Stowe, Vermont
March 1943
Busy in the parlor with the vacuum cleaner, Maria was humming a nonsensical tune to herself while she worked, studying the pattern of the carpet as the wheels of the machine traveled back and forth across it, sucking up dust in what Maria considered one of the more satisfying uses of modern technology. She simply needed to air out the beds while the bed linens dried on the lines outside, enlist some extra hands from her children to reassemble the bedclothes, and that would be the lid on her latest rash of spring cleaning.
Over the incessant sound of the vacuum, Maria thought she heard a door slam, some shouts, and then a scuffle. Furrowing a brow, she stood the vacuum upright and turned the switch off, draping the excess cord from her free hand over the handle.
She pushed open the kitchen door to find her husband standing over the sink, holding Kurt's arm under the stream of cold water.
"What is going on, here?" Maria asked, puzzled.
The two of them whipped around to stare at her, the face of her husband angry, and the face of her son white with shock. Kurt winced and seemed to bite his tongue to keep from crying out, turning back to watch the water streaming over his hand.
"An accident," Georg explained through gritted teeth. "With the tools in the shed."
Narrowing her eyes, Mara tilted her head and stepped forward, between father and son, and took Kurt's arm in her hands, peering down at it.
She gasped. It was deeply cut, running along the length of his forearm, and even with the water running over it, blood was oozing from the wound. Quickly, she pulled her apron loose and yanked Kurt away from the sink, forcing him to sit down. She knelt down in front of him and began to tear her apron into strips, working quickly so that she could bind the wound. With an angry glance up at her husband, she said, "Call Dr. Stiles, and fetch the car. This will need disinfected, and stitches, if it's to heal properly."
Kurt, by now green-faced, groaned. "Please, Mother, not stitches."
Maria shook her head, no-nonsense. "You need them, the wound is too deep. Perhaps Dr. Stiles can give you a light sedative to help the nausea."
Georg had stood beyond them, still at the sink, watching the exchange with a hard-set face. Then, before Maria could reprimand him for lingering, he shut off the water and stormed out of the kitchen, heading to the study to place a call to Dr. Stiles' practice, like Maria had suggested.
As she had surmised, Dr. Stiles had put in a row of stitches, and then bound the wound in bandages, instructing both Kurt and Maria in the proper care of it, so that it would heal without incident.
"With things so tight, now," the doctor had said with a pinched expression, "even a simple bacterial infection could be fatal."
And so, with that daily reminder of the war that loomed around them, overhead and ever-present, the trio had returned home, and when Kurt disappeared into his room to rest and sleep off the sedative agents the doctor had administered to calm his needle phobia, Maria rounded on her husband.
"What exactly were you thinking," she demanded. "Or weren't you? Dr. Stiles did not ask questions, but he and I know just as well how Kurt got that gash in his arm! Georg, you have got to stop forcing him to do things that he does not know how to do! Working with rusted, sharp equipment in the boiling shed is one of them!"
"He needs to learn some time," Georg said stiffly. "Do something useful, have some skills."
"Georg, he's seventeen! He has his whole life to build any number of skills!"
Setting his jaw stubbornly, Georg shook his head. "I can't seem to reach him. He is careless, and does not mind instructions, and acts rashly, and has no strength in him to manage the heavy things he tries to lift or move, which is how today's injury happened. I gave him simple instructions for how to move some sheet metal, what we would do with it, and he forged ahead anyway, determined to do it his way!"
Maria sighed. Here it was, this same old argument. Pursuing their children had taken on a different tone as they became adults, settling into an American life, and still, Kurt remained the most unreachable. But, she knew, with perhaps the exception of Marta, he was the most sensitive of all seven children, and had been greatly, and rather negatively, impacted by the effects of the last six years. He'd been lost in the throng of his siblings in the wake of his mother's death, becoming committed to being the incorrigible one. There had been a brief flash of something bright and different for him, in that summer and autumn before the war, where he'd discovered that not only did he share something in common with his father, but that photography was a skill in which he flourished.
