Change of Heart

By the night of Christmas Eve, Miska had been proposed to five times. And as the clock struck twelve that night, Miska clutched her empty wine glass and watched Jack, whom she believed to be the love of her life, ease his battered blue ford truck down the street, until it was swallowed by the gently falling snow. She waited for a moment — held her breath, though for what, she could not say, and finally. finally, drew her blinds against the night. 

Then she turned to her empty house, which, in Jack’s absence, seemed to swell with silence, until the entire house brimmed with it. It hung in the air like the suspended moment before a falling glass shatters on the ground. Waiting. 

The train of her nightgown brushed against her wooden floor with a soft whisper, its sound strangely eerie, as she padded barefoot to the Christmas tree in the corner of the room. She set her wineglass down and studied the tree that she and Jack had decorated hours earlier. It had looked so festive not so long ago, the green vibrant, the bright baubles twinkling merrily, the tiers of light accompanied by the sharp smell of pine. And now… Miska ran a finger down the branches that seemed to droop, the colours muted and seeping, as if painted hastily by the hand of a careless god.

 Against her will, Miska’s gaze drifted to the shadowed corner of the room where the light couldn’t quite reach, to the two figures draped in shadows — their shapes long familiar to her after countless years. Ghosts, she supposed people would call them. But that was perhaps not quite the right word for what they were. Miska did not know if such a word existed. She did not know if they were truly there, or if they were wisps of her imagination, and she had grown not to care. But she did know that they were of extreme likeness to her long dead siblings: Rosaline and Ronan, each with translucent skin and a hole where their heart should be. 

It was for them she had turned down Jack’s proposal — once, twice, and then thrice. 

She drifted to the kitchen, brushed the flour that dusted the countertop. As always, her silent, translucent, siblings followed, lingering at the corner of her vision. She’d grown used to their presence, stepping through their ghostly shadows, even, without flinching. She bore the weight of them the same way they seemed to bore their missing hearts — with resignation, thinking it to be another scar that love’s victim carried.

The smell of gingerbread hung in the air; and she was suddenly reminded of how, mere hours ago, she’d taken the gingerbread from the oven and turned to see Jack under a shaft of sunlight, his hands dusted with flour.

“First Christmas with you,” he’d said, and pulled her close. And she had stiffened, before closing her eyes, inhaling the familiar lemony detergent of his clothes, the salt of his skin. And he was right. Their first Christmas — her first Christmas in many years since Rosaline and Ronan had died. It was the first of many things, and she pondered this in her own silent way as she shut her eyes against the ghostlike forms of their siblings. She felt her heart unclench, the feeling foreign, like an old runner stretching their legs. She looked at Jack, felt his calloused palm in hers, and thought: Perhaps...Perhaps this love would be different. Lasting.

“Miska,” he’d said, and she’d been taken aback by the tremble in his hands, the unasked question hanging in the air. She took a breath, knew what he would ask before he voiced it. 

 “Would you… Do you think you would marry me?”

The air shifted, expectant — Miska breathed in the smell of cinnamon, heard the soft Christmas music that drifted from her phone, and looked at the mute, translucent figures in the shadows. 

“No,” she breathed. Miska would remember this moment with sharp clarity; the disappointment, though not shock, that flitted across his features. He ran a hand through his hair, and for a moment, an unsureness hung in the air. What now? Miska had wondered, taking a step back.

“Why?” 

Miska paused, remembered the way her siblings had died — both for love. Ronan, because he had lost the love of his life, and Rosaline, because she felt she was both incapable of giving and receiving it. Perhaps, she thought, it was a curse that ran through their family. Their presence stifled the room, a reminder. A warning. 

“It cannot be me.”

If Jack was dissatisfied with this answer, he did not show. Only took her hand silently, quietly, while Miska ached with the want to say yes. He asked her four more times. Once, with a glittering ring embedded with a gem the colour of a robin’s egg, another time while they were decorating the tree, her hand in hers. The last time, he had whispered it, softly, with her curled on his chest and the snow falling thickly outside. 

In frustration, she had said: “You do not know what you’re asking for. I cannot love you.” She hated herself for it, hated the way the words left a bitter taste in her mouth. But what could she do? Miska thought of her siblings, both cursed with love. What else could she do but blindly follow its path?

And with that, Jack had stiffened, the hurt flashing across his eyes. She turned away. “Perhaps… Perhaps it would be better if you just go.” And he had, taking his easy laughter and steadiness with him. Without it, the house seemed empty. Too big and too dark, which was strange, for Miska had never minded the quiet before Jack. 

She had watched him go, because she had asked him to. And with that, she walked upstairs, took one look at the room she’d shared with him, the linens mussed from sleep, and turned away. Instead, she found herself walking to the piano tucked in the corner, white keys gleaming like rows of teeth, the black shiny like ebony. Even after years of disuse, the keys stayed stubbornly in tune. She plucked at it now, fingers picking out an old Christmas carol, revering in the way the note hung in the air.

It was always Ronan who used to play the piano, his slender fingers dancing over the keys, head thrown back in laughter, the notes bright and whole as the music seeped from his hands into the keys, coaxing those beautiful melodies. Rosaline would accompany him, her voice sweet and clear, layered with Miska’s own low baritone. It had been Christmas tradition — a time before. Before Rosaline’s miscarriage and the pills that followed, before Ronan lost his Emmeline, and turned sullen and dark, his life littered with empty wine bottles. 

As if summoned by her thoughts, Miska blinked to find Ronan sitting on the piano bench, his back to her. This time, it was not the translucent form that she was familiar to, but instead a light, golden glow that surrounded him. And for the first time since his figure had haunted her, he spoke. 

