I turned to Damen.
"But how long will it take to get what you need?"
"Not long," he said. "You must understand, Mikalo is loved. People will do what they can to help him make a dream come true.
"Do not worry," he then promised. "We will make his dream come true."
I looked to Deni.
She nodded, her eyes shining.
"Absolutely," she said with a small smile.
Chapter Thirty-Two
The afternoon had grown long, the day lost in an ongoing conversation of what would be needed to rebuild the cottage, the growing excitement of what was to be punctuated by cool sea breezes carried on a hot sun, the smell of the white capped waves below in the air, the shadows finally stretching their fingers far and wide.
We headed back to the house.
Deni sat in front next to Damen, the two of them debating what was needed first, what would be their initial focus. The roof? The ceiling? The floor? A late lunch?
I sat in back, watching as we zipped down the hill, Damen expertly navigating the bumps on the road, narrowly missing the overgrown brush and leafy branches of the trees.
They'll need to cut this all back from the road, I thought. And then decided not to mention it. They had enough to do. The last thing they needed on their exploding list is cutting brush back from a long, winding road leading up a hill.
Mikalo.
I smiled at the thought of my Mikalo walking in to discover this gift. This cottage taken over, brought back from ruin, and turned into a place where we could live and laugh and love.
The thought of it made my heart sing. Like a child dreaming of Christmas Morning, I couldn't wait to share this moment with him. Of seeing his dream come true.
"Ronan," Deni called out over her shoulder.
"Yeah," I shouted back, the sound of the Jeep rumbling its way through the brush drowning out serious conversation.
"We're going to drop you home and then head into town, okay?"
"Sounds good," I shouted back.
She turned her head and faced forward again, the two of them once again talking about the strongest wood to use, the best mortar to place between the stones, how many men would be needed to repair the ceiling.
I looked out at the greenery buzzing by, suddenly aware the day after tomorrow I'd be walking down the aisle. If there was an aisle to walk down, that is. I'm not sure what was being planned.
I did know that Deni was my Maid of Honor. And I suspected Damen, being Mikalo's best friend, was going to be his Best Man.
Other than that and the fact we'd be having a non-denominational ceremony where we'd say a simple "I do", I was winging it.
I was going to be as surprised as everyone else.
We were getting close to the house now, the ground leveling off, our descent from the hill at an end.
The knots in my stomach returned as we turned the corner and started the small climb to the family compound, the square, squat buildings waiting at the top of the hill like large, white blocks.
I breathed deeply, willing myself calm, willing the pain away.
I failed, my nerves only growing more ragged, more intense, as we turned up the driveway and drove toward the house.
We came to a stop.
The silence was deafening.
Damen was slipping from behind the wheel, Deni was already out of the passenger seat and stretching her arms overhead as she stood next to the Jeep.
I remained seated, despite Damen offering his hand.
"Ronan?" Deni asked.
She poked her head into the Jeep.
"Wedding Day jitters," I joked.
"Come on," she said. "Move. Get out. Walk. It'll help you feel better."
I clambered out of the backseat, all but falling into the driveway despite both Deni and Damen offering their hands.
Smooth.
They climbed back into the Jeep.
Deni looked at me.
"You gonna be okay?" she asked.
I nodded.
"Yeah, I'll be fine."
Damen started up the Jeep and, a moment later, they were down the driveway on their way to town.
I started toward the house.
What I needed was to see Mikalo. Hug him, hold him close. Bury my face deep in his chest and inhale his scent.
The thought of that inevitability lightened my heart, the pangs in my stomach quieting.
I passed through the doors onto the ground floor.
No one around.
Yet I could hear the hushed tones of someone, or a lot of someones, around the corner. Whispers behind closed doors. Discussions. Conversations.
Quiet talk not meant for my ears.
I climbed the stairs to the second floor and turned toward the room I shared with Mikalo.
I found him sitting on the edge of the bed.
He lifted his head as I came near.
A breath later, I was standing before him, my arms wrapping around him as he pushed his face into my breasts, his arms holding me close, holding me tight.
"My Grace," he said, his words losing themselves in my embrace.
His voice sounded tense. Almost sad.
I pulled back, lifting his chin to me as I looked down into his face.
There were tears in his eyes.
"There will be no wedding," he said before erupting into sobs, his shoulders shaking as the tears flowed down his cheeks.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Nona was dead.
While I had been hanging out at the House of Broken Hearts, Deni and Damen and I plotting and planning the beginning of a new life for this long abandoned home, she had been discovered by a maid, lying quietly in bed, her hands folded across her generous stomach.
Sometime in the night she had slipped away. Sometime during sleep. Calmly. Quietly. Without fuss.
The doctor, a very old man from the town, had already shown up to feel her wrist for a pulse, press his stethoscope to her chest, stand for a long moment with his hand on hers, and then nod his head.
Yes, Nona was dead.
With no funeral home on the island and no way for her to be properly attended to before burial, her body would be taken to Athens this afternoon.
"By boat," Mikalo had insisted, a journey that would certainly take several hours.