Then, they'd ran away to Switzerland with nothing but the clothes on their backs, and though at first he'd been delighted at the prospect of an adventure, the reality of having nothing had come as a sudden shock to him. Then, they had come to England, and the sort of sibling rivalry that came with competing for the affection and attention of their English grandparents had set in. Just in time to accept that reality, they had been shipped off to the English countryside, where, Maria later learned, Kurt had been the object of truly cruel bullying, both for his accent and for his Austrian heritage, and standing up for himself had only led to retribution.
The bitterness that set in, it was the kind of bitterness that made one contemplate the absurdity of fairness, for none of his siblings seemed to struggle in these ways. Liesl, Friedrich, and Louisa had grown up speaking English with their mother fluently, and as Brigitta was a quick study, she had never struggled, either. Marta and Gretl were still small enough to get by on their sweet personalities and even sweeter smiles, and they were warm and welcoming to anyone who was kind to them.
The contrast between them, especially watching as his brother became smitten with the country doctor's daughter and began to learn from medical texts he borrowed from her father, and Liesl made friends with the eldest daughters of the farm they stayed at, learning all sorts of things about how to thrive and survive, here, and Louisa made fast friends with the local boys, and Brigitta made herself useful, and Marta and Gretl learned to cook and sew, widened the chasm that Kurt felt, always, now. He had, in years past, often vacillated between being Louisa's playmate or Brigitta's playmate, but now it seemed as if he'd been left behind, forgotten.
And the single thing he cared most about in the world, the camera which had been his father's, and had been given to him by his mother as a gift, had been lost to him.
Jealousy licked its hungry fingers around his heart, daily, for years now, at the conviction that his siblings had the world at their disposal, while he had nothing. Even to his father and stepmother, he felt a second-hand consideration, a last thought, a burden. He was keenly aware that his father was unhappy with his motivation. Disappointed that he did not do better in school, upset that he could not seem to learn any useful skills beyond keeping tack and grooming the horse. He said roughly, and often, how the world would keep turning regardless of whether Kurt stood still outside, or decided to step on.
And it only made him more reticent.
As time passed, and they settled into their lives in Vermont, the change kept happening, and the loss kept expanding. Liesl had taken her exams to teach, and now lived with a friend of hers, boarding nearer to the school she taught in. She was rarely home during the week, and now she had a beau, so they did not see her much during the weekend, either, even after Sunday Mass. Friedrich had met a girl, and if he was not busy working at the mill, or studying to be a doctor, he was with her. Kurt did not even know her name, just her face. Louisa, he never saw anymore, either, for she'd taken up an apprenticeship with a veterinarian who lived several miles beyond the von Trapp chalet, and she was out from dawn to midnight most days, traveling around the county with him to take care of farm animals. It was currently the midst of birthing season, so she was even more scarce than usual. And Brigitta… he wasn't even sure, really, but he thought she must be working with their mother at Mrs. Higgins' shop, when she wasn't buried in books or journals herself. And the other two… well, they had school every day, and helped at the shop on weekends, as well.
Kurt would finish with school when summer arrived, and so the pressure mounted for him to find something not unlike his siblings, but everything he tried, he seemed to be horrible at. It was as if his touch made things disintegrate, and now, he scowled, glaring at the bandage on his arm, he had this horrible thing, which he'd gotten for nothing, and to accomplish what? Show off to his father that there was something he could do?
And even now, from his bedroom on the second floor, he could hear low, angry voices. His mother, he thought. She was the only one who seemed to feel for him, to understand how he struggled. She must be arguing with Father, he thought, and for but a moment his heart lifted.
But, a voice in the back of his mind recalled, she's never home either, and if she is, she's cleaning, or cooking, or mending something, or… ensconced somewhere with Father.
Again, Kurt scowled. Some use it had been to him, having a stepmother. She wasn't around, either, and surely she must soon be having a baby of her own to worry over? Wasn't that the thing to do? The natural order of things?
Well, Kurt thought glumly, if that happened, then he would surely be relegated to a dusty corner of her mind, and it would only be him against Father, with no ally. And he would not blame her. Babies were an excruciating amount of work! Still, it made him shudder, to remember how Gretl had cried for much of her first year.
