Aqua - Christmas in New York City (Aqua Romance Travel Series) Read Online Free PDF Page B

talk.

    Love,

    Harry

    She walked toward the phone and then stopped. She held the notepaper in her hand and felt something settling over her. There was a strange sense of peace as a gloomy notion nudged her away from the receiver and toward the living room.  
    Tears filled the back of her throat as she looked out the front window; snowflakes tumbling into the streetlight. She stared for a long time, while the street was swallowed up in snow. Casey had arrived at a clear vision in her mind - something that had been waiting for her ever since they first talked about having children - she would be better off alone. Without a child. Without a husband.

PART TWO
    The 12 days of Christmas

    I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.
    Charles Dickens

The Thirteenth Day of Christmas
    HARRY RAN his finger along the eleven gifts still waiting for him to open. He could feel Cassandra’s touch in each of them, her fingers pressing the silver paper into a fold, her teeth clamping on her upper lip whenever she concentrated. Each bow and gift tag were a different color or pattern to signify the day it was to be opened.
    Cassandra had arranged the gifts on the top shelf of the wooden pyramid-shaped ceppo and along the manger scene on the bottom. On the middle tier, she had placed fruit and candy, in keeping with Italian tradition. The ceppo was several feet high, decorated with colored paper, gilt pinecones, and a star hanging from the top. Although many Italians now simply had a Christmas tree, the ceppo was a gift from his mother and he treasured it. Cassandra called it the ‘Tree of Light’ as his mother did, and every evening they lit the candles along the tapering sides of the wooden frame together.
    Being an art curator, his mother had collected a number of nativity scenes - the presepi - from some of the finest sculptors and Harry had spread them throughout his condo. Cassandra had put one up in her home, as a gesture to blend their two worlds, and Harry had given her his mother’s favorite; a Venetian theme with the Doge as one of the wise men and a mask shop and pigeons in the background. As they assembled the figures in her library, Harry couldn’t help but picture a child by their side, where he would repeat the history his mother always told him, how the first nativity scene was created in 1223 by Saint Francis in a small town south of Assisi. Theirs would be a vibrant household at Christmastime, with their children running from stockings at the fireplace mantle, to gifts under the Christmas tree and on top of the ceppo.  
    Harry sighed. Where did this vision now stand. He’d spent the evening alone for the first time since he’d returned from Europe with Cassandra. They’d had months of building their life together and now this.  
    He had called Cassandra first thing that morning but she didn’t answer the phone. He emailed her. He texted. He waited for an answer.  
    In the meantime, he took a gift with a turquoise-colored bow and ribbon from the ceppo. He opened the flap and read Cassandra’s few words over and over again. ‘For our thirteenth day of Christmas.’ Our.
    Were children worth fighting over? Did he care whether he had them in his life or not, if it meant Cassandra wasn’t in it?  
    He slipped his finger under the tape and unwrapped a leather-bound book with a handwritten title: Volume I: Our first week together . He turned to the first page and started to read:

    A warm breeze blew into St. Mark's Square from the lagoon and I pushed bangs off of my face repeatedly. I had been reading a book but closed it. Venice was serene at night, the tourists had returned to the mainland and the moon was casting a warm glow on the floating city. In the lantern light, a couple framed against the row of marble arches were embraced in a long kiss and I wondered how many times this scene had repeated itself, night after night, over hundreds of years. From my outdoor table at Caffè