I CAN FEEL AGAIN - EXCERPT LAVENDER BLUE

It was a still, white-draped afternoon. The grounds lay deep under soft snow, the sky glowed a satin blue, and the sun hung low and full in the west. As the old oaks glittered with dripping icicles, smoke curled from the manor’s chimneys in a lazy dance.

It was Christmas Eve. Classes were on hold until the new year, and the manor was unusually quiet, except for the classical holiday music playing from above.

Joy tried to outwait the silence as she stood in the foyer. She usually embraced stillness, but a wave of melancholy had swept in. She looked around the empty room, the one she had reinvented. The chandelier sparkled like ice wrapped in a prism above white marble floors. The handsome partner's desk in the corner, a towering basket of Poinsettias tied with white satin. She exhaled softly.

Then, footsteps on the veranda, and the tall mahogany door swung open. A courier was holding a package.

It was wrapped in a matte chocolate-brown paper with lime-green vines hand-painted on the corners, and bound by a silky lavender ribbon. And it was addressed to her in Ben’s slanted scroll in a thin white ink.

In her bedroom, she cradled it in her lap and took slow, nervous breaths. Not the kind she did when she meditated, but ones meant to still her fluttering heart.

It had only been four months since he’d left.

But it felt like a lifetime had passed.

Inside the box was another in the same wrap, along with a chocolate-brown envelope. ‘Joy’, it read in the same white-inked slant.

The card was hand-sketched. A meandering river, as if content to just be. Poplars and birch trees bent in a breeze, and wildflowers teased splashes of summer. Two pairs of feet dangled over the embankment: men’s sandals and a pair of women's slip-ons.

Joy, you are with me more often than I admit—even to myself. It is a quiet pull I don’t question, only notice. And I can feel again. And that’s enough. Wish everyone a warm holiday. BTW, it’s a Smithsonite. For serenity. For your pocket. —B

Tears welled as she read. Her fingers clutched the corners tenderly as if the paper might break. And then she read it again.

Inside the small box was a rounded Smithsonite, glittering in soft tissue: a rich hue of purples, its gentle valleys smoothed, like polished wax. She laid it in her palm and the tiny, imperfect heart pulsed. She allowed its warmth and quiet calm to seep in—and for a moment, she knew she was deserving of love.

. . .

ABOVE IS AN EXCERPT FROM LAVENDER BLUE

Copyright © 2025, Calgary, Alberta by Pamela Tchida

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is purely coincidental.

ISBN 9798272883230