43
The autumn fades in a smudge of gray, blowing crisp leaves and bare, lonely branches toward the white forgetfulness of winter.
September. October. November.
December arrives on the coattails of a cold wind sweeping down the mountains.
Geneva is a dream at Christmastime. It always has been. The Christmas markets sparkle with lights, tinkle with reindeer bells, and smell of fresh gingerbread and roasting chestnuts. We ice-skate under the stars, Mila gripping her mittened hand in mine. Max is there too, his wool-coated arm threaded with mine. We spend long nights in front of crackling fires, Max, Mila, and I, sharing a plate of raclette, the melted cheese savory and comforting. Lazy weekends in bookstores, a cup of hot chocolate. Daniel and Mila ahead on the ski slope, racing down the white expanse.
Four months of living. Four months where the only dreams I have are nightmares—they came back. The woman with the gun, whispering urgently, “Christmas Eve, Christmas Eve.”
Yet during the days I’ve kept busy. Daniel and I took a trip to New York in October. And if I sat on the steps of the New York Public Library—just sat for an hour beneath the shadow of the library lions—well, no one knew the reason why but me. If I left a little note with a poem—“Hope”—on a slip of paper at the base of the steps for a girl who isn’t alive, well, that’s okay, isn’t it? And if I leaned over the cold metal railing in Battery Park to stare out over the rippling gray water—well, lots of people look at the water, don’t they?
In November Max asked Mila and me on a three-day holiday to the Canary Islands. We lounged on the sunbaked seashore, hiked into the mountains, and ate fresh oranges, the juice sticky and sweet. And while the bright sun rained down on the white bleached houses rising from the cliffsides, I held Max and Mila’s hands and didn’t think about white sand beaches or kissing in another turquoise sea or the smell of salt and the feel of powder-soft sand on my feet.
In December, Daniel and I reaffirmed that yes, we were hosting the Abry Christmas Eve Gala. There wasn’t any reason, not even a gunshot wound, to cancel our annual celebration.
Life goes on. It does.
I loved—love—Aaron. He was the tide that washed over me and opened me to all the good that love can bring. He loved me, and I loved him.
There are some things we hide from ourselves. For our whole lives we’ll keep certain truths hidden and buried deep inside. Those truths come out in dreams. And now I’ve seen my dreams, I can’t ever hide from myself again.
I love Aaron. And letting him go felt like losing a limb. There’s a phenomenon where people still feel pain, still have sensation, where an arm or a leg used to be. It’s as if the missing limb is still there—and it hurts.
I have the ghost of Aaron, the ghost of his love. I still feel it, as real as if it’s there, yet unseen and untouchable—and it hurts.
Some days I take the gold pocket watch from its antique wooden case. I pull it from the whisper-soft velvet and hold its heavy weight in the palm of my hand. I stare into the blue-wave enamel and try to conjure my dreams. I try to pull them into real life. But it never works. Aaron doesn’t appear. And I promised myself I wouldn’t dream anymore.
I’d live.
I’d love.
Isn’t that what he’d want me to do if he knew?
So I close the watch back in its wooden box, let the lid settle with a quiet snick, and lock the golden clasp, closing it tight.
Now, it’s December 22—the winter solstice, as my mum would say.
Outside my office window the winter sky is a bright cerulean blue and the sun sparkles in diamond light over the first dusting of snow.
The sky reminds me of how I felt this summer. I thought of them as halcyon days, idyllic and peaceful, but really, this is the halcyon day, isn’t it? Because long ago, on the winter solstice, a mythical bird, the halcyon, built an island nest at sea and calmed the wind and waves.
I smile at the thought and lean my elbows on my desk. I look out over the purple and blue snowcapped mountains and wonder if the island was built by the halcyon.
On my desk I have a pile of end-of-year reports, budgets to approve, and my Christmas letter to all our employees with our Christmas bonuses to send out. It’s late-afternoon, and at the end of the day Abry will close for the holidays.
A mug of piping-hot coffee sits on my desk, sending up a curl of aromatic steam. The soft reach of the winter sun falls across my office and adds a soft warmth to the empty room. I’ve always liked the modern cleanliness and clutter-free atmosphere, but now it feels cold and barren.
I tug my red cashmere sweater close and clasp my hands around the hot mug of coffee.
No matter. Soon I’ll head home and Mila will want to decorate Christmas cookies. Max asked to see me tonight to give me an early Christmas gift. I just have to finish the last of my work.
There’s a soft knock at my office door. I look up to find Daniel smiling at me.
“Fi, everyone else has left already. Why are you still here?”
I grin back at him. “Everyone else but you.”
He shrugs and strides into my office. He’s in a navy suit and he needs a shave. He’s been working long, late hours for the past two weeks so he can take the holiday off to spend time with Mila and me. We’ve both been working like mad so we can have a few days for family. I’ve been pulling more 6 a.m. till midnight workdays than I should. After tucking Mila in I’ve been going back to my computer to work. It’s a habit I returned to once the nightmares started again.