"She is afraid of flying," he then explained before the tears rolled down his cheeks and his shoulders shook in heaving sobs.
My poor Mikalo was inconsolable.
Silvestro was drinking.
Caugina was sitting quietly in a corner. As horrible as it sounds, something told me she was trying to judge when it would be best to bring up Nona's Will.
The rest of the family, these strangers I had rarely seen and didn't yet know, would be arriving from Athens and elsewhere throughout the day, a steady stream of shocked faces and broken hearts, filing in to stand awkwardly, not sure what to do or what to say.
Everyone on this side of the world for a wedding, now coming for a funeral.
No, there would be no wedding. How could there be?
Her death was stopping something that her life, her reluctance, her insistence on what she believed to be right, to be better for Mikalo, could not.
I had believed the lie. Had believed she had softened and that a tacit blessing lingered somewhere in the old woman's heart for Mikalo and me and the simplicity of what we were trying to build.
I was wrong.
And now she was gone and, because of that, any chance of my saying "I do" in the near future was now as dead as she was.
Perhaps I should ride on the boat to Athens with her to have my dreams of wedded bliss embalmed and slipped in the coffin next to her.
Wow, Ronan, way to be dramatic there. This isn't about you. Get it together.
I leaned forward and carefully placed a kiss on my Mikalo's forehead.
And then I left him to settle the details with Silvestro and a now engaged and inappropriately eager Caugina of what would happe
n when and how, drifting up the stairs and down the hall to my room.
I sat on the end of the bed, in shock. At the breathtaking suddenness of Nona's passing, of how horribly it was ripping out my poor Mikalo's heart, of landing in Greece to be a bride and leaving not only still single, but on the arm of a man in deep mourning.
Taking a deep breath, I tried to wrap my head around it. Tried to square the healthy Nona I spoke with last night with the Nona that now rested in eternal peace in a bedroom on the first floor.
A small knock.
I turned.
Silvestro.
"May I?" he asked, his voice small, his face flushed.
Holding a drink in his hand, he waited awkwardly in the doorway.
I stood up.
"Of course," I insisted. "Please."
And then I went to him, my arms gathering him in a hug.
His body was stiff, as if hugs were a foreign thing to him, his arms not quite sure what to do, how to respond.
I pulled away.
"I am so, so sorry," I then said.
He blinked, once, twice, quickly leaving me to wander to the mirror and then to look out the window, the heavy-bottom crystal to his fleshy lips, the amber liquid being swallowed gulp by desperate gulp.
I waited.
Standing with his back to me, his glass now empty, he spoke.
"Tell me," he said, "what was said with Nona? What did she say to you? And you to her? "
He turned to face me.
"What did you do that made her so upset?"
Shit.
I almost laughed. That somehow in someway he or Caugina or the rest of Mikalo's family would find a way to blame me for this was beyond ludicrous. Then again, it made sense, their irrational hatred of me giving them an easy scapegoat.
But that wasn't going to happen.
I was reverting back to my Old Ronan ways and if this upset them, then so be it.
"It was a pleasant conversation," I said. "She sat at her desk, rubbed lotion on her hands, and brushed her hair. And we talked about, oh, I don't know, life, love, secrets. Just really nothing in particular.
"But she wasn't upset," I added. "Far from it."
Okay, that was a tiny bit of a lie. She did refuse to look at me at the end, the giving of the key shaking old memories loose. But she certainly wasn't in distress and I hardly think she was upset enough to die!
And I was leaving out the key and the house on the hill. No doubt if Silvestro knew he'd tell Caugina and she'd probably try and commandeer it away from Damen and Deni and somehow make it her own.
Nope. It was Mikalo's. A charming two room home he was sharing with me.
Silvestro stood near the window clutching his glass, his beady eyes watching me carefully.
"And when I left her with a kiss on the head," I said, "she seemed fine. Absolutely fine."
He swallowed hard, his mind trying to wrap around what I just said.
"You kissed Nona?" he asked, almost in shock. "You gave Nona a kiss on the head?"
"Yeah," I said with a shrug. "It was the right thing to do. She had opened herself to me and, I don't know, it felt like a perfect ending to what had been a very sweet, sincere talk."
From below, I heard the Jeep rumble up the driveway.
Silvestro looked over his shoulder.
"His friend and your friend," he said with a condescending sniff and then brought the glass to his lips, forgetting it was empty.
Realizing this, he pulled it away from his mouth and slammed it down on the desk.
"You kissed Nona," he repeated.
A long pause.
"A thing I never did," he then said quietly. "Or perhaps it has been many years since I kissed her, my Nona."
His face grew more flushed as his eyes grew wet. He brought his hand to his mouth as the tears spilled down his cheeks.
I wanted to go to him, this man who for whatever private reasons despised me, and wrap my arms around him, suddenly aware how lonely his life was and how little affection and love his betrothed showed him.
But no. I stood here, allowing him to find his own grief.
"Go now," I then said. "Leave."
His eyes met mine, confused and then angry.
