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“You survived once, you’ll survive again,” he repeated softly.
“Exactly.” Her fingers were shaking as she wiped her cheeks. “Merry Christmas, Your Highness. Happy New Year, too.”
Not without her in it.
With Babbo Natale cradled in his arms, he stood alone in the gallery and listened to the sound of the elevator doors closing. “Don’t go,” he whispered.
But like her sister had three years before, Rosa left anyway.
“Was that Rosa I saw getting on the elevator?” Arianna asked. She strolled in with Max and Father trailing behind. Her face pink from the cold, she shrugged off her coat and draped it over the arm of a chair. “I wish I’d known she was coming by. I have a Christmas present for her. Is that what Rosa gave you?” she asked, noting the wood carving. “It’s lovely.”
“What’s lovely?” Max asked.
“The carving Rosa gave Max,” Arianna replied.
“I’m not surprised,” Father said. “She’s always had impeccable taste.” He went on to tell Max a story about an ornament Armando’s mother bought the year Arianna was born. Armando continued to watch the doorway in case Rosa decided to return.
“She was determined to find the perfect ornament to mark Arianna’s first Christmas. We must have gone to every shop, craftsman and artist in Corinthia, and nothing was good enough. If I’d thought I could learn fast enough, I would have taken up glassblowing myself so she could design her own. It has to be perfect for our baby, she kept saying.”
Armando had already heard the ending. How his mother finally found the ornament in a gift shop in Florence, and it turned out to have been made by a Corinthian expatriate who insisted on giving the ornament as a gift for the new princess. The reverence in his father’s voice as he spoke was at near worship proportions. His words practically dripped with love.
Armando’s head started to hurt.
“I know she would be thrilled to look down and see the ornament on your tree, for your child.”
“I’m only sorry she isn’t here,” he heard Arianna say with a sniff.
“We can only hope she is watching right now, happy and proud of both of you.”
Would she be proud, Armando wondered. Would she be happy to know her eldest son had let the woman he loved walk away?
He worked up the courage to turn around, only to find a portrait of marital bliss. Max stood behind Arianna, arms wrapped around her to rest his hands on her bump. His father stood a few feet away, beaming with paternal approval. He tried to imagine himself in the picture, his arms around a pregnant Mona. Imagine himself content.
All he could see was Rosa’s back as she walked away.
It wasn’t fair. Father had said last night, their family had seen its share of dark days. Armando had buried his wife, for God’s sake. He turned off a machine and watched her take her last breath! Did that moment truly mean he would never have love again? If that was the case, then why wake his heart up? Why torment him by having him fall in love with Rosa after he’d agreed to marry King Omar’s daughter? Wouldn’t it be better to keep his heart buried? Or was loving and losing another woman his punishment for some kind of cosmic crime?
“Armando!” Arianna was staring at him with wide eyes. “What is wrong with you?”
“You’re choking Santa Claus,” Max added.
He looked down and saw he had a white-knuckle grip on the statue. A more delicate piece would have snapped in two.
“I...” He dropped the figurine on the closest table like it was on fire. Babbo landed off balance and fell over, his wooden sack of toys hitting the table first with a soft thud.
Arianna appeared by his side, reaching past him to set the statue upright. “Are you all right?” she asked him. “You’ve been acting odd since late last night. Did something happen between you and Rosa?”
“Why would you ask that?”
“Because you and she are usually joined at the hip, and the past few days...”
“I have a headache is all,” he snapped. The air in the gallery was feeling close. He needed space. “I’ve got to get some air.”
* * *
Of course he would end up sitting in the archway, under the mistletoe. Trying to put your head on straight always worked best in a room full of memories. Sinking down on the next to last step, he scrubbed his face with his hands, looking to erase the night of the concert from his brain. Instead, he saw Rosa, her face bathed in golden light.
What was he going to do? Leaning back, he stared up at the mistletoe sprig. “You have been nothing but trouble, do you know that?”
If the berries had a retort, they kept it to themselves. Bastards.
