I nodded as I looked down at her bare feet resting on the step. “I’m really sorry. I can’t even begin to understand what this must be like for you, Cat. I just…” words escaped me and I fell silent again.
“I can’t decide how to feel.” The statement grabbed my attention when Cat said it. “I keep thinking this was just… just my mother’s time to go. You know? She was still relatively young, but she’d lived her life. Fell in love. Had children. Lived,” she repeated. “Makes me think about how unfair it was that he didn’t get to have any of that.” She didn’t have to say our son’s name for me to know she was talking about him. “I feel guilty for mourning him more right now than I am my own mother.” At the words, she broke down in tears and buried her face in her hands. I draped my arm around her shoulder and pulled her into my side. There was no hesitation to let me.
“The pain just never seems to get any better, Luke.” Even if she hadn’t said it, I already knew. I knew because I lived with that same emptiness in the pit of my stomach every day. I stroked her arm and brought her closer.
We’d been here before. The day darker, the loss deeper, but we’d been here. Cat and I had been to hell and back together and the memory of our son was fresh in both our minds. He’d never be forgotten. Ever. But I had to believe there was a way to carry him with us without forever feeling the sting of his death. There had to be. To survive, there had to be.
I’d come here today with intentions to stand in as a friend, and that’s what I’d do. We were friends. Always would be because of what we shared. But that was the extent of it. That was all there was room for in my heart now that I’d found and fallen in love with Lissette.
“I can’t believe she’s gone,” Cat whispered, exhaling sharply as she finally leaned away from me.
I nodded and looked out across the yard, staring at nothing in particular.
“Thank you so much for coming. I’ve been fighting myself on wanting to call you since everything happened last night,” she admitted. “For some reason, whenever something goes wrong, you’re the first person I think to call.”
We both fell silent for a moment as her words lingered between us. Her chin dipped when she stared at the ground. “I know that’s not okay anymore.” She nodded slowly, not looking up. “And I’m sorry for not realizing that sooner.” Cat wiped her last tear away and I grabbed her hand right after, squeezing it in mine.
A gust of wind lifted through the trees, filling the space between us with the sound of rustling leaves. She clung to my hand, but said nothing. I imagined the truth in her own statement had resonated with her and she was trying to process it. It wasn’t okay for her to rely on me the way she had. It wasn’t okay for me to feel responsible for her feelings anymore. We needed to move on from this phase of our lives, leaving behind the time we shared together, while also realizing that letting go of one another… didn’t mean we were letting go of our son.
I sat there with her, letting the minutes pass without a single word being spoken. That’s what friends do. When it was time to leave, Cat embraced me and I hoped she felt the same weight lift off her that I did. We were no longer bound by the past, but were now free to move on.
She stood in her mother’s driveway and watched me back out, waving just before I took off down the street. I was glad Lissette encouraged me to go. It would’ve been possible to find peace without finding closure, but I felt so much better for having both. Lissette allowed me to find it, maybe she’d even been the one to show me the way.
I made it back to her apartment by a little before one, but didn’t go in right away. Instead, I opened the glove compartment and retrieved the book my grandfather had shared with me after my parents’ dinner. He’d made so much clear to me that night, but one thing I didn’t want to happen was for Lissette to base her decision to take me back on what I had to show her. For that reason, I’d been hiding this book here in my car, waiting for the right moment. The second she bought and signed that card for Cat, I knew today would be the day.
I stepped inside the building and onto the elevator, clutching my granddad’s book beneath my arm as I reminisced about the night I acquired it.
*
Confused, I stared at him for a second when the book was handed over to me, very carefully, as if it was one of my grandfather’s most precious possessions. Maybe it was. His name was embossed on the front in faded gold foiling. I ran my hand over it and then looked up, waiting for further explanation.
“You probably aren’t gonna have any idea what I’m talking about when I tell you this, but I think I understand what you’re going through a little better than you realize,” Granddad started. “It was a long time ago, but there was a woman in my life who stole my heart the moment I laid eyes on her… the same way your Lissette stole yours.”
I frowned a little. “My Lissette? What other Lissette is there?” I asked with a smile.
My grandfather’s gaze shifted toward the road as nostalgia carried him away to some secret place where I wasn’t allowed to follow. “There was the Lissette who changed my life years ago.”
Confusion crossed my face. What the hell was he talking about? Rather than asking, I just continued to listen. Matt panned his camera back toward our grandfather.
“When your wife first told me her name, I was pretty sure it was just a coincidence, but…” Granddad paused and shook his head as he revisited the memory. “There was something so familiar in her eyes. Still, I didn’t know for sure until the day of your wedding. It was the necklace that made me believe.”
“What necklace? Made you believe what?”
My grandfather stayed in that secret place inside his head while he spoke. “The necklace I gave her grandmother a long time ago—the one with the rose.”
In my head, I pictured the charm my grandfather spoke of, but still had a hard time believing his story. It wasn’t that I thought he was lying, but… there was just no way this was possible.