I continued.
"She is not gone yet, your Nona. Go now, sit with her, hold her hand, tell her how much you love her and how much you appreciate her, and then kiss her. On the cheek. On the head. On the lips. Whatever your heart says, go now and say goodbye before she is truly gone forever."
Silvestro listened, his fist still jammed against his mouth to stifle his sobs. And then he turned on his heel and walked to the door.
He paused.
"Thank you," he said, the words struggling through his sobs.
And then he left.
I breathed deep, closing my eyes as I sank to sit on the end of the bed.
"Ronan," the familiar voice said, interrupting my peace.
Deni stood at the door, sun burnt and windblown, the ends of her blonde hair matted to the shining skin of her sweaty neck and shoulders.
"We need to talk."
Chapter Thirty-Four
My head was pounding.
Deni sat on the bed next to me, patiently waiting as I tried to make sense of what she was saying.
"I'm telling you," she repeated. "Not a damn thing."
My wedding. No caterer. No decorations. No guest list.
Nothing planned. Nothing but conversation. Talk. Mikalo's efforts to get anything going stopped at every turn.
"What about all the people showing up?" I asked. "His family, his friends."
"They were already going to be here. This is when they have their big family reunion thing. I suspect Mikalo was taking advantage of that, not wanting anyone to have to spend money or time coming out a second time. Might as well get it done when everyone was together, right?"
A pause.
"I'm sorry," Deni said, her hand rubbing my back.
"This just doesn't make sense," I found myself saying.
But it did. It made perfect sense, part of my reluctance to believe the wedding was actually going to happen fed by the peace, the calm, the stillness of a house that was allegedly preparing for a large wedding.
And Mikalo had done this alone, fighting his family to please let this happen.
I hadn't even noticed.
For the five billionth time this trip, I felt like a fool.
"Damen told me," Deni was saying. "All about how Mikalo was almost begging Nona to let him hire a caterer and plan a menu and send out invitations. And then when it was too late to do that, to at least call people so they'd show up and be able to share this with him.
"But nothing. She wouldn't let him do anything, telling him to wait, to let her decide. To let her, oh, I don't know, be comfortable."
"She was fine with it last night," I said. "I swear. She gave me the key and I felt her open up to me or something. It was like she had something to say, but decided not to. And then I kissed her head. The moment, the emotion, the whatever it was we shared almost demanded it.
"I just find it impossible to believe she wouldn't let Mikalo prepare anything. Or hire anybody. It just ... it's unbelievable."
"Well, he did hire a priest," Deni said. "From the town. He'll be here this afternoon. Or tomorrow."
"Yeah, and now he'll probably just bury Nona and leave."
I wanted to laugh, but I felt too betrayed. Not by Mikalo, of course. That he would try to do all of this and be stopped at every turn, all but begging his family to allow him something to celebrate our nuptials, and keep it all to himself, the frustration, the sadness, the sense of hopelessness, was astonishing.
"Damen still thinks it'll happen, though," Deni said. "He said that Mikalo is very determined and very stubborn and that he loves you very much and wants more than anything to make you his wife.
"So even if it happens when you get back to New York or maybe someplace in Athens before you go home, he's going to get his '
I do'."
I flirted with a smile, relenting and allowing a grin.
Still, I was too shocked for even that bit of bright news to make much of a difference.
First Nona's death and then learning I had been walking around deluded about a wedding that was never going to happen.
It was a lot to take in.
"So now what?" I finally asked.
Deni shrugged.
"We bury Nona, pack up and go home?" she offered.
That seemed wrong. I mean, not the burying Nona and going home part. But just the packing up and leaving with our tails between our legs part.
"No," I said.
I turned to her.
"Can you still work on the house? You and Damen, is that something you'd still be willing to do?"
She nodded.
"Sure, yeah. I think he'd be fine with it."
"That's if he isn't too broken up over Nona," I quickly added.
"I'll double check," she said, "but something tells me Damen's not the kind of guy to sit around and mope. If her death does hurt him, he'll probably be very happy to get out there and work."
"Good, good," I said. "I just think it'd be great if I could give Mikalo something, some good memory, some wonderful thing to look forward to when we come back, before we leave, you know?"
"Of course," Deni agreed. "A single, solitary success to take home with him. It makes perfect sense.
"And don't forget," she then said.
I watched her, waiting.
"What?"
"This house, this key, they were her last gifts to him," she said. "This will mean more to him than almost anything in the world."
She grabbed my hand, holding it in hers.
"Other than you becoming his wife, of course."
Chapter Thirty-Five
The day had passed in a blur of relatives wandering in, of hushed whispers and strangled sobs, of plates of food going uneaten and long, lingering hugs.
Nona had been taken from the room in the early-afternoon, her large body draped beneath her favorite quilt as the doctor and a coroner from the mainland pushed the gurney through the main room and into a waiting hearse, a boat waiting at the pier in the town.
Mikalo had turned away and stumbled up the stairs, sobbing.
Mikalo's Fate (The Mikalo Chronicles) Page 12