The Timeline

27.

August 17th, 2015:

The incoming video call came when Claire was in the middle of trying on a bunch of new maternity clothes she had bought for herself that very morning after a stroll in the city with her sister Anna and Alice and Elsa happily looking around from inside their strollers. The twins, freshly 1 years-old, were starting to babble and repeat some words from time to time. They had both already said 'momma' and 'poppa' once each, and had said it some more times after the first time. Now, they were trying to move onto more complicated words, and Claire and Anna both happily obliged when they pointed to stuff with their tiny little hands, reciting the word and hoping for them to repeat it.

Claire was finishing buttoning up the dungarees she had bought with a bit of second thoughts when her phone screen lit up with a face so dear to her she immediately smiled and, reacting to her sudden happiness, the baby inside her did a little jump making her place her free hand over the belly where the feet had left an indentation on the inside.

Then, she reached for the phone, swiped right to accept the video call on Viber and placed the phone on top of her drawer, so she could finish trying on the dungarees and look at herself in the mirror.

"Heeeeellooooooooooo!!!" - Harry greeted her in a sing-songy voice.

Claire saw him clearly on the phone screen, huddled upon what seemed to be a couch, in his signature outfit for those days, which consisted of dark skinny jeans and a white t-shirt; she couldn't see his shoes, but if she had to bet, she would've bet a hundred pounds on them being a variant of his Chelsea boots. As for his hair, which he had no intention of cutting he had told her during a previous video call, they had reached the top of his shoulders. He was wearing them in a bun, right now, a pair of sunglasses perched on top of his head.

"Hello!" - she greeted him, her voice as enthusiastic as his had sounded, despite the little beads of worry that were littering her brain at the moment. - "Look at my outfit!" - she demanded.

She couldn't exactly see herself in the tiny rectangle on the side of the screen, but she acted like the phone was her mirror, taking her time to execute a pirouette and show off the dungarees, which had a denim skirt instead of pants or shorts. She had paired them with a sleeveless tangerine top and with white Converse with tangerine socks (she didn't wanna think about the difficulties she was starting to have with the simple act of tying her shoes).

"Do I look cute?!" - she asked, trying to keep the second thoughts out of her voice. She did, however, torment her lower lip with her upper teeth, while she waited for Harry to answer her question.

"Well, I never!" - Harry answered her in what must've been a very out-of-fashion exclamation. - "Those are really cute dungarees!"

"Right! I bought them so fast! And the tangerine top as well." - Claire said, Harry's enthusiasm acting as a rejuvenating deterrent against her second thoughts. - "I've been out shopping for some maternity clothes, since I'm starting to look... well, pregnant, now, and I have some more outfits. I was trying them on before you called!"

The rest of the outfits hadn't been anything too controversial, in Claire's mind, just clothes she actually needed, since she was now 6 months pregnant and her stomach was starting to look like she had swallowed a moderately sized watermelon, zest and all. And, since she had just been paid for another audiobook, she had decided to get a head start on clothes for the following months', favoring bigger sizes so she could've used the clothes long into her eighth and ninth month of pregnancy.

But the dungarees had made her stop in her tracks, and she had felt a need to buy them. She had been wanting a pair of dungarees for months, but hadn't bought them yet, because the ghost of a voice laughing at her and saying that she would've looked like a child in them stopped her whenever she looked at a pair in a shop. So she moved on. Now, however, she had drowned the voice and bought the item. That didn't mean she hadn't been assaulted with doubts and regrets the moment she had them safely inside of her bag.