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A million little lights captured drifting snowflakes in their glow. This was the brightest night in Paris, and the weather couldn’t be more perfect than this. The wind was at ease, the temperature lingered at just about freezing, and with her hands in her pockets, her face framed in a fur-lined hood, Nathalie was snug and comfortable. Her eyes flitted across the sky freely as the flurry, watching the upward rush as snowflakes wafted into the side of a brick building, their movement starkly illuminated by the multi-color bulbs bordering the nearest windows.
It was quiet. It was late. The occasional car passed them by, or the occasional family walking home from their evening festivities. Distant and bright, laughter echoed in the streets. Nathalie paused to look at a row of wire reindeer on a terrace, glimmering with warm white lights. Slightly ahead of her, her fiancé glanced over his shoulder. His smile was hidden by the collar of his coat.
“Are you tired?”
“No.” Nathalie returned to his side. She removed her hands from her pockets to lock them around his forearm instead. As she pressed her cheek into his shoulder, she asked him, “Are you?”
“We can start heading back. I don’t want to stay out too long in case the little one gets cold.”
“How is she?”
“Asleep, last I checked a minute ago.”
As they ambled along, Gabriel pushed the stroller. The corner of a flannel blanket hung a few inches out of the seat.
“We’re going to sleep in tomorrow,” he said, “We’re going to get out of bed late and stay in our pajamas all day.”
“Really?” she raised an eyebrow.
“I think we both need that.” Gabriel kissed her temple, and they stopped at a street corner. Two sedans rumbled across the slick black pavement, headlights burrowing through the snowfall. One of them audibly blared Christmas music through the airtight windows.
“Tomorrow morning will be better,” said Nathalie. “It will be a real break.”
“I ought to not see you out of bed before 10 AM,” he murmured.
“10 AM?” she exclaimed.
“Believe me. It will be amazing.”
“No one with children of any age can stay in bed past 10, Gabriel.” The light changed, and they crossed the street. The gleam of decorated buildings reflected off the asphalt in ripples that swam as they walked.
“Then I guess we’ll have to do the impossible.”
“Don’t be silly,” she chuckled.
“It’s been a busy several months. Several years.”
“And we’ll have to endure more.”
“You deserve a rest like that.”
They turned left when they reached the other side. Nathalie tilted her head back until the hood slipped away, sweeping her gaze across the dim, gray sky again. A breeze dashed across her face, pinching her cheeks with cold. She loved the peace of a snowy night, and she was grateful that she had the chance to enjoy it. While Gabriel fantasized about the morning to come, she was still recovering from the one that preceded it.
This evening had turned out pleasant, miraculously. A dinner of roasted duck, veg, and a mocha-flavored yule log for dessert led into a game of chess by firelight while Adrien occupied his sister, playing her Christmas carols on his piano and showing off the ornaments on their tree, each and every one of which she was eager to hold in her hands. Nathalie suggested taking her outside for a walk around the well-lit city when later on they were having a hard time putting her to sleep.
If Sybille was anything like her mother, then she wasn’t going to respond well to changes in the daily routine. Today was the first time in months that Nathalie had let herself slow down, and she paid for that. Handsomely. Since the baby’s birth, Nathalie was nonstop, spending all of July and August rearranging blocks of time like mismatched jigsaw pieces in search of something that resembled serviceable consistency. When she’d finally pinned down a schedule that worked, she never deviated from it. Having a system allowed her to deceive herself into thinking she wasn’t tired.
But that morning, Christmas Eve morning, the first time she’d let herself sit and take a break since the summer, those five months, and even a few that came before, barrelled into her. She got up to feed her baby with a splitting migraine and spent most of the time lying in bed trying to wait it out or sleep it off. She hadn’t felt that awful since she was pregnant, and Gabriel was sure to tell her, running his hands through her hair, “You need to give yourself permission to rest, love.”
Sometimes, that felt hopeless.
Clinging to her arm now as they meandered home, Nathalie thought that perhaps it would be lovely to stay in bed as long as possible, with the curtains shut and their bodies wrapped together while the holiday passed away. It wasn’t quite the Christmas she’d pictured, but it was enticing, and her eyelids grew heavy just thinking about it. Tiny lights flared in her tired vision with rays sharp as needles.
“I love you,” she murmured to Gabriel.
He slowed his pace and looked at her. “I love you too.”
“Why aren’t we married yet?”
