Free Aqua - Christmas in New York City (Aqua Romance Travel Series) by Amanda S. Jones Page A

covered the outline of the star on top of the Christmas tree. He squeezed her fingers and formed a fist around the star, then he slid his fingers from hers and gently pushed her closed hand against her lips. “Make a wish, Mom would say.” His voice was on the verge of breaking.
    A tear ran over Casey’s cheekbone and she swallowed hard. Images streamed through her mind - her mother, Harry, a child, her tombstone, her holding her child, her sick in a hospital bed. In her mind, she scattered them and retrieved one image only - her and Harry, holding the hands of two children. She opened her fingers toward Foster’s face and blew on her palm. “Make a wish,” she said.
    A slow smile formed and then he grinned ear to ear. Foster caught the imaginary star as he always had, pressed his fingers tight against his palm as he closed his eyes around the wish. In his mind, he visualized Casey, healthy and happy with Harry, and with children. Then he held his hand toward the tree and released the wish with his fingers.  
The 25th Day of Christmas
    LIGHTS SPARKLED as Casey was wheeled into her hospital room and she gasped. It looked just like the south edge of Madison Square Park in miniature. At the centre was a glittering Christmas tree.  
    It was where her mom took her on Christmas Eve, to the city’s first community holiday tree, to think of those who didn’t have the fortune of yuletide celebrations. It was the one place she had never returned to and finally wanted to go with Harry. He gave her the strength to do everything - face her sorrows with her mother, face her fears with her dad, and now, when she had the greatest anxiety, she had pushed him away.  
    A large screen sat in front of Casey’s bed and the nurse turned it on.
    The camera was zoomed in on blue and pink wings, then it moved down to a flowing silk dress, a gentle face with a slight smile, hands holding a silver-gilt censer. Then another bare-footed angel came into view with a green and yellow silk dress, another in light green and purple, another holding a yellow scarf.
    Casey knew where this was. The Neapolitan Baroque crèche at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Each of the figures, from six to twenty inches were works of art and she had come to know them well over the years during her annual Christmas visits with her mother. It was such a peaceful, happy time in her life and she sunk her head into the pillow and watched.
    The camera paused on a gentle smile, a head modeled in terracotta and polychromed to perfection. The angel’s golden wings were brushed lightly with red and teal, and led to an articulated body of wire wrapped in tow, covered with a blue cape billowing from a red and yellow dress.  
    Each of the 200 figures were crafted this way, by the finest sculptors of the eighteenth century - Giuseppe Sammartino, Salvatore di Franco, Giuseppe Gori, and Lorenzo Mosca. The jeweled and embroidered costumes were hand-sewn by women who collected the pieces.
    The camera moved along the hand-sculpted angels and cherubs, each one familiar to her. Casey’s favorite was the angel with a simple pale yellow dress scooped at the neck, holding a salmon shawl, with curls shaped as if the wind was blowing through them. When her mother died, she wished to be buried in a dress just like it. ‘She was an angel’, Foster repeated over and over again on that day.
    The camera skimmed over approximately fifty large angels on the baroque Christmas tree each year and then panned to the scenes below. The Virgin and baby Jesus with a silver-gilt halo, St. Joseph clutching a silver staff. The dark-skinned Moorish king with a silver-gilt crown and velvet garments with glass buttons, coral beads and pearls. And the king’s attendants, one with a cotton turban and a silk and satin jacket, and another with a long cotton and silk cape with a brass sword.
    Casey was always amazed at the detail in an eleven inch figure: shepherds with simple cotton and burlap clothes with