Love and Promises

Sometimes Jade didn’t keep her promises. Usually an endearing trait, she could fall so far into her work that she wouldn’t return home for days. Alice gazed up from her spot on the floor to the wooden cuckoo clock on the wall as the bird flew out to signify another passed hour. 10pm and Jade still wasn’t home. Alice never interrupted her wife while she was at her studio, but it was New Year’s Eve so she picked up her phone to try and call her. It went straight to voicemail. Alice sighed and tried to tell herself that it didn’t matter. She thought about every New Year’s Eve from her earliest memory and they all pictured Jade at centre stage.

Realising that they couldn’t spend the turn of the decade apart, Alice dashed around the house looking for her car keys – a necessary leaving-the-house ritual. She found them perched on the kitchen bench top and scooped them up. As soon as she opened the garage door, her heart sank. An empty room lay before her because they had lent the car to her parents for the week.   

Alice rolled her eyes, let out a deep sigh and succumbed to her fate of using the public transport system on New Year’s Eve. Once again, the ritual of locating something before leaving the house began – this time instead of her keys, Alice needed to find her transport card. Finally discovering it in the pocket of the jeans she wore two days ago, she frantically found her keys again (this time thrown on the couch next to the garage door) and walked out the front door, locking it behind her. It was only a short distance to the nearest bus stop and there was a bus that would take her directly to Jade’s studio. Although the weather in Australia had been extremely hot recently, with bush fires taking over a lot of the country this summer, Alice found rising bumps on her skin as the breeze hit her, and wished she’d grabbed a coat on her way out of the door.

Reaching the bus stop, she went to pull out her phone to check when the next bus would arrive. Searching her pockets and handbag, she realised that she had left it sitting on the coffee table where it had been flung when Jade didn’t pick up her call earlier. Rolling her eyes for the umpteenth time that night, she sat down at the bus stop and prayed to whatever god was listening that a bus would arrive shortly. After 15 minutes Alice had given up and succumbed to the idea of spending the New Year’s alone, already formulating a plan in her head to go to sleep as soon as she got home so that she wasn’t awake for the stroke of midnight. Just as she was standing up to leave, she saw the headlights of a large vehicle down the street. As it got closer she could see that the numbers lit up on the front meant that it was indeed the bus that she needed. A Christmas Miracle – sort of.

The next thing that Alice noticed was cheering and banging noises. She was jostled awake by the loud sounds, feeling confused and dazed. Her eyes came in to focus and she felt dread rush through her. She was on a bus. In the middle of the city. The cheering meant that it was midnight. The banging noises were fireworks. It was a new decade and she was nowhere near Jade.

Not really knowing what to do, Alice got off at the next bus stop, which was right amongst the celebrations. She went across the street and got on a bus going back out of the city. As she sat down on the bus, she looked out the window to see people everywhere celebrating the new year with their loved ones. There were families gazing up at the fireworks display, children cuddled by parents. There were couples kissing with huge grins on their faces. There were the people who seemed to be so drunk that they could barely walk. Alice was annoyed and frustrated at Jade for not keeping her promise this time. Alice wasn’t superstitious, but she was concerned for the decade to come given this horrible beginning.

The bus slowly took off from its standstill and all Alice could do was bite her lip to stop tears from rolling down her cheeks. Just when she thought she might let out her emotions on this empty bus on New Year’s Eve, they started to drive across a bridge. She had an incredible view of the river, along which the fireworks display dazzled against the black night’s sky. She could see incredible detail of each blast as it went off and its reflection on the water below. It was less than a minute before they were on the other side of the river, but Alice’s mood had perked up just a little bit, knowing that special moments could come about spontaneously even in unhappy moments.  

“Happy New Year.”

Alice turned her attention to the voice as the got off the bus. It was the driver, a huge smile on his face.

“Happy New Year,” Alice replied, and jumped off onto the street, facing the building where her wife’s studio was located.

Alice knocked on the door, feeling nothing but pure exhaustion, since it was well after midnight. She heard fumbling behind the door and she knocked again, only getting halfway through the first knock when the door was flung open. Alice found herself encompassed in a familiar warm hug and couldn’t help but smile. Jade always had that effect on her.

“Happy New Year,” Alice said, still wrapped up in Jade’s arms.

Jade pulled away, a sheepish look on her face.

“I’m sorry,” she said. Jade took a step back to let Alice through the door, allowing Alice’s sights to set on a beautiful painting standing in the middle of the room. Always taken aback by her wife’s talents and dedication to her passion, she realised that tonight did nothing but solidify her love for Jade. New Year’s Eve doesn’t really mean anything. It’s one day in the year. And realistically, she probably would have preferred to be in bed before midnight. She was married to the love of her life and that was something to be celebrated every day of the year, the day didn’t need a special name.