Canary Island Song

by Robin Jones Gunn

  Matthew was just behind them and obviously had heard what Tikki was saying. Before she had any idea that he was standing there, Tikki concluded her lecture to her mother by saying, “Finding someone you love and who loves you is far too rare a gift in this world to let it slip away from you.”

  In a clear voice Matthew said, “I agree.”

  For a microsecond Tikki didn’t turn around, as if the voice had been an echo in her heart and she couldn’t bear the pain of turning to find that Matthew wasn’t there after all.

  But he was.

  He scooped her into his arms and whispered in her ear all the things he should have said long ago.

  Carolyn stepped away, giving freedom to the tears that spilled from her motherly heart. She could hear Tikki laughing and crying in the same breath, and Carolyn began doing the same. By the time Bryan returned, Carolyn had pulled herself together. He entered the compound and gave her a questioning look from across the sandy ground. She nodded, dipping her chin in the direction of Matt and Tikki, who still were locked in an inseparable hug under the vibrant bougainvillea. Less than ten feet away from them, one of the kneeling camels looked on with big brown eyes, chewing on a long piece of dried beach grass.

  Pulling out his phone, Bryan took a picture, and with a big smile he walked across the grounds to where Carolyn stood, holding her elbows and hugging her stomach. They smiled at each other, as if they were two undercover agents who had just successfully completed a mission they couldn’t discuss in public.

  “Do you remember?” Bryan asked, nodding at the canopy of bougainvillea.

  “Yes.” She knew he was recalling the same memory she had the moment they walked into this area—their first kiss under the umbrella of delicate purple flowers.

  He leaned close and brushed a kiss across her cheek.

  Carolyn felt all the butterflies rise in her stomach. Clearly, Bryan remembered the sweet and innocent times they had shared that summer so long ago. He was taking his time, restoring those memories and adding new moments. Each careful, deliberate act on his part renewed her trust as well as her hope. They really had forgiven each other. They could go on from here.

  With a light spirit, Carolyn leaned over and kissed him back on his shaved cheek. Then, uncrossing her arms, she let her hand fall into the short space between them. And just as he had done the first time they came here to ride the camels, Bryan took her hand in his and held it tight.

  Matthew and Tikki came toward them, hand in hand, beaming.

  “I can’t believe you kept this a secret from me, Mom!”

  “I can keep a secret when I need to. Aren’t you glad I did?”

  “Yes. All your little hints and suggestions that I change into something nicer to wear … Oh, Bryan, I didn’t introduce you yet. This is Matthew Kingsley. Matt, this is Todd’s dad.”

  The two men talked for a few minutes, discussing where they had met before and deciding that it had been at the wedding of Bryan’s son. The three of them made comments about the song that Todd had sung as his bride came down the runner in the meadow where the wedding was held.

  “That must have been quite a wedding,” Carolyn said.

  “It was.” Tikki looked at Matthew, and the happiness seemed to leak out Tikki’s every pore.

  One of the men who had been tending the camels came over to them and let them know it was their turn. Bryan nodded and pulled out some money for him. He motioned to Carolyn.

  The chummy quartet followed their guide to where the kneeling camels awaited them. The tour group had gone ahead in a separate caravan, so now it was just the four of them. Their guide was wearing the sort of garments seen in a movie about life in the Sahara Desert five hundred years ago. The modern twist to the ancient garb was his wraparound sunglasses and surfer-style sandals.

  A muzzled camel was in a seated position, with its long, spindly legs folded underneath its fly-attracting body. The two side-by-side saddle chairs looked like the same saddles they had clambered into twenty-five years ago. Each saddle was designed with a narrow seat, a wooden side railing, and a roughly hewn backrest—one on either side of the great beast’s broad back. As the camel waited in its lowest possible position, Carolyn planted her foot on the step provided and climbed into the chair by grabbing the sides and pushing up into it backward. She managed the maneuver on her first attempt and held her arms back as the attendant cinched a leather strap around her waist.