“Well, one of us has to keep this company afloat,” Daniel says, straight-faced, his eyes mirth-filled.
“You’ve been working too much. You can’t be bothered to shave. I’m fairly certain this is the suit you wore yesterday. I thought you made a bet with me that you’d find someone to love.”
He tugs at his shirtsleeves and frowns. “Is it?”
“No,” I say.
He scoffs and pushes his hand through his sandy-brown hair. He looks so much like our dad that sometimes it shocks me. Sometimes it knocks me off-kilter. Like now. When he frowns at me, he looks just like Dad preparing to give me a lecture at age ten on not running down the hallways of Abry like a hooligan, because someday I was going to be working here.
“I’ve been working on it,” Daniel says. “I went sailing last month with a few?—”
“Stop right there. No.” I hold up my hand and Daniel grins at me, fully himself again.
He steps forward, and it’s then that I notice he has a box in his hand. It’s the plush gray velvet we package our watches in. When you open the velvet container, with its scripted gold lettering, you find a smaller white leather box. And inside the white leather, resting on satin, is an Abry watch.
The small velvet box is just like the one Aaron had on the Swiss travel book the last night I saw him. There’s a hollow thump in my chest at the thought.
“What’s that?” I ask, pointing to the box.
Daniel puts on a smug look—a little-brother look that tells me he’s happy to know something I don’t. “I wondered if you knew. Apparently not.”
“Knew what?”
“I’m glad I get to be the first to show you.”
He steps across the wood floor of my office and slides the velvet box across the glossy white surface of my desk. The velvet whispers a smooth whooshing as he passes it to me.
A tingle of awareness, a frisson of a sea-salt breeze blowing the strands of my hair, a spark of electricity, crackles in the air around me.
“What is it?”
“Open it.” Daniel nods to the box then rocks back on his heels, an expectant smile on his face.
I take a deep breath, and instead of coffee I smell the memory of humid, loamy tropical forests and sea-salt waves cresting on white sand.
The gray velvet box sits in front of me, right in the middle of my desk. Even though it’s only four inches tall and four inches wide, the amount of energy pulsing around it makes it feel as if it’s as large as the room.
Slowly I reach forward and lift the velvet lid. It slides open with a smooth snap, and I let out a shallow, tight breath. I pull free the smaller white leather box. It’s cool in my hands, pebbled and soft.
My throat is tight, my mouth dry, and a slow tattoo starts in my chest. I lift the lid, and when I do, I let out a long, pained exhale.
I forgot.
Or maybe I didn’t forget, I just didn’t want to think about it.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Daniel asks, a smile in his voice. “Dad’d be proud. We already have record orders for a limited edition. You did good, Fi. You did good.”
I nod, unable to speak.
I don’t look at Daniel. Instead I stare into the face of the watch.
It’s my watch.
McCormick’s watch.
The one I dreamed up after our date to the top of the island.
The enamel on the face is the exact shade of the sea as it breaks over the reef and spills over the shore. It’s turquoise and cerulean, it’s indigo and sea-green, and it’s opal-white with waves that fall onto moonlit sand. Not truly. Not really. But that’s what it looks like. Peering into the dial, at the blue, at the diamonds glittering in the face, at the soft gold case, the smooth pearl and emerald bracelet, at the ticking of the watch in my hand, I’m transported to the island.
I’m pulled back to the hilltop. I’m lying in Aaron’s arms under the soft shade of the whistling pine, the breeze whispering through the boughs, the needles crinkling beneath us, letting up piney scents, Aaron’s heart beating against my cheek as he holds me tight and we look out over the island.
“Why are you crying?” Daniel asks, stepping forward and putting his hand on my arm. “Fi?”
I shake my head. Hold the watch in my hands. “I’m not.” And at Daniel’s disbelief, because there are truly tears trailing down my cheeks, I say, “It’s only, I’d forgotten how beautiful it was.”
He nods. “It is, isn’t it? The McCormick.”
I glance up at my brother then, standing next to me, his hand resting on my forearm, comforting me.
“I’m still not sold on the name though.”
I smile at him. “Tough. I like the name.”
“What does it mean?”
I think about it for a moment, then I say, “Some say it means an almost, a never-was, a dream that didn’t happen, but I say it means an always, a dream that still goes on.”
Daniel lifts an eyebrow. “That’s poetic, Fi.”
“You know me.”
“You don’t like poetry.”
“I do now. People change.”
He smiles at that and steps back, seeing that I’m no longer in dire need of comforting. “I have to head out. I’ll see you tomorrow? Mila wants to ski and I want to drink hot chocolate, so.” He shrugs, a happy gleam in his eyes.
“See you tomorrow.”
Daniel leaves. I’m left at Abry, in an empty winter-hushed building, with sunlight fading and snow falling outside.
Instead of closing the watch back in its box, I open the clasp and I put it on my wrist.