Page 17 of A Mother’s Love
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Peter turned out to be the most creative at charades, and Seth, Valerie, Peter, Olivia, and the two guest couples stayed up to dance on deck for a while after Katherine and Frank, Seth’s mother and stepfather, went to bed.
They danced for a while and then sat around talking about Christmas memories.
Peter and Seth remembered their Christmas in Las Vegas with their mother, the third time she got married, at the Elvis Chapel.
“It was colorful,” Seth said, with an arm around his wife.
“We should go to the disco again, before we leave St. Bart’s,” Peter suggested.
They’d had fun the first time, on their second night of the trip.
“It might be our last chance for a real disco,” Peter said, smiling at Olivia.
She’d had fun dancing with him and all the others.
Peter danced with everyone, and was impressive on the dance floor.
He had called his daughters that night, and Olivia noticed he looked serious afterward.
She could tell that he missed them, and he went to his cabin afterward.
—
Halley went to bed after she talked to the girls, and when she woke up in the morning, the park was blanketed in snow, and she could see children hurrying there with their parents with brand- new sleds, and silver saucers to ride in, to try them out.
It wasn’t her usual Christmas, but she was leaving for Paris the next day so she didn’t feel she had a right to complain.
She had a wonderful life, and missing one holiday was not a tragedy.
And she could guess there might be other holidays alone ahead, if Seth and Valerie had travel plans, or Olivia met someone and went away with him.
They were grownups now. She couldn’t hang on to them, and knew she shouldn’t.
It was an art, parenting adults and learning to step aside so as not to get in their way.
This Christmas was a reminder of that. Other parents had to live with it when their married children alternated holidays with their in-laws.
This was a first for her, but it probably wouldn’t be the last, and as long as Olivia was single, and maybe even after, she would always opt to be with her sister.
—
She spoke to the girls again on Christmas morning on FaceTime and opened her gift from them while they were on the phone.
They always got her a joint gift, and had bought her an antique gold bracelet from the 1950s at Fred Leighton.
It was very chic and she loved it and put it on immediately, and they were wearing their new bikinis and pareos, which she could see on FaceTime.
Halley went for a walk in the snow, watched the children sliding down a hill in the park for a few minutes, and thought of the children at the shelter.
She closed her suitcases when she got home, and was all ready to leave the next day at two p.m .
She gave herself extra time because of the snow.
But it was already melting by noon. Her flight was at six, and she had to check in at four.
She had treated herself to a first-class ticket, with a seat that could turn into a bed with a mattress, a comforter, pillows, and a blanket, and her own TV screen to watch movies.
The flight only took six hours heading east, and would arrive at six a.m .
local time at Charles de Gaulle airport.
The day after Christmas, the doorman sent a porter up to help her with her bags when the driver arrived, and she came downstairs in black suede boots and a big black down coat.
She was wearing a white sweater and a white knitted cap and gloves, and carrying a big travel bag she loved that she’d bought at a fancy vintage auction.
It was a big alligator Hermès Birkin that was well worn and looked seasoned, in a size they called a forty, which meant the length of the bottom of the bag was forty centimeters, or sixteen inches, and she could put everything in it and still close it.
She had her passport, wallet, credit cards, cash in dollars and euros, a small pouch of makeup, her hairbrush, keys, and all the odds and ends she traveled with, and to freshen up with when she arrived, since she checked her cosmetics through in her luggage.
She had put in a book that she wanted to read, a current bestseller, and the January Vogue to read on the plane.
She always traveled with some small lucky things the girls had given her.
The bag was bulging and heavy but closed when she left the apartment, and she smiled as she rode down in the elevator.
It really did feel like an adventure. She suddenly couldn’t wait to see Paris and the house she had rented.
She hoped it lived up to the photographs the realtor had sent her.
—
The snow wasn’t too bad on the road, but the driver was careful, and drove slowly.
The highway had been cleared by snowplows earlier and there was salt on the ground.
There was a separate area for first-class passengers when she got to the airport, and an Air France ground crew member and a porter helped the driver get her bags through curbside check-in.
She tipped them, thanked the driver, and walked into the terminal.
They looked at her passport and all was in order.
The trip was off to a smooth start. She noticed that a few passengers were wearing masks, as a cautious leftover reminder of the pandemic.
Some people traveled with them now, particularly older people and travelers from Asian countries.
Halley wasn’t wearing a mask. She’d had the vaccine and felt comfortable traveling.
She went through security and took her laptop, iPad, and phone out of her bag and put them in a bin separately.
Her boots and coat were in another one, and she placed her large, well-worn alligator bag on the moving belt.
It was too big for the bin. It was a beautiful piece of craftsmanship, with a subtle patina to it that conjured up images of sheer elegance.
It was unique and killer chic. She saw several women stare at it.
It was hard to ignore for its size and style, an object of ancient luxury.
It disappeared into the X-ray machine and lumbered out the other side, as Halley stepped through the metal detector in stocking feet and went to reclaim it.
She set it down at her feet, got her boots and coat on, and tucked all her electronic devices back into the alligator bag.
There was a horde of other travelers lined up around her, as it was a busy travel day, and as she stowed the bins she’d used, she bumped into a tall, good-looking man next to her, with brown hair and blue eyes, and a dusting of gray at his temples.
He was traveling in jeans, after-ski boots, and a big down parka, and he smiled at her as she put her coat on, and they set off into the terminal to head for their gates.
She stopped to buy magazines and some snacks, put it all in her bag, which got noticeably heavier, and reached the gate in plenty of time to board the plane.
She noticed the tall man in the black down jacket checking in for the same flight.
He smiled at her again, and she nodded, and a member of the ground crew ushered Halley inside quickly as a first-class passenger.
There were only four first-class seats on the 777 flight.
She had reserved a single window seat, and the one on the other side of the cabin was occupied by a woman wearing dark glasses, with a Yorkshire terrier on her lap.
And in the center section there were two seats together, as yet unoccupied.
A steward and a flight attendant greeted Halley and ushered her to her seat, where she set her bag down and got organized.
She pulled a cashmere blanket out of her bag and dropped it on her seat, folded her coat onto the smaller seat in front of her, and got her bearings.
The seat across the aisle from her was one of the two unoccupied.
She sat down and took one of the magazines out of her bag and glanced through it, just as the last two passengers arrived, both men.
One was older and took the middle seat on the other side of the cabin, across from the woman with the little dog, and the man she’d already seen twice in après ski gear sat down in the seat across the narrow aisle from her.
“We keep running into each other,” he said pleasantly, as he removed his coat and the steward took it from him to hang in the closet.
Halley noticed that he had dark brown hair with graying temples and bright blue eyes.
He smiled and put a briefcase he was carrying into the overhead rack.
He was tall enough to do it with ease, and then he took his seat again, put on his seatbelt, and accepted The New York Times from a flight attendant.
He looked to be somewhere in his fifties, with an athletic body and a youthful face.
He didn’t speak to Halley again until after they were in flight, on schedule.
He accepted the glass of champagne they offered once in the air, and Halley took the sparkling water and flipped through the movie choices with the remote, as the tall man glanced over at her.
“Do you live in Paris?” he asked her. She looked like it. Even in her wintry snow gear, she had a stylish air to her that looked French to him. He had put his paper down when he took the glass of champagne.
“No, just visiting,” she said, with the remote still in her hand as she glanced over at him.
Normally, she didn’t speak to strangers, but he seemed friendly and relaxed, he had a respectable air to him, and there was a holiday spirit on the plane.
“Are you going skiing in Europe?” she asked him.
It wasn’t like a pickup, they were just fellow travelers on the same flight, and there was no harm talking to him.