  Bryan repeated the maneuver on his side, and as soon as Bryan and Carolyn were both strapped into the fragile saddle seats, the caravan driver gave a command. The camel leaned far forward. Carolyn let out a quiet “Eeee!” and tried to quell the sensation that she was going to fall forward and tumble out of the chair. She reached for the center of the animal to steady herself, and when she did, she found Bryan’s hand there waiting for hers. It was just as their ride had been all those years ago.

  She glanced at him and made a face as the camel rose by rocking them backward until it came to a firm stance on all four feet. The force of the camel’s rise was slow and even. They were up! And what a view. The sand dunes stretched out before them, and beyond the dunes lay the sea. The vista made it easy to believe that only fifty miles to the east was the coast of West Africa and the Sahara Desert.

  Tikki and Matthew boarded their camel at the same time and made the same muffled “Whoa!” sounds, as their camel rose with its off-kilter grace. Their camel was led to line up behind Bryan and Carolyn’s camel, and the two beasts were hooked together.

  Carolyn turned around to wave at their caravan partners. Tikki lifted her hand, which was clasping Matthew’s in the same way Carolyn and Bryan were holding hands. The gesture reminded Carolyn of the final triumphant lift of the arm in the flamenco steps they had learned. It had to it the air of a prizefighter lifting a gloved paw at the final bell.

  With an easy tilt and a steady lilt, the journey into the sand dunes began. Carolyn felt her shoulders relax. She remembered this unhurried pace as one of her treasured memories of the Canary Islands. They seemed to have been transported through time to a place where only the basic elements of life existed. In such an uncomplicated place, she could readily distill her thoughts to only the ones that mattered.

  Closing her eyes, Carolyn listened to the plodding hooves in the sand and felt the persistent heat from the sun on her head and shoulders. She was keenly aware of Bryan’s strong hand covering hers, protecting her.

  Carolyn turned to look at Bryan and gave him a contented smile. He had pulled out his cell phone, and with his free hand he snapped a photo of Carolyn. He turned and took a shot of Matt and Tikki. He then held it out in front of him and Carolyn and said, “Do me a favor. Take off your sunglasses.”

  She flipped them up on top of her head so that they served as a headband, pulling back her hair from her face.

  “You’ve decided, haven’t you?” He still held the phone but hadn’t snapped the shot yet.

  Carolyn maintained her posed smile and glanced at him out of the corner of her eye.

  “You’re going to stay on here. You’re going to give us a chance, aren’t you, Carol Linda?”

  As soon as he spoke the nickname he had given her that summer long ago, Bryan snapped the picture. She thought he had forgotten. He had dubbed her Carol Linda the last time they rode the camels. He told her the name meant “beautiful song,” and that’s what she was to him: a beautiful, Canary Island song.

  Bryan held the phone close so he could review the shot and then showed it to Carolyn, as the camel sauntered down the ancient trail. “Tell me what you see,” he said.

  She saw Bryan smiling a fantastic smile a little too close to the camera to be entirely attractive. And she saw herself grinning ridiculously wide with glimmers of happy tears making her eyes misty.

  “I see us,” she said. “You and me. What do you see?”

  “The future.”

  “Lo que en los libros no está, la vida te enseñará.”

  “That which
isn’t in books, life will teach you.”

  FIVE MONTHS AFTER Bryan snapped the photo of their “future,” Carolyn stood outside the open wooden doors of the Colon chapel. Inside, the pews were filled with people she loved.

  The simple words on the plaque beside the ancient door brought Carolyn a familiar comfort.

  EN ESTE SANTO LUGAR

  ORO

  COLÓN

  1492

  She, too, had come to this holy place to pray, as Columbus had before setting off on his journey to new worlds. However, her new world was here. And in a few minutes, one of her prayers was about to be answered.

  The rest of the wedding party stood reverently waiting their moment to enter the shadowed chapel, where the fragrance of beeswax candles beckoned them to bow their hearts and offer up prayers of thanks.