“Ah. I’ve been waiting for you.” His voice was soft, smooth as honey, and so familiar that Miska’s heart ached — it was just as she remembered. He looked better. Healthier. She marvelled at how young he looked, so far from the frail figure he had been towards the end of his life. 

He hesitated, the note of the unfinished song lingering in the air. “I cannot remember how this one goes,” he mused, glancing up. He shifted on the piano bench, and the hazy, warm glow of the light followed him. He motioned to the keys. “Perhaps you could help me?”

“I think… I think that would be lovely.” And so they did. If it was possible, he played more beautifully in death than he did in life, the notes ringing with an undercurrent of something else. Something more. Miska followed him, and marvelled at the way their hands flew across the keys, so perfectly in sync even after all those years. 

“Thank you,” Ronan said, simply, when they’d finished.

“You can speak,” Miska finally whispered. She looked at him from the corner of her eyes, afraid that anything more would break this impossible spell.

“A Christmas miracle, perhaps,” he said, tilting his head towards the softly falling snow outside, and the twinkling fairy lights Miska and Jack had strung outside her window.

“Why did you say no?” Ronan asked, softly, as if following her train of thoughts. His gaze was sharp, though not unkind. 

“We are cursed with love,” she finally said, running a hand gently down the piano keys. She had not believed in curses, long ago, but she looked at her ghostly sibling and thought: if this can exist, then why not curses? It was the only way that love brought such sorrow onto her family.

“Love gets taken from us,” Miska continued, and she thought she saw Ronan’s lip lift in a sad smile. “And we can do nothing about it. We cannot choose who is taken from us, or… Or the way in which they are taken. Is this not a curse?”

Ronan was silent for so long she thought he had not heard her. He drifted to touch a long faded photograph by Miska’s bedside table. It was of the three of them. There was Rosaline, the oldest, with her bouncy curls, the obvious beauty. Ronan, the second, with his crooked smile, arm slung around his two sisters. And finally, her, Miska. Staring straight into the camera, a slight, thoughtful smile playing on her lips — she was the third. The last. 

Finally, Ronan spoke. “I would think we do have choices — how we love and how much. How we live after a person we love has left us.” 

His form flickered, like the wavering light of a candle. He walked towards her, took her hand in his translucent one, his skin cool underneath hers. “Our true curse? I think… I think we look at the present with the past in our eyes.”

She could not say how much time passed before this moment and the next, but they stood there for what felt like a long, long time. Silent. The snow deafened the sound of the cars outside, of the Christmas carols in the air, and it was as if the world hung still for this precise moment, caught between one breath and the next. 

When Miska breathed again, she felt as if it was for the first time in many, many years. “It’s too late. He’s gone already,” she said finally, and was surprised to find her cheek wet with tears. 

“Perhaps. But maybe it’s not too late for a change of heart.” He winked, his dimples flashing, and for a split second, Miska thought she saw his heart —wonderfully whole and beating underneath his rib cage. 

“Goodbye, Miska.” He said, kindly, and somehow, she knew this was the last time she would see him again. She thought she could hear the ghostly notes of the piano hang in the air, wrapping her in its familiar embrace. To her surprise, she felt no desperation, no panic, when she saw the glowing form of Ronan begin to fade. There was a quiet sadness now, curled around her heart — one that she knew she would learn to carry. And maybe that was okay. 

And there, the faintest of whispers: “Merry Christmas.” Before she could say anything, between one blink and the next, he was gone. The room was empty, yet, it didn’t feel so. Not anymore. 

Maybe it's not too late for a change of heart. Miska picked up her phone, leaned against the window to watch the snow falling outside, and dialed Jack’s number. 

~~

Jack sat by the booth in the corner of the local diner, his ears still red from the cold. The snow swirled outside, blurring the streets with white. The diner was quiet, save for a waitress at the back, everyone already gone for the holidays.

He stirred his coffee which had long gone cold, and tried to push the thought of Miska from his mind. He thought she loved him, was sure of it even. It was true, she never said it, but he thought she spelt it instead with: the fleeting moments where she smiled, her steady hand as they hung Christmas ornaments, the way she handed him his coffee wordlessly in the mornings, with a sleepy kiss on his head. 

Falling out of love, he’d realized, was harder than he would have liked.

He was pulled out of his thoughts by the waitress, who asked if he wanted anything else. He shook his head, noting the way the light seemed to bend around her, her body cast in a soft golden glow — which was strange, because the diner was dimly lit. She reminded him a little like Miska, he thought, catching a glimpse of her red-gold hair, and the determined set of her jaw.

“Are you okay?” She asked, suddenly. She stood, motionless, back to him as she peered out at the drifting snow. 

“Not really. I… The love of my life doesn’t love me.” He flinched as soon as the words left his mouth — they sounded foolish, empty and naive. “She said she cannot love me.” And he waited for the waitress to react with shock or sympathy, even pity. But instead, she merely nodded. 

When she spoke again, her voice was calm and even, sliding like quicksilver. “Maybe love doesn’t look the way you expect it to.” She shrugged, a slight lifting of her shoulders.

And as if on cue, his phone rang. And there, a whisper of a smile played on her lips. “Maybe you should answer that.”

“Merry Christmas,” she said, softly, and just like that, was gone. Jack pressed accept, and listened to Miska’s voice spill into the line, saying yes yes yes. He smiled, and looked at the twinkling lights, at the snow that dusted the rooftops.

At home, as the clock chimed the first hour of Christmas, Miska pulled open her blinds and let her sorrow and happiness seep into the night.