Page 156 of Fated

He smiles down at me. “All the time.”

Then the music starts again. The last song of the night, before midnight strikes and Christmas arrives.

Max steps back, out of our dancing embrace, and I can see in the way he holds himself and the way he looks at me that we’re friends again—only friends.

Then he takes my arm and we walk back into the ocean of dancing, glittering people celebrating the light of the season and the passing of time.

56

The year endsand the New Year is whispered into being.

Mila and I light a New Year candle at midnight and watch it flicker and flame as it carries our wishes and our hopes into quiet dreams.

Mila wishes for a winter vacation—somewhere warm where she can swim. She wishes to make new friends and to keep the old. She wishes to see her grandma again, and she wishes to be able to grow up soon so she can make watches, just like me.

I tell her she shouldn’t hurry to grow up, that time will take care of it without her wishing. And then I wish to remember what it is that’s making my heart ache and my chest feel as if there’s a piece of me ... missing. To find it.

The flame gutters. The candle burns out.

And then the New Year has arrived.

We put away Christmas. We wrap in paper the glass ornaments, we close cardboard boxes full of garlands and colorful lights. We sweep up the dried Christmas tree needles scattered on the floor. The gingerbread, the roasting chestnuts, the spices of cinnamon and clove and the vin chaud—all of it is set aside. The Christmas markets are disassembled like toy wooden buildings, folded up and boxed away. It’s all gone, and it won’t return until next year.

A snowy, blustery wind rushes down the snow-covered mountains and sweeps through Geneva.

The freezing winter wind carries away the warm glow of Christmas lights, the evergreen-scented wreaths and garlands, and replaces it with the chill and frost of January.

The mountains surrounding the city are white-capped. The cold bites your fingers and nose and the sun shines on a frozen, wintry world.

Sometimes when the sun catches and dances on the white snowdrifts, I think it looks like the sun lighting on powdery golden sand.

Sometimes when I pass a bookstore on a cold, gray day, I look at the warm lights inside and the rows of books waiting to be read, and I think it looks like it might be the happiest place in the world.

And sometimes when I’m at my desk, lost in thought, I absently run my finger over my lips, and at the sensation I sit straight, feeling as if I’ve woken from a dream. I look around, certain someone should be there with me.

But most of the time I keep busy.

Work—Mila—school—homework—work again—sleep—no dreams—Mila—work—and?—

It’s mid-January, but it feels as if years have passed between Christmas Eve and now.

I rub my forehead, massaging the spot between my eyebrows, and close my eyes. At the edge of my desk a mug of hot coffee steams, sending out a warm, sugar-scented fragrance.

The low hum of the heating vent fills the space and a gentle, warm draft blows over me. I lean back in my leather chair and roll my shoulders. The sun shines through the window, the afternoon light falling on the blue satin of my dress. The light catches the pearls and the gold of the watch I’m wearing. The one I designed last summer—the McCormick.

I’ve been wearing it every day. I love it with an unreasonable passion.

Outside my office, there are the sounds of a busy Monday. Impromptu meetings in the hallway, the whir of printers and answered phones, the hurried click-click of heels, and the “How was your weekend?” of colleagues who have worked together for years.

I’ve spent the morning locked in meetings and international conference calls. Daniel and I are headed to New York in the spring, and we’re already planning the trip. Mila and Annemarie will come; Mila will love touring the city, and I’ll love sharing it with her.

But before then I have the first quarter’s projections, the supply chain issue out of Asia, the increased export tariffs on our enamel powder, the twenty percent increase in the cost of our raw materials, the canton’s tax proposal, and—well, I’ll get to it all.

But for just a moment I’ll close my eyes, let the sun fall across my face, and listen to the soft ticking of my watch.

“Fi?”

I open my eyes.

---