Foreboding
"He asked me whether I would not go with him to his house; I declined it, from an apprehension that my spirits would sink. We bade adieu to each other affectionately in the carriage. When he had got down upon the foot-pavement, he called out, "Fare you well;" and without looking back, sprung away with a kind of pathetick briskness, if I may use that expression, which seemed to indicate a struggle to conceal uneasiness, and impressed me with a foreboding of our long, long separation."
RING!
The loud ring of her cell phone made Claire jump. The chatter around her stopped as the other people in the aisle stared at her. It had been stupid and careless of her to set the phone to ring instead of vibrate. She knew she shouldn't have; ringing drew attention, and attention was the last thing she needed. Especially now, at the beginning of November. That was his time to call. He always called at the beginning of November. Always. That was why she always set her phone to vibrate then.
What if it was him calling now?
She rummaged through her sling bag as the people around her continued to stare. No, wait - she'd slipped the device inside one of her pockets, but which one? She patted down her jean and jacket pockets until she felt the hard metal through the left breast pocket of her jacket.
Slipping it out, she flipped it out and said, "Hello?"
"Dear heart, how are you?"
She almost dropped the grocery basket. It was - it was him. Oh, it was so soothing to hear his voice again. She couldn't help the smile on her lips.
"I'm doing fine. Why? Miss me?" she asked, dumping a box of Lucky Charms into the basket.
She could hear the smirk in his reply: "It would be a lie to say no."
She had to bite her lip to keep from laughing as she reached for a carton of milk. She knew he missed her just as much as she missed him.
"But I called to inform you of something. Due to given circumstances, I will be unable to visit this year."
Her smile fell. The carton hung in midair.
It wasn't the first time he'd done this. But that didn't mean it didn't hurt any less.
Every year since she'd found out his birthday was November 15th and started bugging him about it, they would do something together - something to celebrate it. Even if it wasn't in what Claire would call his list of "evil things to do." He would call a couple of weeks before, and she would suggest dinner at her place-which was pretty much the only place where they didn't have to hide their names and their faces and what they had together-and he would agree to it.
It had been sort of embarrassing, blowing through who knew how many cups of milk and containers of flour in an effort to teach herself how to cook and then finding out that he was pretty much a master chef. (When she'd asked how he'd learned, he'd simply said, "I read the cookbook.") Ever since then, she'd been practicing, trying to make their one night a year together even more special. Jill had banned her from her apartment, saying that she should "keep the explosions to her own kitchen." But it was worth it; celebrating his birthday, even though it didn't matter to him, was worth it.
But she wouldn't be celebrating it this year. Nor would she be seeing him. Again.
She moved on to the other aisles, dropping the carton in the basket.
Whining wouldn't change anything. Anger would only make it worse. Acceptance had always been the only way to go. But she couldn't accept without knowing why first. Even though said the same thing every time, she still asked, "Why?" as a bottle of shampoo shook in her hand.
"Dear heart, you know I can't answer that."
Claire sighed. "It was worth a shot. You're still in Africa, right?" Dove soap or Irish Springs?
"Yes. And that's as much as I will allow you to know."
She heard a distant shattering of glass on the other end. Breaking glass never boded well in an Umbrella lab, which was where she suspected he was.
But all the same, she asked, "What was that?"
"Nothing you should be concerned about." There was a hint of distraught in his voice, but mostly annoyance. "Just some imbecile's blunder."
Someone's going die tonight, she thought. Better go with Dove.
"Duty calls, my dear," he said.
"What, did the virus summon you from those vials you keep it in?" she said, shoving an apple into her basket.
"Your jest fails to humor me," he said.
"Wasn't trying to." Oh, how she wanted to be the one who hung up for once, but she couldn't. She just couldn't bring herself to snap the phone shut on him and end the connection.
He said, "Goodbye, Claire."
"Goodbye," she said, since it was the only thing to say. Then, in a whisper, she added, "I love you."
Claire swore she heard him smile before the line disconnected.
Her phone read November 5, 2008 4:23 PM. She clutched it tightly as she made her way through the rest of the aisles, the check-out line, and the sliding glass door to her car. Outside, it was sunny; people were walking around, wheeling carts, packing groceries into the trunks of their cars. Nothing seemed out of place. Nothing seemed in the least bit abnormal. But Claire still felt scared, and she didn't know why.
AN: Thanks to my two beta-readers ^_^ red door painted black and ForgottenDespair!