A Diamond for Valentine's Day

satin, lace and rose

A Diamond for Valentine’s Day

For Lauren

‘Bring me a present,’ said the princess in reply to his proposal of marriage, ‘and I will know what to answer you.’ Then she was gone in a swirl of ambiguous rainbows.

His love was deep as caves and high as clouds so the dream-master searched his night world for the right gift. He saw a multi-faceted diamond that would sparkle like her beauty; a sensuous, full-bodied wine that tasted of her lands from grape to oak-aged maturity; a poppy seed containing all life’s potential and fragility. Nothing said it all.

The possibilities grew beyond remembering and he knew he would lose her. He doubted himself. He doubted their relationship. If she was unsure, was it not already decided otherwise? What did she want?

And so he broke the laws of magic to spy on her where she lay and to raid her dreams. He was not in them, nor any man. She dreamed of what she could be, of what she could do, of where she could go to be her best self. He felt her fears and he understood.

On the due date, he stood before her, swathed in nebulae. ‘This is the present,’ he told her, opening empty hands to free the invisible bird and let her fly. ‘Always free,’ he promised her, a diamond glistening on his cheek.

‘Yes,’ she replied and kissed the diamond, another kind of promise.

1940s love letter