  Carolyn fingered the nape of her neck, making sure all the strands of her coffee-colored hair were staying tucked up in the loosely pinned French twist. A few stray tendrils curled close to her face. Her fingers wrapped around the long stem of the single white calla lily, and she noted the shade of soft sunset pink her hugging manicurist had painted her nails. But she wore no rings on any of her fingers. Not yet.

  This was Tikki’s day.

  Soon her daughter would walk down the aisle of this historic chapel and vow to love, honor, and cherish Matthew for as long as they both shall live.

  Her motherly heart was filled as she tucked her chin and glanced over her shoulder one more time at her beautiful baby girl, adorned in white. Carolyn’s thoughts couldn’t help but tiptoe across the joy-strewn memories of the past five months and the two trips she had made back to California to list her house for sale and to help Tikki with wedding plans. Those were good days. As Columbus had said to his crew, “The time spent has been good. The time to come will be better.”

  She felt a wistful sadness when her house sold quickly and then again when her coworkers hosted a going-away party for her at the elementary school.

  “You know, don’t you,” the principal had told her, “the rest of us are wishing we had an exotic place to run off to like you.”

  Carolyn hadn’t told them about Bryan. It wasn’t that she didn’t want any of them to know. When she had returned to California the first time, their relationship had just begun to bud. Her commitment to Bryan was settled in her heart, but she wanted to give the new beginning a chance to blossom and open to a full-flowering bloom. They had time. And by the second trip, in the way all things should be in the islands, her heart was tranquila, and she didn’t feel the need to announce any future plans. Their engagement would come at the right time.

  Now Carolyn glanced up to the small bell chamber at the top of the chapel. Beyond the cross affixed to the very top, the blue autumn sky stretched across the heavens like an unending sea. On that placid blue a gathering of luxuriously floating clouds gazed down and bobbed along as if nodding their approval.

  Then she heard it: the music began, and Carolyn knew.

  This was her song. At last! It wasn’t her wedding yet, but it was her song. She and Tikki had chosen it for the processional of the grandmothers and the mothers: “Ode to Joy.”

  Joyful, joyful, we adore Thee,

  God of glory, Lord of love;

  Hearts unfold like flow’rs before Thee,

  Op’ning to the sun above.

  Melt the clouds of sin and sadness;

  Drive the dark of doubt away;

  Giver of immortal gladness,

  Fill us with the light of day!

  Carolyn’s mother went first, resting her arm gracefully on Matthew’s tuxedoed arm. As the family’s matriarch, she marched down the aisle with her lace shawl fluttering and her head held high.

  In that moment of watching her mother move with such Canary Woman fortitude and elegance, Carolyn regretted that Marilyn hadn’t come to the wedding. She had begged her sister to come, but she couldn’t be persuaded. Bryan’s stepsister, Angelina, declined her invitation as well.

  None of those family conflicts mattered today. The people who waited inside the chapel formed the circle of her life in the Canaries.

  Matt returned up the aisle, looking determined and glad. Carolyn slid her hand through his arm and made the journey down the runner, trying her best to emulate her mother’s panache. She thought of Jeff for a fleeting, unsorrowful moment. He would have loved this. All of this. He would have loved walking his daughter down the aisle to marry this man.

  When her moment came to fulfill her role as mother of the bride, Carolyn rose from the pew like a woman about to dance the flamenco—from the stomach up—and turned to face the back of the chapel. The guests all followed her lead. She felt as if her heart might burst with the joy and beauty of this moment. Down the aisle came Tikki, her arm linked through Bryan’s.

  Bryan gave Tikki’s hand to Matthew and then took his place between Carolyn and her mother in the front pew. Carolyn slipped her left arm through Bryan’s arm and placed her hand in his familiar hand.

  As the young couple took their steps together toward the altar, the guests were asked to bow their heads as an opening prayer of dedication for the couple was offered. Carolyn closed her eyes, and her heart stepped into the place of mystery that no longer frightened her. She had once again found childlike delight in being open and vulnerable with God. She felt safe inside the enormity of God and his inexplicable ways.

