Holiday Magic (Second Chance) Read Free

but the pain was bearable, and time would ease it more. She felt confident enough to return to Philadelphia and face her unpleasant past.
    She paid her tab, and after a tearful good-bye to Gwen, continued her final walk through the park. The realtor was coming tomorrow with the couple who had purchased the apartment for more money than Georgia had expected. She had decided to make a clean break. If she did have to come back, she would find another place to live, just as she had three years ago.
    It wasn’t a particularly cold day, but dampness crept into her bones and chilled her. She strolled past the Hans Christian Anderson statue and the Conservatory Pond. She stopped beside the Imagine Mosaic, the beautiful memorial to John Lennon in Strawberry Fields, and sat on one of the many benches that lined the sidewalk. In one of the old American elm trees, one leaf seemed to cling tenaciously to its branch. It had been that tree that had inspired Autumn Leaves, and it now gave her the final Central Park Collection design. She exited the park at East 72 nd Street, and hurried along the last three blocks to her apartment.
    Georgia unlocked the door to her condo, removed her coat and hat, and pulled a large suitcase out of the closet. She didn’t have a lot of clothes since almost everything she had brought with her from Philadelphia no longer fit, and had been given away to the Salvation Army over time. She wasn’t a clothes horse like her twin, but she had acquired some classic designer clothes, and these would need to be carefully packed. She had fabricated pewter buttons and toggles for a new fashion designer on Houston Street, and had been paid in beautiful dresses and pant suits. She had several pairs of jeans and sweaters, her normal mode of dress, and other bits and pieces to take with her as well. Since she would be tied up with lawyers and realtors most of the day tomorrow, she would have to pack tonight. The movers she’d hired were coming in the morning to pack up her studio and ship it to Eleni’s.
    She left the suitcase in the hallway near her bedroom, went into the kitchen, opened the fridge, but nothing appealed to her. She had lost weight, possibly too much weight. Now that she had snapped out of her lethargic state, she would have to remedy that. She liked her new lithe form, but there really was such a thing as being too thin.
    She looked around the apartment and realized she had never really made it hers. Everything in it was as it had been when she had bought it, furnished, three years ago, and she had sold it the same way. There were few things in it that reflected her personality. Other than her design studio, photos of Eleni, their parents, and grandparents, and a poster celebrating her jewelry store opening, the place was impersonal. It was like a long-term hospital room in a rehab center, a stopping place where she healed and got her emotions in order, and it was time to depart. What was it they said? Stagnation was death. Well, she had stagnated long enough.
    She walked into her studio, picked up a piece of charcoal and a drawing pad, and sketched out a design for a broach. The drawing showed the bare branch she had seen with one last leaf dangling precariously from the tip. She had watched it for almost an hour, but it clung tenaciously to its exposed position, as if daring the wind to knock it down. It was still there when she had walked away. It was the answer she had needed.
    Some people might admire the leaf for clinging to the branch, but in reality, the leaf was dead, and it was the tree that refused to let it go. Just like that tree, she had clung to her pain, her humiliation, her heartache. It was time to let them go. Life was too precious to spend all of it in regret. She would move on, and maybe, someday, her heart would heal.
    She put down her sketch pad, packed away her materials, and flipped the switch, plunging the room into darkness. She went into the bedroom, opened the top drawer of