Snow has a way of silencing New York City, dampening the roar of traffic into a muffled hum, but it couldn’t silence the noise in my head.
It was Christmas Eve, and the city was putting on a show. Fifth Avenue was a river of diamonds; the department store windows were frozen theaters of clockwork elves and velvet-clad reindeer. Families huddled together in coats that cost more than some cars, their breath puffing out in synchronized clouds of laughter. It looked like a postcard, the kind you buy in an airport to prove you were somewhere magical.
But for the last two years, ever since the heart monitor flatlined and left me a widower, magic had felt like a language I no longer spoke.