A knock on the door interrupted these musings, and Kurt tried to rearrange his face into something less angry, but from the expression that flickered across his stepmother's face, he knew he must have failed.
"I came to see if you needed or wanted anything," Maria said, softly. She had some bandages and guaze in her hands, and what looked like might be a bottle of antiseptic. "And I brought this for you."
Suddenly, it came to him: the one who had never wavered, always laughed with him, always supported him, and encouraged him, never making him feel like he was a nuisance or insufficient… the one whom they'd left behind on a stage in the Salzburg festival halls, holding his father's guitar.
"Kurt?"
He blinked, realizing that his eyes were burning with salt and water, and hastily dashed it away with the back of his good hand, trying desperately to hide his upset.
Maria was not having this, however, and crossed the room in three swift strides, dropping the things in her arms to the floor next to him as she knelt down in front of him, after which she drew him into a tight hug, and refused to let go.
"It's so difficult," he muttered. "More than I feel it should be. I have the feeling that everyone has moved on, and here I stand, trailing in the dust, not going anywhere at all. And I miss Uncle Max!"
The words tumbled out of him as he rested his head on his mother's shoulder, unbidden and uninhibited at last, and as she held this troubled child, Maria felt her heart crack into two for him, having known from the earliest days that this transition was an especial trial for this particular child of hers, but never having the time or the energy to address it.
"I'm sorry, my love," was all she said, grasping Kurt tighter as he finally wrapped his arms around her and shook with emotion. She poured all the weight of the emotion welling up in her into those simple words, and in that simple, but powerful embrace, hoping against all hope that, in the very least, the impact of human touch could be a balm to this creature who was no longer a boy, but neither was he a man. Stuck somewhere in the middle, unknowing, uncertain. Maria felt her chest tighten as she realized just how strongly she related to this plight, having been just seventeen herself, going on eighteen, when she stepped across the threshold of Nonnberg Abbey, full of doubt, and yet certain of her choice, and handed over her things.
"Time, Kurt," she murmured. "It takes time, for some, to find their way."
He pulled away from his mother, sniffing, and said, "I cannot shake the feeling that I am an enormous failure. Father, he always knew he would go to sea. Mother, well… she was our mother! Liesl, she teaches, and Friedrich will be a doctor one day. Louisa has a vocation, and Brigitta will go to university. But me, I have nothing!"
"My son," Maria said gently, "the paths we take are all trod upon differently." Brushing aside his fringe, she leaned back on her heels and said, "I entered the abbey when I was your age, and they allowed me to come because I would turn eighteen that very fall, just the same as you will do. I was there five years, trying and trying and running in circles, and by the time I came to your family, I still was no closer to taking the first set of vows that one must take, to become a novice, which precedes becoming a nun."
"Why not?" Kurt queried, brow furrowed.
"I thought that I must try harder," Maria said softly. "More fiercely commit myself."
"But…" he trailed.
"Others knew already that I was not meant to stay," she said. "That I had a different life waiting for me."
"Us," Kurt sniffled.
"Yes," she smiled, touching his face gently. "Eventually, I realized it myself, how I'd run around in circles for years not because I was not dedicated enough, but because something else had been waiting for me on the other side of the abbey walls for all that time."
"And that's when you came back. That's why you came back," Kurt breathed.
Maria nodded. "Can you imagine how different your lives would be, had I taken my vows, or never come at all, and your father had married someone else?"
Kurt shuddered. "I don't like to think of it."
"Neither do I," Maria agreed, smiling warmly. "I like my life just the way it is, good and bad together. And my goal in telling you any of this, is so that you might understand that you needn't have it figured out, not for yourself, or anyone—not even your father—and the only important thing is that you keep searching for that thing that gives you joy every day."
Kurt nodded, gazing down at his mother. His face was still miserable, he knew, but something loosened in his chest. Perhaps she was right.
"I will do better," he promised, "and tomorrow I shall go to the blacksmith and ask after a job."
"That's a start," Maria nodded, climbing to her feet to go. "I'll leave you to rest, now."
