A Splendid Gift Read Online Free Page A

pang. “Let’s go someplace tomorrow together . . . just the two of us. Maybe we could go to Central Park and head over to the boathouse.”
    He lifted his eyes at her, then got up from his chair.
    “Tell him I want him to stay here with us.”
    ***
    Her son’s words echoed inside her for the rest of the afternoon. She dropped him off at her parents’ house and kissed him on the cheek. “Tomorrow, boats . . .” she promised, as she turned to get back into the waiting taxi.
    On the ride back to Manhattan, melancholy came over her. She knew her son felt the same way she did about having Saint-Exupéry in his life. When he was there, he filled her with joy and made her mind feel alive. He was funny and entertaining, and she always loved to see what he was working on. She could not wait to pore over the pile of sketches he pushed at her for her approval. As much as she loved motherhood, she also yearned for a creative life and Saint-Exupéry brought that along with him. She dreamed of becoming fluent in French, of being not only a wife to him, but a partner in his work. Her mind was full of ideas, her spirit eager to travel and see the world. Part of her even imagined writing a book of her own.
    But when her pilot left, the quiet in the apartment proved unbearable. He took a piece of her every time he departed. And Stephen, too, was growing attached. The paper airplanes Saint-Exupéry had made with him, the set of paints he had given the boy, and the times they’d spent in Central Park feeding the squirrels or flying kites made her son even happier than she had hoped. Now she regretted that they weren’t all spending another day together, but Saint-Exupéry had insisted he had to leave by noon and she didn’t want to have to say good-bye to him in front of Stephen. The last few times he had gone back to Long Island, she found it difficult to mask her tears.
    ***
    As Saint-Exupéry slept, Silvia took the papers he had brought with him and began to study the sketches, in an effort to decode the story by looking at all the illustrations he had spent hours perfecting.
    She lifted the first pages, which described a hat that was really a well-fed boa constrictor, and smiled when she came upon the drawings of a sheep, which only she and the pilot knew was based on her poodle, Mocha. She also knew that the rose whom the little prince loved despite its thorns, who needed incessant care and protection from the sun and the wind, was Consuelo.
    But the newest ones were sketches of baobab trees, with their menacing trunks and branches that looked like gnarled fists squeezing tight. In some of the sketches, the giant tree trunks engulfed the asteroid. Silvia knew, without reading a single word, that this was Nazi Germany overtaking his beloved France. She shuddered and put the papers down.
    ***
    He entered the living room shortly thereafter. His shirttail hung over the waistband of his pants, and his eyes were rimmed in shadow.
    She stood up and went over to him, brushing her hand across the stubble on his cheek. Just a few hours before, she had kissed young Stephen good-bye, and now the pilot stood in her living room like another sad little boy. His eyes were lowered, as if he were ashamed. She could sense he was about to say something he knew would upset her.
    “I need to get back to Long Island,” he told her. He held his watch in his hand and fastened it around his wrist.
    She was frustrated she couldn’t find the words in French to tell him how she was breaking apart inside. For months now he had lain in her arms, and when he was with her, she knew he was happier than when he was on his own or with Consuelo.
    She stood only a few inches away from him. He towered over her.
    He saw her eyes glisten, but she fought back her urge to cry.
    He reached for her palm and his fingers enveloped her own. Neither of them said anything, but a thousand words were still uttered, all in the touch of his hand.
    ***
    For five days he