He returned her question with the playful furrow of his brow. “You’re asking me, darling? I thought you haven’t had the time.” He took one hand off the stroller, grabbed her by the chin and kissed her. She could have melted into the snow-glossed sidewalk right there. “Maybe if you’d take a break long enough to marry me some time in the last few months, you wouldn’t have crashed so spectacularly this morning.”
“Mm-hmm, sure,” she growled against his lips. “Your last name would have saved me from that.”
“That or a honeymoon.”
“Where would we go?”
“Anywhere you want.”
“I’ll have to mull it over.”
“Do you know what I think?” he asked, as they moved along again. “I think we should get married before the New Year.”
She blinked. “That gives us a week.”
“We’ll make it work.”
“You’re full of ideas tonight.”
“You brought it up. I’m ready at the drop of a hat.”
Nathalie’s cheeks ached from the smile on her face. “So am I.”
They passed the Le Grand Pars Hotel, and through the windows, a towering Christmas tree adorned in silver and golden ornaments shone at them. Nathalie paused to stare at it. Around them, the snowfall thickened. Clumps of crystal-white flakes stuck to her fur hood. For a moment, the night fell as silent as ever, and she took a deep breath to inhale the cold. Last year, it didn’t snow. Last year, she didn’t feel like herself.
“It’s amazing,” she said to the man standing behind her.
Following her gaze to the tree, he hummed in agreement.
“I mean how quickly things change.”
His reflection in the window was faint, but she could make out the subtle upturn of his lips.
She went on, “I didn’t used to care for this time of year. I was never very sentimental. For a long time, I had nobody to celebrate with, and all of the sudden, I understand what everybody means when they call it magical. I feel like a child again.”
“Wait until Sybille grasps the concept of Santa Claus,” Gabriel chuckles, glancing at the stroller.
Nathalie reached behind her, extending her fingers. He pushed the stroller closer to the window, and the golden light from the interior spilled out, illuminating what little was visible of the baby’s face beneath her hat and puffy coat collar. Her hand fidgeted in its tiny purple mitten. She went on sleeping. Gabriel entwined his fingers with Nathalie’s and gazed into the hotel lobby. The man at the front desk waved at them, and then waved again when he saw the stroller, before returning his attention to the computer.
“One year ago, I didn’t know if I was going to get this,” said Nathalie.
For a moment, Gabriel did not respond to her, didn’t even seem as though he heard what she’d said. Her eyes slowly climbed the Christmas tree, following the swirl of glittering gold ribbon draped elegantly over the branches. They landed on an eight-pointed star, lustrous and giant, twice the size of a human head.
Then, her fiancé blinked. His countenance set into something solemn. “I was a different man then,” he said softly.
It sounded like an apology, though the words themselves didn’t suggest that.
Nathalie had drawn close enough to the window that her breath clouded the glass on her next exhalation. She stepped back a pace, and Gabriel, gripping her hand firmly, stepped with her. Gray eyes search her face. They were half-soaked in gold.
“This time last year, you didn’t even know.” Nathalie looked at Sybille. Under the blanket, her legs stretched. “I hadn’t told you yet.”
“You must have been so afraid.”
“I was terrified.”
He squeezed her hand.
“Whatever happened, it was going to change everything between us. It’s impossible to feel ready for that sort of thing, whether or not it was for the better.”
“Did any part of you expect me to take it well?” he asked.
She smiled sadly. “I don’t know.”
“You can be honest.”
“We were in a much different place. We didn’t even know what we were.” She traced her thumb down down the side of his index finger. “Do you want to know what made it a little easier?”
“What?”
“Imagining what my life might look like during Christmases to come” she said. Gabriel’s hair was dusted with snowflakes. A damp strand of hair dangled over his forehead, which was creased wth curiosity. She wanted to go home, put the baby to bed, take a long, warm shower, and snuggle into Gabriel’s side until sleep rose up from the dark to steal her into something quiet and peaceful. For now, she closed the short distance between them and pressed her head into the warmth of his throat. His arms folded around her waist. “Even then, despite everything,” she continued, “I could picture it all so clearly: the Christmas dinners we’d share; the candles on the table, the tree we’d decorate together. You’d carry the baby on your hip and ask her where to hang the next ornament, and then Adrien would stand on the stairs, holding her up so she could fit the star on top. When we’d open presents, I’d sit her on my lap, let her fuss with the wrapping paper and the ribbons. You’d dress her something beautiful, maybe something you made yourself, and we’d take a picture in the atrium, all four of us, smiling.” She paused. “We would be a family.”