“You knew Lissette’s grandmother?” I asked. Before he answered, I recalled the letters Lissette had shared with me. Was my grandfather the man she spoke of? But the names didn’t match up. “Benny. There was a guy named Benny. Was that… Was that you?” I expected him to have no idea what I was talking about, but then a look crossed his face. Shock. As if he didn’t understand how I knew anything of this past love affair.
The look faded into a smile when he began to explain. “My military buddies shortened my last name, Bentivaglio, to Benny. It just sort of stuck. And when I met Lissette, I was going for this mysterious, military man persona,” he laughed. “She saw right through all that from the beginning, but she humored me and called me by my nickname instead of Lucca.”
My head was spinning and judging by the huge grin on Matt’s face I could tell he was loving every minute of this. The odds of his documentary uniting the grandchildren of star-crossed lovers of decades past…
“The last thing my Lissette said to me was that someway, somehow, she knew we’d get to be together.” He paused. “Maybe she didn’t realize it at the time, but I think she was talking about you and your wife. Granted, you’re a new generation of Lucca and Lissette, but I’d die with a smile on my face knowing you two managed to find the happiness we never could.”
I sat there dumbfounded, staring at the book in my hands.
“That’s my journal,” he said solemnly. “Every single entry is about her.”
I continued to stare at it. “She loved you,” I told him. “She didn’t organize her thoughts in a journal, but there were letters.”
He became still as a statue. “What has your wife told you?”
“That her grandmother used to talk about you all the time. She really regretted that things never quite came together like she’d hoped they would.”
He put his head down. “No one regrets that more than I do,” he said quietly to himself. “That’s why you have to hold on to what you two have. I mean it. Don’t walk away without leaving your heart on the floor
. Do whatever it takes.”
*
Those were the last words he spoke about it that night. As excited as I was to get up to the apartment to let Lissette in on what Granddad had revealed to me, I found it hard to believe I’d been able to keep it to myself this long—two whole weeks. I found her inside, reading on the living room couch. Her eyes lit up when I came rushing in and she briefly glanced down at the book I was holding.
“How’d it go with Cat?” she asked, but I barely even heard her. Her eyes went to the book again and a few seconds later she asked a second question. “What’s that?”
With a smile, I placed the book in her hands and decided to let her find out for herself.
*****
Lissette
It was heavy, filled from cover to cover with worn, yellowing pages. It wasn’t until I flipped it over that I noticed Luke’s name written on it. Well… his first and middle name, but the last was different.
Bentivaglio.
Lucca Marcel Bentivaglio.
The look on my face made Luke give me a little more to go on. “It’s my grandfather’s.”
That only left me slightly less perplexed; however, when I opened to the first page and began to read, there was no question what I had in my hands.
“Impossible,” I whispered, completely astonished by what I was seeing. I looked over the first page again, reading about a Luke from the past. This man had chronicled his life with a woman named Lissette. Page one began with a memory of her explaining to him how she’d only given him the time of day because of a red rose petal lying in the middle of her bedroom floor when she awoke that morning.
Luke’s grandfather was my grandmother’s long-lost love.
What were the odds of such a thing happening?
My hand became warm when Luke took it into his again. It was hard to tear my eyes away from the book I held with the other.
“Lissette,” he said, stealing my heart with a simple gaze. “I don’t want to live with regret like they did.”
A single tear rolled down my cheek as it dawned on me how lucky I was, knowing that I’d found the love of my life. Seriously. It wasn’t just a figure of speech with us. With a little help from my grandmother, I’d found him. He’d found me. I believed wholeheartedly that she had a hand in bringing Luke and I together. She made certain that another generation of should-be lovers didn’t miss out on what was meant to be theirs.
She did this.
I could feel it.
I removed my hand from Luke’s when I brought his lips to mine. I was sure now more than ever that this union between us was solid. Not many people can boast that their love is written in the stars, but we could. Whatever we needed to work through seemed minor now. We’d figure it all out along the way.
“You’re my life, Lissette,” Luke confessed between kisses as one of my tears slipped down my cheek and onto his as we embraced.
It was never completely clear what the exact circumstances were that caused my grandmother and Luke’s grandfather to lose their way, but I found myself understanding what that loss must’ve felt like for them. Although, the time Luke and I spent apart had only given us a small glimpse of what they’d been through, it was enough to cause us both to vow we’d never part ways again. I forced myself to imagine what it would feel like to know that the man I loved was in the arms of another woman, knowing he’d start a family with her, grow old with her. It’d kill me to be on the outside looking in. My grandmother’s struggle, her pain, was so much more real to me now.
Years ago, she’d loved a man whom she lured in with her fun-loving, carefree personality, and unbelievable smile. It didn’t take them long to realize they wanted to spend the rest of their lives together. I, too, had found a man who made me feel like the sun rose and set on him.
You can say it was all a coincidence, but I don’t believe that. In my opinion, the love of the first Lissette and Lucca was so strong, so determined to manifest itself, that it drove me and my Luke together by any means necessary—even an ill-advised and completely thoughtless proposal. That’s what I believe. One way or another, Luke and I would’ve found each other and ended up right where we are today.