As Maria picked up the things she'd brought for Kurt and laid them on the bed, he started picking at a hangnail and spoke again, voice quavering:
"What about Father?"
Straightening up, Maria sighed. "I cannot change who he is, Kurt," she said. "But I will do my best to help him understand. Just know that it will take time, and that the strain may linger, perhaps a while yet. But keep your head down, and keep doing something. It will come together, in the end. Remember that."
Biting his lip, Kurt nodded, then gave a small wave as Maria slipped through the door and clicked it shut behind her. He listened to the sound of her footsteps fading away as she walked down the hall to the stairs, then descended to the first floor once more.
For his part, Georg brooded well into the night over the altercation, mind running in circles for all the things he had ever hoped for and wished and planned for his sons. When each had been placed in his arms, he had imagined a life raising them up in the seafaring tradition, but doing it better, in a way that his sons would know he cared, and wanted them to come to him as refuge.
It had started out that way, or he had tried, but then it had all flipped inside out and upside down with the miscarriages and illnesses that Agathe suffered before Marta and Gretl's birth… and then, all too soon, his wife had died, and the world had closed in on him, suffocating and cold.
Reflecting on the toll that those experiences had exacted on his late wife, Georg felt the bitter gladness rising in his chest that Maria had insisted on a different path, one which would be decided based on her own readiness and willingness to take on motherhood from conception to birth and the life beyond that all.
Sometimes, he wondered if he'd done enough, if he had a right to do this all again, and whether it would even be possible. He was getting on, and with the exception of the one admission Maria had made to him several years ago that she had suspected a baby, there had not really been any instance to indicate it would have happened unimpeded, anyway.
Perhaps it was for the best, he sighed. And in any case, he was glad Maria had not suffered any miscarriages. They were dreadful, terrible, heart-rending events, and if he never had to suffer though another one, and watch his wife bear the burden of it, helpless to save her from that pain, he would be glad and grateful to pay the price of being the father of merely seven.
And even so, it seemed to him now rather gauche to think in any way of a new child as a way to start over, right past wrongs, or begin again. New beginnings were in new dawns, in repaired relationships, in resolving every day to be a better man, not a burden to place on a helpless child.
By now sufficiently drowning in a foul mood, Georg merely grunted irritably when Maria pushed the door to the study open and began putting away his spirits with neither ceremony nor comment.
She did let him drain the last of the scotch in his tumbler before taking it out of his hands, and then sat down on the loveseat opposite him, leaning her forearms on her legs as she held the glass in her hands, and she said sharply, "You have got to be gentler with Kurt, Georg, and I will admonish you for less than acceptable behavior toward him. He is still a boy in so many ways, and he needs his father, not a sea captain."
He scowled at her, looking down at his lap when this was met with a reproachful gaze.
"If you're forever treating him like a lost cause, because you don't know how to pick up the broken pieces and repair things, how do you think that makes him feel, Georg? I should think it's rather a familiar injustice to you, considering what we've endured, these last years."
Blinking, Georg realized that there was much truth in this, and sighed. What he wouldn't give to do things differently, treat Maria differently, consider his children for the individuals that they were?
"No one expects the impossible from you," Maria said sharply, "but I expect you to try to reach him." She stood up to leave, and reached across the table between them to touch his face. "But please, be kind. Remember that he was a boy without a mother, a boy without a father, and a boy whose life was idyllic and privileged, before a war came and took it all away from him."
His mouth dropped open at this, for it felt like a betrayal for her to say something so ruthless to him, knowing where he came from, but his wife simply let out a long breath and nodded, retreating into the annals of their home to put the kitchen in order and then, he surmised, go to bed.
Instinct told him to follow her, but his hurt made him stay. His mind ran around what she had said, and he tried to reconcile it with the woman who he'd been learning to love again, and finally, slowly, it dawned on him what he had missed, in his self-absorbed blathering: Maria wasn't acting on his behalf, but on her child's, defender always.
As this settled into his gut, a slow smile spread over his face as he drifted to sleep in his overstuffed chair in the study. He had never needed to wonder what sort of mother she would be, for she was already an exemplary one, far better than his own had ever hoped to be, and still more able than even she knew herself to be.
