘In here,’ I say.
Daniel is grinning. I stumble to my feet clumsily and kiss his cheek. ‘You’re frozen. Come under the blanket and get warm.’
‘I can’t. I haven’t quite finished my jobs yet.’
I squint, trying to see into his eyes for a secret that he’s been guarding in the lead up to Christmas. It’s Christmas Eve now and I still have no idea what he has been planning.
‘Is it another cat?’ I guess, even though we’ve played this game before and I know it isn’t.
‘Nope. Bigger.’
‘Dog?’
‘No. It’s not alive,’ he says, flicking on the light and pulling closed the heavy, deep red curtains that took us months to save for. The room glows yellow with the Christmas tree lights on the tiny tree in the corner.
I think hard and pat my belly softly. ‘What is it, baby? What is it?’ The baby dances, pummeling its miniature fists and feet under my skin.
‘I’ve told him not to say.’
I smile. We didn’t find out the sex of the baby at our scan, but Daniel is convinced it’s a boy.
‘Give me a clue.’
‘Okay,’ Daniel relents. He hasn’t given me any clues at all yet and up until now, I have been quite patient. ‘It’s something to do with the house. Something it used to have that you loved.’
My heart lurches as Daniel pushes the sofa in the corner of the lounge along the wall to leave a space. ‘Oh! You haven’t? Have you?’
The doorbell chimes. ‘Go upstairs,’ Daniel says. ‘And come back down in ten minutes.’
***
I lie on the bed, the duvet cool underneath me, listening to the huffing and puffing of delivery men, grunts of thanks and Merry Christmas, then the roar of an engine outside. I think of the present I have bought for Daniel, an espresso machine that he’s looked at a few times and never bought because we’re saving everything up for the house, for the baby.
***
And then, the gentle tinkling of music floats through the house. I go downstairs carefully, gripping the bannister, my heart fluttering as the music becomes louder. I stand in the doorway of the lounge and take in the beautiful piano that sits in the corner, a red bow tied around it.
‘Daniel!’ I say, wanting to run to him, but having to lumber. ‘You bought me a piano?’
‘I saw it advertised. It was only local. It’ll need tuning,’ he says, kissing my forehead. ‘And obviously, none of us can actually play. So in the meantime,’ he spins me gently around to a record player. ‘I bought us this. But then I realized that the only record we have is The Wizard of Oz.’
We dance, laughing as Daniel struggles to get his arms around me, as we keep bumping into one another inelegantly, as the record skips and scratches its way through the colourful songs that bring back my childhood.
‘And I know you wanted to dance in the garden. But I think we’d get frostbite and it might end in possible amputation. So this will have to do.’ He leans forward and whispers in my ear. ‘There might be more records in your stocking tomorrow. I ran out of wrapping time.’
‘Your present is nothing like this,’ I tell him. ‘You’ll like it. But it isn’t your dream.’
‘Well, no, because my dream is to install bi-folding doors. Unless you’ve bought the doors and they’re hidden under the bed?’
I feel a lump in my throat and blink, feeling silly. ‘I’m so happy,’ I tell him.
‘Good. Happy Christmas, Erica.’