Right where we belong.
Lucca and Lissette, in love… again, for the first time.
*****
Epilogue - Two years later…..
Lissette James – Valente
My grandmother couldn’t have been more right; there is such beauty to be found in life when you follow your heart. She was so wise in advising us, her girls, to pay less attention to logic when it came to love, ignoring what made sense. Sometimes you have to just hold your breath and jump in feet first. God knows I’m happy I did.
I counted my drawer down as quickly as I could, shutting the register at the exact moment Delia came back onto the sales floor from the back room. She had a box of hangers propped up on her hip and they made a racket when she dropped them behind the counter.
“You ready? We’re gonna be late if we don’t leave now,” she urged, checking the time on her watch.
I headed toward the wall to shut off the lights. “I am. We can tackle the display changes when we get in tomorrow.”
She nodded, agreeing as she slipped her purse over her shoulder. I followed her to the front door as we prepared to leave for the evening, turning to glance over my shoulder at the interior of my shop.
My shop.
Pride swelled within my chest every time I stepped inside. I made the purchase with the earnings from Matt’s documentary, which became a very big deal, faster than any of us ever thought possible—including him. I made enough on my own to fund my dream, buying a boutique downtown where I could showcase my handbags and jewelry. A few local designers also linked up with me to sell their clothing, making the shop more complete, more diverse. It was everything I dreamed it’d be and more.
As if knowing I’d be out here at this exact moment, Luke pulled up to the curb, dressed and ready for Brooklyn’s graduation from her Master’s program. I looked him over from head to toe in his dress slacks and shirt as he came around to open the passenger side of the car for me.
Our lips touched once and I had to go in for another. He smiled, but quickly ushered me inside the car. “Hop in. We’re pushing the time a little.”
He was right about that. I’d let my last customer shop a few minutes longer than I should’ve, knowing I was supposed to be closing up. I couldn’t help it, though; I l0ved what I did for a living.
“Okay, I’ll trail you guys there,” Delia said, making her way to her car as she spoke the words over her shoulder.
I waved her way and slipped into the passenger seat. Before Luke could even make it back around to his side, I had the visor mirror down to retouch my makeup. Eye liner in hand, I stopped with the pencil nearly touching my lower lid. I stopped because a smiling face in the backseat made my heart melt at the sight of it. A gurgle of a laugh followed my acknowledgement of the littlest, and newest, addition to our family; our six month-old daughter, Destiny.
I’d tried corrective surgery the first year of me and Luke’s marriage, but doing so had actually caused my condition to worsen like doctors feared. That should’ve been the end of it, should’ve meant that Luke and I were running out of options, but then something happened that shouldn’t have surprised me. It shouldn’t have, but it did because it was so perfectly selfless and telling of how truly amazing my sisters are. All three who’d already given birth to their own children—Aura, Delia, and Bean—offered to be surrogates, willingly volunteering to sacrifice their own bodies to help Luke and I conceive.
In the end, it was most feasible for Aura to follow through, and she insisted that we start the process of in vitro fertilization right away because she knew how badly Luke and I wanted to be parents. We were there every step of the way for her pregnancy and I instantly bonded with Destiny despite the fact that I wasn’t able to carry her myself. It didn’t matter. She was ours and Luke and I would never for
get that we owed our blessing to Aura.
“Hi, baby,” I said with childlike enthusiasm, reaching back to offer Destiny my finger to take in her tiny hands. She did so and smiled bigger than before, averting her eyes toward her daddy when he hopped in and shifted the car into drive.
“Was she good for you today?” I asked, inquiring about Luke’s day of solitary daddy duty. He’d been alone with Destiny since I left for the boutique at eight that morning.
He glanced over at me for a brief moment, not tearing his eyes away from the road for long. “Piece of cake,” he said casually, leading me to suspect I’d be walking in on a mess when we finally did make it back home later that evening.
“I’m sure it was.” I shook my head, smirking a bit.
His fingers slipped in between mine without a spoken response, pressing a gentle kiss to the back of my hand before letting our intertwined fingers come to rest on the center console while he drove. I took a look out the side mirror to make sure Delia was keeping up as we made our way to the auditorium where Brooklyn’s ceremony was taking place.
“God, I’m so excited for Brook,” I said, thinking of how hard my little sister had worked to get to this very moment.
Luke nodded. “Me, too,” he agreed. “I don’t know how she didn’t burn herself out, going at it as hard as she did. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone so determined.”
I couldn’t have agreed with him more. Six years of school was finally coming to an end for her and I was looking forward to seeing her get to live her life now. She stayed so focused that she hadn’t allowed herself to have much fun along the way—odd for a beautiful, twenty-four year old woman. That was just her way, though. Although, part of me wondered if, on some level, she regretted being so rigid with her self-imposed rules and restriction. She’d passed on a lot of opportunities, opportunities she thought would do nothing but distract her from getting where she was going.
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