He would try harder with Kurt, he decided, and he would wait patiently for the day when it finally felt right, to ask her once more to conceive a child with him. Beyond anything else, it would be a daily reminder, being put in his place, to be shown what it was to be the stronger, more patient, more empathetic person, and as surely as the moon set and the sun rose, he would try every day to be a better man for it.
Stowe, Vermont
December 1945
New Year's Eve dawned cold and bright, and though the promise of a party that night with friends would fill the von Trapp chalet with food, chatter, and warmth, the mood at present was decidedly quiet. Brigitta moved quietly about the kitchen, preparing porridge and pancakes with syrup for those in residence, while Maria sat at the kitchen table and conversed with her while sipping a cup of hot tea.
At last the baby had dropped, and with this Maria's entire mood had changed, along with her appetite. She was not weary, precisely, but the best word anyone could conjure might be resigned—resigned, and ready, at last.
She was particularly quiet as she was still recovering from her most recent doctor's visit, in which it had been determined that baby was not yet head-down, and as Dr. Stiles wished to take precautions as it pertained to labor, which could begin any day, he had suggested that he should try to turn the baby, and though she had grimaced, remembering the times when she had needed to perform the procedure herself, sometimes in the throes of labor, she agreed.
Describing it to Georg later, he had felt his insides curdle as she told him how although engaging the baby's head and feet had been quite simple, turning the child had felt like all her ribs would crack, and she would not be shocked if some were bruised. He had blanched when she then told him that there was no guarantee that baby would stay put, and that it might start early labor, and he'd had to bite his tongue from asking why she had allowed this at all, knowing full well that a breech birth could be several times more difficult or traumatic, and his wife knew this all too well herself.
"Laverne assisted," Maria said, "and I must say, they make a good team for such a thing. I've rarely had help when turning a baby, myself, and I would wager that it mitigates some of the overall distress for all involved."
Georg swallowed, nodding, and kept it to himself how glad he was not to have been able to attend, for he'd been meeting with a banker in Montpelier at the same time that Maria was due to visit the doctor for this horrible-sounding manipulation.
Alexandra had driven her later that same day up to the capitol for a meeting with the neurologist who would operate on her neck, to have X-rays taken of her spinal column and discuss any particular concerns as they pertained to the last weeks of pregnancy, baby's birth, and what to expect in the time afterwards, recuperating and moving closer to surgery.
"We will schedule the surgery for sometime early in 1947," the neurologist said, "unless any new developments arise which dictate immediate need for surgical intervention."
Maria had nodded at this, looking over at her husband with a half-smile, and allowed him to take her hand in a comforting grasp. He had just managed to meet her and Alexandra coming from the bank, and was happy to report that this part of their affairs had gone well—swimmingly well, as a matter of fact.
"What about the sciatic nerve pain my wife has been experiencing more often now?" Georg asked, meeting the specialist's gaze. "Will that abate once the baby is born?"
"I would expect that it would be greatly relieved, if not resolved entirely," the man across the desk said, nodding affirmatively. "But if it does not, that is an instance in which you should return to me as soon as possible after the birth. It could be that some unknown factors cause the issue to persist. In the meantime, please continue following up with Dr. Stiles in Stowe, which can be easily done when baby is brought for routine checks."
When they left the specialist some half an hour later, Maria had let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding, and said with watering eyes, "I am relieved and optimistic, but I am also in an excruciating amount of pain from this morning's endeavours. Would you mind terribly if I rode back with Alexandra, while you continue with your business here?"
"Of course," Georg had replied, pressing a kiss to her forehead as they walked. "If you're sure it's not labor pains…?"
"No," Maria said, "that would feel quite different, a nastier, more intense pain. Mostly, I just feel battered on the inside."
Despite her reassurances, she spent the drive back to Stowe dozing and breathing her way through every bump, jolt, and seizing grasp of her abdomen. Though what she'd told her husband was true enough, what she hadn't told him was that the practice contractions, which until now had only bothered her minimally throughout the day here and there, a handful of times a week, they were, by now, ever present. And though it had been most uncomfortable, Maria felt certain that trying to move baby now had been the right choice. Everything suggested that the clock was winding down.
