The snow brings back memories, a multitude of them, and she curls her fingers around her mug of cocoa, watches the flakes drift peacefully to the ground. She has spent so many Christmases watching the snow, her heart at once aching and melting at its simple beauty. She was fascinated with it as a child, in the homeland she left so long ago and has returned to, and then in France where snow is so much rarer than she is used to she came to love it all the more, and now, her child stirring gently within her womb, it is infinitely more precious.
When she was a girl her father would help her to build snowmen. He would put the head on when the body became too high for her, and lift her up to place the pebble eyes and the nose and mouth. They would find somewhere warm for the night, spend it on cottage floors, and she would huddle against him as he murmured soft stories to lull her to sleep. There were no gifts, not then, but there did not need to be, not when they were together and had music. And looking back is sweet, and a touch sad too, and she smiles at the memories.
With the Valerius' there were gifts, not many but a few. A new scarf, a book, a sketch pad. Simple things but infinitely precious for their simplicity, and Mamma would bake, and the Professor would tell her stories, and Papa would play for them all by the fire, and the scarce memories are ones she returns to and, watching the snow, she hopes that she can give her own child something so wonderful one day.
The Professor died first, and Christmas was different. There was very little snow that year, as if the world around them knew that something was terribly wrong. Papa only played a few songs, and Mamma smiled sad smiles with watery eyes, and she did not want to do anything to upset either of them, so she read her books, and they all prayed. Then soon Papa grew ill, and tired, and there was no music, only what she sang for him, and after he died there was no Christmas either, but there was much Mass, and praying.
(It is the cold she remembers the best from that year, the cold that buried itself in her bones and made her shiver as if she would never be warm again.)
She takes a sip of her cocoa, wipes the unshed tears from her eyes. Perhaps there might have been a Christmas, after that first terrible year without her father when it felt as if she might die too with the emptiness, if Mamma had not been so frail. But it would not have mattered then, and would have felt like a lie, as if she was faking happiness. No. It is best that there was no Christmas in those years, so that the pain could not taint it for her now.
The year the Voice was teaching her – not the Voice, Erik. She must think of him as Erik, even looking back on the time before she knew his name – the year Erik was teaching her was different, again. A little better than before. She had been singing hymns, carols learned from carol singers, and after the first day Erik was singing them back to her, from behind the mirror, his voice so beautiful that she truly had thought him an angel, and the words never sounded so sacred before, so special, as when they flowed from his lips. She sat and listened to him for hours, and sang back to him, and it was not a lesson but it was good, it was nice, and she spent Christmas Day with Mamma and sang to her and for the first time felt as if everything would be all right.
She holds the memory close to her, of singing with Erik while thinking him an angel, and for all that came afterwards it has never been tarnished. It exists in easy perfection, preserved through the years, and for that she is grateful. At least some piece of that time has remained safe.
The snowflakes swirl outside, catch her eye, and another memory drifts back of the Christmas afterwards, after Erik, her first one with Raoul. They spent it in Belgium, in Antwerp, their money running low and Mamma ill. And though they barely had the money for gifts, both of them working to survive, to move on, Raoul gave her a beautiful, golden necklace he had saved for, and clasped it around her throat, and promised to love her, always. They lay a long time in each other's embrace that night, barely speaking, simply existing, and she keeps that necklace safe and takes it out sometimes to look at.
Now, four years later, they are settled. Mamma is gone too, three years ago, and it was difficult but grows a little easier every day, and she pictures her, sometimes, with Papa and the Professor, and the faint memory of the woman that was her mother, and knows that she must not be sad for them. They are together, now, and happy, and they would want her happy too, here, with Raoul and her precious, dear baby living beneath her heart, waiting for spring to come.
The baby stirs at the thought, a brief fluttering in her belly that she presses her palm to. Next year, she thinks, there will be a wonderful Christmas for you, my darling. I promise it. And a smile curves her lips at the thought of holding her little child in her arms, sitting by this very window and watching the snow falling outside.
The door creaking closed disturbs her thoughts and she turns around, finds her husband brushing snow from off his shoulders. He smiles when he sees her watching him, his blue eyes crinkling soft as ever, and her heart aches as she sets the cocoa down. What has she done to deserve him, this wonderful man that she calls hers, who has re-assembled her broken pieces? How is it that they can have built this life together, this peace? Not a day goes by that she does not thank the Lord for letting her have him in her life. How is it that they can fit together so perfectly, so precisely? Not a
As if to underscore her point his arms wrap warm around her waist, and pull her close.
"Merry Christmas, Christine," he whispers, and kisses her forehead as gentle as if he might hurt her. He is always so gentle, so careful, and sometimes it is maddening, but tonight it is all she wants, to be held close to him, his voice murmuring softly in her ear. She breathes him in, his familiar scent of pine trees and snow and the cows tucked in for the night and the warmth of himself, and smiles, pressing her lips gently to his cheek, lingering there. The baby kicks, not hard, but hard enough that he feels it and chuckles, the vibration of it bubbling up through him.
"Merry Christmas, Raoul," she murmurs, lays her head against his chest, his arms enfolding her tighter. And then, added, his heartbeat soft beneath her ear, "I love you."