17. Charlotte Gallagher
Charlotte Gallagher
It’s Christmas morning. Or at least Dane says it is.
The date exists entirely on his best estimate now—years of carved marks, counted days, routines kept with near-obsessive consistency. He could be off by a few days in either direction, and neither of us would ever know.
It doesn’t really matter.
Dane decided today is Christmas, so today is Christmas.
I wake before him, which almost never happens.
For a while I stay completely still in the gray early light, not ready to move yet. The nausea is already there, low and persistent enough that even the thought of sitting up feels exhausting.
So I don’t.
I lie there instead, listening to the island wake around us. The distant rhythm of the ocean. Wind shifting through the trees outside the shelter. Somewhere farther off, birds beginning to stir.
Beside me, Dane is still asleep, breathing slow and steady with one arm draped loosely around my waist.
I stare up at the ceiling and let the morning settle quietly around us.
There’s something softer about the morning. Not anything visible. Just the feeling of it. Like the day’s been separated from all the others simply because we decided it should be.
I let myself sit with that for a little while.
When Dane wakes, it happens instantly. One second asleep, the next completely alert and aware of everything around him.
His eyes find mine immediately.
“It’s Christmas.”
“So you’ve said,” I tell him.
That small smile appears at the corner of his mouth.
We put the tree up a few days ago.
Not a real tree. Just a thick branch Dane found inland, forked enough to vaguely resemble one once he anchored it upright beside the shelter.
I decorated it with whatever we had that felt worth keeping. Shells tied on with braided fiber. Small objects we’ve carried around for years for reasons neither of us could fully explain. A few dried flowers from the northern trail.
It doesn’t really look like Christmas.
It looks like us.
Honestly, that feels more real anyway.
Yesterday I stood in front of it and felt something I couldn’t quite explain. Not nostalgia or grief. Something quieter than both. Just the feeling of life continuing anyway, even here.
The gifts sit at the base of the branch, wrapped in broad leaves and tied with braided fiber.
But we eat first. I don’t really want to, but Dane offered to cook, and I let him. He’s clearly made an effort with it—fruit sliced carefully, portions slightly larger than usual, everything arranged on the flat stone with more attention than any of it actually needs.
He wants today to feel different.
So I sit across from him and eat what I can, even while my stomach pushes back almost immediately, the nausea settling heavy again not long after the first few bites.
Morning light slowly filters through the trees, turning the shelter gold.
“Ready to open presents?” he asks.
“Yeah.”
I worked on his whenever he was away from the shelter—those rare stretches of time where I could make something without him immediately noticing what I was doing.
I’d been keeping an eye out for something worthy of him all year. The best find was a shark tooth I discovered at low tide during the dry season. Large. Intact. Pale at the edges, with a small natural hole near the base that made it look almost made for this.
The cord took longer. Fiber stripped from island plants, twisted and braided slowly until it held strong without fraying apart. I used the knot pattern Dane taught me a couple years ago—the one meant for strength. For things that are supposed to last.
I hand it to him across the shelter.
He unwraps it carefully, taking his time with it, as he does with almost everything important. Once it’s free, he turns it over slowly in his hand while the morning light catches along the edge of the tooth. His thumb brushes across the braid, tracing the work that went into it.
I see the exact moment he understands what it is. What it took to make.
“Charlotte.” He looks up at me. “This is really cool.”
“It’s sharp. Maybe you can use it for something. If not, it’ll at least look good on you.”
He looks up at me, and something softens briefly in his expression.
“This is amazing, babe. Thank you.”
He leans forward to kiss me before slipping the necklace over his head. I watch him adjust the cord at the back of his neck until the tooth settles against his chest where he wants it.
Then he reaches for my gift.
It’s a small container, sealed carefully enough that I already know he’s been protecting whatever’s inside for a long time. He places it in my hands and waits while I open it.
My breath catches slightly.
Pearls.
Dozens of them.
I pick one up carefully, turning it between my fingers as the morning light catches across the surface. Smooth. Pale. Almost perfectly matched.
I look back up at him. “How long have you been collecting these?”
“All year.”
Of course he has.
I look down at them again, trying to imagine how many dives, how many hours, how much patience this must’ve taken.