"Is there anything I can fetch you, Mother?" Brigitta asked gently, pulling Maria back into the present with a brush of her hand against her mother's arm.
Maria smiled wanly, shaking her head. "The rest of this is up to me, I'm afraid," she chuckled, sounding a bit rueful. "What fun it shall be!"
Her daughter smiled sympathetically, then set a plate down on the table, containing only toast and a small bowl of porridge with some berries from the ice box. "Well, do try to eat something. Louisa and I are seeing to the preparations for tonight, and we hope that everyone will have a wonderfully grand time!"
"Your father had better be helping, instead of tinkering in that boiling shed," Maria commented drily.
"He is, I think," Brigitta said, sounding altogether uncertain of this fact.
"Have him put out the alcohol selections," Maria smirked. "That will occupy his time, and keep him out of my hair for a while."
"Oh, dear," Brigitta sighed, "is he doing that thing he does where he's nervous, and starts crowding you? He was terrible about it before our mother had Gretl—I was just five years old, but I shan't forget it!"
"Indeed, he is," Maria confirmed, shaking her head a bit. "I am certain that it doesn't help that I had to see the specialist about my neck injury, and have baby turned around in the womb in the same day, within hours of one another. He will improve, but only in time for baby to come!"
Reaching out for the toast which her mother wouldn't touch, Brigitta took it and bit into it, asking as she swallowed, "Do you think it will be soon?"
"Yes," Maria said. "Not tomorrow or anything like that, but this baby is well on its way."
"Well, good," Brigitta said, "because I brought my Stradivarius home, and I have a few things prepared that I want you to sing for, if you're up to it!"
"Only hand me the sheet music, my sweet," Maria smiled, glad for a distraction.
Brigitta nodded, and disappeared, calling over her shoulder that her mother should leave the things in the kitchen alone; the others who wanted any of the food would eat it when they rose, and then she would make sure it was all cleaned up before the last of the cooking was done in late afternoon to prepare for the New Year's party being hosted that evening.
"Do you think you'll make it to midnight?" Georg had asked, both worried and skeptical.
"If I take a nap later in the afternoon, I will be just fine," Maria assured.
"The girls have it all in hand," Georg said, though there was an undertone of uncertainty to his voice which Maria did not fail to notice.
"Yes," she said forcefully, "they do, and I have already sworn to you that even if I wanted to be in the center of the mess, I would rather expend my energy on a walk or a trip into town. I am simply too sore and too exhausted."
At last, her husband seemed to believe her, and Maria patted his hand, long-suffering, and disappeared to find the iron and starch, which Louisa had asked for, and had volunteered to do all the ironing if only her mother would produce the necessary tools for her.
He watched her go, trying not to obviously fret, and at the same time so full of admiration for her determination, and how she carried herself and exercised vast stores of patience and self-control which had, quite ironically, been tapped into because she was too tired to feed any sparks of irritation or annoyance. Even if the mellowing out of her disposition and mood was only temporary, at least it came in time for the birth, which Georg hoped would help to keep her calm and evenly-keeled. He could finally admit to himself that he would need this as much as she.
But first, before he could allow himself to become agitated over these things, they had to celebrate the new year, first! He hoped it would be the better, brighter year that the world so desperately needed following the conclusion of the war. After the consultation with banking advisors regarding the handling of funds from the now-official sale of the Guarneri violin, Georg was feeling much more confident in his own future, and the future of his family, and he supposed that he might be persuaded to take risks again, if such a tantalizing thing was likely to arrive on his doorstep.
Not that he thought he particularly deserved it, he thought ruefully, thinking of how, several years prior, he'd simply burned a generous offer from the American government to come work for them, saying not a word to his wife, and providing them with no response. No missives had come since then, but now that things were settling, post-war, new alliances would form, new policy objectives were being laid out, and something new would come along, if for no other reason than that it was the way of the world. But, Georg thought, if it was even half as destructive as the war they'd just left behind, he would be grateful.