  The ceremony was simple, elegant, and God-honoring, just as Tikki and Matt had wanted it to be. They kissed each other with eagerness and innocence, the two best ingredients for love, and the two top ingredients they would take with them to their wedding bed that night. Carolyn and Bryan also had held on to those two ingredients as they mixed the recipe for their relationship. She gave his hand a squeeze and made a silent wish for a short engagement.

  As soon as they were outside the chapel and standing in the plaza in the bright autumn sunlight, Bryan leaned close and whispered to Carolyn, “Let’s go to the fountain.”

  “Now? What about the reception and all the guests?”

  Bryan took her by the hand. “No one will miss us if we’re gone for five minutes.”

  Carolyn looked around. She knew he was right. The photographer was busy posing Tikki and Matthew and capturing the joyful expressions on their faces. Her mother was content to watch the photo shoot, and the guests were being treated to a final song before the ushers returned to dismiss them by rows.

  The reception was going to be held in the private inner courtyard of Carolyn and Bryan’s favorite renovated restaurant around the corner. They could leave for a while, and no one would miss them.

  She gave him a whimsical grin. Bryan looked so handsome in his tux. Hints of summer’s golden highlights remained in his short blond hair, and a youthful mischief shone in his blue-gray eyes.

  “Come on,” he coaxed.

  For the second time in her life, Carolyn left her family to sneak off with Bryan Spencer. But this time everything was different because both of them were different. It wasn’t just because they were older and wiser. It was because they were both familiar with the sort of transformation that takes place when a life is renovated by God’s extravagant grace.

  Bryan held Carolyn’s hand close to his chest as they stole across the cobblestones and ducked around the corner. He led her to the fountain that had captured her glee the first time he had brought her here and she had watched two birds sip from the fountain and fly off toward the chapel.

  Now she and Bryan were the two birds flitting from the chapel and finding refuge in the glistening spray of the free-flowing water. No one else was around as they approached. They perched on the edge and leaned in for a mutually initiated kiss.

  “I have something to read to you,” Bryan said. He slid his hand into the inside pocket of his tux jacket.

  “Read to me? Now?”

  “I think you’ll like this.” He pulled out a small book and opened to a page he had marked with a business card. “It’s a boo
k of Spanish quotes like the ones your mom and aunts are always saying.”

  Carolyn tried to hide her grin. “Did you find a good quote?”

  “I think so. Have you heard this one? ‘Aunque la mona se vista de seda, mona siempre queda.’ “

  “No, I’ve never heard that one. What does it mean?”

  “Although the monkey dresses in silk, she is still a monkey.”

  Carolyn gave his arm a swat. “That’s why you brought me here? To read me insulting quotes? Are you saying I’m the monkey?”

  “No, no, of course not! I just thought that one was funny. Here’s the one I really wanted to read to you. ‘No dejes para mañana lo que puedas hacer hoy.’ It means, ‘Don’t wait for tomorrow to do something you can do today.’”

  He looked at her, as if she was supposed to see a hidden meaning.

  “And this one is good, too,” he said. “‘Cuando toca, toca.’”

  “I have heard that one.” Carolyn remembered when her Aunt Frieda had quoted it to her at Marilyn’s wedding. “It means, ‘When it’s your time, it’s your time.’”

  “Exactly.” Bryan closed the book. He looked at Carolyn. “It’s our time, Carolyn. I don’t want to put off until tomorrow or any other day what I can do today, right now.”

  With unrushed and purposeful motions he slipped his hand back into the inside pocket of his tux coat, all the while keeping his eyes fixed on Carolyn.

  Her heart pounded. A scattering of butterflies ruffled furiously in her stomach. She felt Bryan’s strong grasp, as he reached for her hand and slipped the ring on her finger effortlessly. Their eyes were still locked as he silently asked the question her heart already had answered a hundred times since the moment Bryan took a picture of their future on the back of the camel.

  His voice, resonating and rich, spoke to her over the sound of the fountain, as if deep were calling to deep. “I love you, Carolyn. I want to marry you and spend the rest of our lives together, loving God and serving each other. Will you be my wife? Will you give me the privilege of being your husband?”