“When we get back to Australia, I’ll have them turned into a real necklace. A jeweler can string them properly. Add a clasp. Make it something you can actually wear.”
“They’re already perfect.”
His eyes stay on me for another second.
“They’re a promise,” he says. “For our future.”
I look down at them again—each pearl found, kept, carried around quietly without me ever knowing. Time he spent thinking about me.
“Thank you, Dane. This is really special.”
Dane’s sitting here talking about a future where I wear a necklace made from pearls he collected for me, and I don’t know if I’m even going to live long enough to be there for it.
But I don’t say that to him.
I let him have this morning exactly the way he wanted it to be. Let him keep believing in a future after this, because that belief might be the kindest thing anyone has ever given me.
And I can’t take it away from him just because I’m afraid.
It’s been three weeks since I told Dane about the growth.
It’s worse now.
Not dramatic. Not sudden. Just heavier. Constant in a way it wasn’t before. I feel it low in my abdomen all the time now—a steady pressure shaping the way I move without me even realizing I’m adjusting for it anymore.
Small things changed first. The way I bend down. How long I carry heavier things before stopping. The moments when I pause instead of automatically pushing through discomfort, like I used to.
Now it’s simply part of my day.
I sleep badly. That explains some of the exhaustion. Not all of it.
Dane sleeps badly too.
I know exactly why.
Every waking second, he’s trying to figure out how to get us off this island.
I’ve seen it—the maps spread across the yacht’s table, corners pinned down, covered in his notes. Currents. Wind patterns. Seasonal shifts. He writes in every margin he can find, building something from information that was never meant to be used this way.
Everything he does now bends toward one outcome.
He’s trying to solve this. Solve me.
He’s throwing everything he has at it—every skill, every pattern, every piece of control he’s built over the years—like this is just another problem the island gave him.
He wants to save me.
And I love him for it.
I watch him while he works—the slight line between his brows, the way his finger traces over the same routes again and again like repetition alone might force a new answer to appear.
I love him with the kind of intensity that only comes from building a life around one person for years. And somewhere deep down, I’m terrified the thing growing inside me is going to destroy all of it.
But I don’t say that out loud. I let him keep planning.
The morning drifts slowly into afternoon, the hours passing quietly around us. Out here, time gets measured more by light than anything else—the slow movement of the sun across the trees, the changing warmth in the air, the ocean shifting color as the day stretches on.
By evening, the island softens. The worst of the heat finally fades, and the breeze coming off the water feels lighter against my skin. Everything loosens a little. Breathes easier.
We sit together watching the sunset spill across the horizon.
After a while, Dane stretches one arm out toward me. “Come here, babe. Sit on my lap.”
I go easily, settling back against him where I’ve fit a thousand times before. His arms wrap around me, his chin resting against my shoulder as we look out over the water together.
The sky shifts in layers—gold first, then darker orange, then pink softening slowly into blue. The ocean catches every color and pulls it apart across the surface, light scattering and reforming with every movement of the tide.
Dane turns my face slightly toward him and kisses me. Slow. Warm. No urgency behind it at all. The kind of kiss that exists just to exist.
“This time next year—”
“Don’t,” I say quietly.
He ignores me.
“This time next year we’ll be somewhere with walls. Real walls.”
I close my eyes, but I don’t stop him again. I let him say it. Let him believe it. Let the moment stay whole exactly as it is—his arms around me, his warmth at my back, the ocean stretched out endlessly in front of us.
For a second, everything feels complete.
Then something shifts low in my abdomen.
Small enough that I almost dismiss it. More a flicker than a sensation. Something easy to explain away if I wanted to.
But I still, without thinking, my focus turning sharply inward as I wait for it again.
And when it comes back, I know I didn’t imagine it.
“Charlotte?” Something changes in Dane’s voice instantly. His arms tighten slightly around me. “What’s wrong?”
I don’t answer right away. My hand’s already pressed flat against my stomach, searching for whatever I just felt.
It isn’t pain. It isn’t the dull pressure I’ve been living with for weeks now. This feels different.
There’s movement in it. Something that doesn’t feel like me.
“I don’t know. I think I need to lie down.”
He moves immediately. “Here or the shelter?”
“Here.” I swallow hard, trying to make sense of the feeling still echoing through me.