Shaking himself, he stood up and went through to the kitchen, pulling his things out of the coat closet. As they would be up late tonight, there would be need of more firewood than was currently sitting in the stack in the living room, so he'd best make himself useful, instead of brooding over the hypothetical.
Laverne and Dr. Stiles arrived first, around seven o' clock, and bringing a bottle of champagne in hand as a Mitbringsel. Lillian Chevalier arrived not long after, with Alexandra and Max in tow, and because much of their family had dispersed after the Christmas festivities, Georg had persuaded Maria to allow a few of their hired staff for the maple farm to attend, and they arrived with an assortment of party favors and games to play, which Marta and Gretl latched onto quickly. Louisa had invited Henry Jonasson and his daughter, Alice, again, and they arrived last, making the party complete.
Someone turned on the radio as the light dinner was finished, and the space filled with warm music and chatter, and in one corner of the room, the girls were all shrieking and laughing together, Alice among them, as they played a game of pin-the-tail, a checker board spread out between them, while they alternately resumed and abandoned Charades.
The adults stood around talking and drinking, and it was in this lull where Maria sat down on the settee, and found that Max, by now more disposed toward a quieter participation in parties, sat down beside her, patting a hand affectionately as he did so, before raising it to his lips to press a kiss to her skin.
"How are you, my dear?" he asked warmly.
"You know," Maria smiled wearily, "if I had a nickel for every time someone asked me that… but, as ever, you are, quite ironically, the only one who seems completely sincere in the question, asking to truly ask, instead of being polite, or nosey, or trying to assuage misplaced concern. It is nice."
"I shall always strive to be nothing less," Max chuckled, raising the glass of brandy he'd brought with him.
"I am well," Maria offered in response to the question. "Tired, certainly, but certain that the end is nigh. I am ready, which is something I thought I would never say. Back in the summer…what I wouldn't have given to stay there forever, suspended between baby's coming and going."
"And now?" Max prodded gently.
"Now," Maria sighed, smiling, an arm curling around her belly, "I want to meet baby, get to know him, show him all the ways in which he is loved and cherished, valued and wanted."
"So you think it will be a boy," Max smiled.
Maria shrugged. "Who knows. Before baby dropped, everyone was telling me I carried like it was a boy. Now, I'm hearing the complete opposite. It is very confusing, especially because baby has done precisely what it is supposed to!"
"I surmise that you and Georg have chosen names for either of the two possible scenarios," Max said, taking a sip of his brandy.
"Oh, yes," Maria nodded, "Some time ago, now, and it was surprisingly simple. I am happy with our choices, no matter which we will put to use!"
"That is a good thing to hear," Max chuckled, "because half of Georg's children went weeks without proper names. Agathe insisted on getting to know the babies, first, and it was Georg who named them, when they were placed in his arms."
"Which ones?" Maria asked, her gaze by now following the antics of the girls in the corner by the fireplace where the Christmas tree had stood until just a few days prior.
"Liesl, Louisa, Brigitta, and Marta," Max said. "Or, to be more precise, Elisabeth and Margareta."
Maria smiled, feeling strangely comforted by this. "How nice," she murmured. "How nice, indeed.
Eventually, card games were started, bridge and poker and the like, and the girls held a tournament of champions for Charades, refusing to allow any of the others to spoil the fun, and before too long, it was nearly midnight.
Couples sidled up to each other, the girls grasped hands, and in the case of Dr. Jonasson, he sat in the overstuffed armchair by the fire with his daughter passed out on his lap. Champagne was poured into flutes and handed around, and when the clock above the mantle struck midnight, everyone raised their glasses and drank, and those with a spouse kissed each other, Maria and Georg earning themselves quite the cheer.
"Here, here!" Max had cried, raising his half-empty flute.
And then, setting down her drink, Brigitta reached behind the sofa and fetched her violin from its case, the replica which Georg had once told Maria belonged to her mother, and with a glance to her stepmother, placed the instrument beneath her chin and touched the bow to the string, playing one note.
Maria waited through the prelude, then on cue began to sing the words to "Auld Lang Syne," encouraging participation once she'd sang two verses.