Gabriel hugged her tighter.
“We would be happy,” she murmured. “We would have what we’ve got now. And to think--” Nathalie looked up at him, blinking as he kissed her forehead. “It was all a fantasy then.”
“It wasn’t a fantasy.” Gabriel shook his head. “It was a vision.”
“That’s a beautiful way to look at it.”
“You know what I remember?” He slipped his hands into her open coat, grabbing her gently by the waist. “I remember being alone that night on Christmas Eve, just the two of us. Adrien was at some party, and you and I talked for hours and hours over dinner and wine, although…” He smirked to himself, “You didn’t have any wine, did you?”
“I certainly did not,” she said with a wink.
“It was one of the loveliest nights I’d had in a long time,” he told her. “After I found out you were pregnant, I looked back on that conversation all of the time. I couldn’t believe you’d been keeping a secret from me. I couldn’t believe that everything was going to be different from then on. But for a long time, I guess it already was. Since that summer, I’d become so much more hopeful, so much lighter. Happier.” A frown settled across his countenance. “And I came so close to ruining it.”
“Oh, Gabriel…” she murmured.
“I hope you don’t hold it against me.”
“I don’t.”
“Causing you so much grief last year.” His grasp on her waist tightened.
“My love, it’s in the past.”
“I know, it’s just - we could have a better past.”
Nathalie put her hands on his face. A pair of glassy eyes stared back at her.
“I wish I could give you that,” he said.
“Gabriel --”
From the stroller, a quiet coo rose up into the night like the quiet ring of a bell.
Nathalie sighed. “She’s awake.”
She knelt down by the seat, where she watched Sybille’s sleepy eyes blow wide open at the sight of the Christmas tree on the other side of the window. The baby flapped her arm and stretched, letting out a louder noise, a musical little babble of wonder.
“Isn’t it incredible, my dear?”
Nathalie lifted her baby out of the seat of the stroller and turned back towards Gabriel. Sybille’s attention landed on a row of light posts decorated with coils of bulbous red, green, blue, and gold lights. She was an inquisitive child. Everything seemed to fascinate her, but nothing more than the twinkling night surrounding them on all sides. A cluster of snowflakes the size of a fingertip landed on her nose, and she flinched at the cold. Softly, Nathalie wiped it away.
“What do you think, Sybille?” Gabriel asked his daughter. “Your first snow.”
She yawned and turned her face into her mother’s chest.
Nathalie stepped towards him, gazing at him tenderly, her heart filled with enough love to warm her body against the cold.
“You know there’s nothing else I could ask for, right?” she asked.
He looked down. “Of course you could.”
“Gabriel, I don’t need a better past,” She stood on her toes to whisper her words into his lips, “because the past we have brought me here. And I don’t want to be anywhere else.”
“You’re too kind to me.”
“I love you.”
She kissed him, and he returned it with equal ardor, fingers brushing up her cheek and lacing through her hair.
“All that matters is that we’re going to have a wonderful future,” she murmured.
He savored the kiss a little longer. “I can’t wait, Mrs. Agreste.”
Beaming, she pulled away, heels clicking down on the pavement. “Let’s head home.”
He stooped to kiss the baby on the forehead, and Sybille’s eyes fluttered back open, gleaming up at him. He took her in his arms, and held her as they walked the rest of the way to the mansion. She was fast asleep again as they removed their boots at the door, and barely stirred awake while her father pulled her out of her coat and hat and changed her for bed.
It was just before midnight. Adrien had hung a string of lights around the nursery door. Standing in the threshold, Nathalie watched her soon-to-be husband lay their daughter the crib, expression lit by the decor. The adoration in his eyes never failed to pluck at her heartstrings. Sometimes, her eyes watered at the way he traced a fingertip around the baby’s fist. It was a gentleness that didn’t seem possible from a man so imposing and stern in the face of most of the world. But the love inside of him was great. And raw. And heavy. And somehow so serene.
“Merry Christmas,” he whispered to Sybille.
“Merry Christmas, baby,” Nathalie breathed.
They departed.
The dampness of melted snow clung to her hair, while the shower heat lulled her towards sleep. She’d hardly hit the bed before the night slipped away, before Gabriel’s loving arms pulled her in so that her head rested on his chest and the scent of him surrounded her.
There, she would remain, until the sun had long risen upon a bright white Christmas morning, shining off the surface of snow.