Certainly the effect was not to the same level as it had been with the Guarneri violin, but in Maria's opinion, it was just as lovely, for she loved what it all signified: the power in choice, the promise of a new year, the certainty and support of friendship, the love of cherished ones around us, and, indeed, the blessed child who, by now in cramped quarters, could only manage occasional nudges or kicks, and fluttered beneath her hand now.
Smiling up at her husband, who had an arm cradled around her, and whose eyes were crinkled in the smile he gave her, Maria repeated a verse, eyes only for him:
"We two have run about the slopes,
"and picked the daisies fine;
"But we've wandered many a weary foot,
"since auld lang syne."
He seemed to suck in his breath as she did this, and tightening his grip around her, he joined in on the song, overwhelmed by the decision to do this again, the choice of song, the choice of repeat stanzas… It was only Maria's voice that Georg heard, among all the others, and she was the only one that was present. She was the whole world, he knew.
And, he mused, she'd made her choice well, for he knew just as well as any that he had been most unhelpful and unbearable in the last days, these last days when she most needed his help doing things and in keeping her wits about her. She'd been somewhat emotionally-distant, but this had told him what he needed to know.
They would be alright. She would not hold his nature against him, and they would find a way forward, as ever they had.
Lying in bed together a brief while later, Georg turned his head to see Maria pressing her hands against her belly in what looked like a deliberate fashion, her brow furrowed.
"Maria?" he asked. He needn't elaborate, they both knew. Not anymore.
"I'm just making sure baby has not turned back around after that excruciating attempt the other day," she said softly.
"And?"
"It seems all is in order," Maria said, releasing a sigh of relief. "Soon, we can move on." She turned her head to look at her husband. "Are you prepared?"
"I have been prepared from the moment you told me it would be," Georg murmured. "Because you needed me to be. And because I have wanted this from the beginning, though there have been times where I did not believe I deserved it."
"Likewise," Maria echoed, huffing. "But we've got to be brave, move beyond that. It's a new child, a new year, you know? That dreadful war behind, and so much ahead. I would very much like to look upon my child and know that it is everything my world has ever been to me—tumultuous, precious, every last bit blessed."
"Indeed," Georg said. "Brave." Turning on his side so that he could stroke her face, he whispered, "You are the bravest, strongest woman I know. Don't forget it. I strive every day not to forget, no matter what it is that I have a habit of forgetting, because the sacrifice this has placed upon you is every bit the sacrifice I have been required to make in my career, and though they are not the same, I consider them equal."
Maria's breath caught in her throat as she listened to this impassioned speech, and with tears pricking her eyes in gratitude, she leaned forward as much as she could, to give this man she loved so deeply and so dearly a kiss. Tenderly, she did so, and she murmured, "Happiest of New Years, my sweet, wonderful man."
Georg remained awake for several hours afterward, watching his wife sleep, and having the feeling that the opportunities for him to do this were fast running out. So, he spent the first hours of 1946 lying awake in bed next to his wife, hands lighting over her skin ever so gently, pausing to rest on her belly, observing the beauty that was his wife in slumber. She would likely wake before dawn, and would need another nap after lunch, but total exhaustion had recently begun to win over discomfort. She had seemed to take consolation from the fact that the end of this all was so near she could taste it, and it made him glad, for rest would not come easily to either of them before very long.
And likewise, he was glad that she had pushed so hard to have this final party before their lives changed. Initially he had been surprised, but she had insisted, exclaiming that the time zwischen den Jahren had to be put to good use, otherwise she might go mad, because the only other thing that occupied her brain now that she was no longer working with Alexandra and strictly on desk duty regarding the maple farm, was the baby that could come at any moment, whenever it pleased.
And in the end, Georg had to admit, he'd been compelled by the idea of simple pleasure, and friendship, and simply reveling together. It was a rare feeling, in this world, one which they would all have to become accustomed to once more, and perhaps this new year would be exactly that.
Hearing the grandfather clock in the hall beyond their door strike three o' clock in the morning, Georg finally closed his eyes and allowed sleep to claim him, drifting off with a hand splayed over Maria's belly.