by Tia Isabella
Lady Maya MacGregor was reputed to be a woman of tender heart and great beauty. Her fiercely devoted husband Thomas commissioned two different artists to put her likeness to canvas. These portraits (one painted by the Italian master Giotto himself) hung over the hearth in the great hall of the castle for hundreds of years until they were severely charred during a kitchen fire that fanned out of control two centuries ago.
The paintings were not even known to exist until the year 2001 when a team of Scottish scientists unearthed them. Unfortunately, both works were unsalvageable at the time of discovery, so anthropologists were not able to restore them to their original splendor until two years ago, during the technological boom of 2058.
The restored paintings again hang above the hearth in Castle MacGregor where they were first placed so many hundreds of years ago (see pg. 402).
The current Earl of Clannock, who has recently taken up residence in the refurbished MacGregor hall, was quoted in a British newspaper as saying: “My grandmother’s portraits…”
The old man’s hands shook violently with anticipation as he leafed toward the back of the book to page 402. He would actually get to see what the Lady Maya had looked like.
In his heart, he already knew.
The old man had known a long, prosperous life with a warm, caring wife at his side. She had bore him three children and those children had gone on to gift him with ten grandchildren. He was a happy man.
And yet for almost sixty years he had carried around a great sadness, a burden that he had asked God to relieve him of more times than he could count. In his arrogant and idiotic youth, he had hurt a woman. He had made her cry, made her run from him, and through that he had been the indirect cause of her demise in a tropical storm.
Or so he had believed.
The old man, gnarled of hand and heavy of heart, flipped to page 402. Tears of relief and happiness streamed down his wrinkle-creased face as he brushed his shaking fingers across the happy image of the woman he had once loved.
It was her. She had made it.
Somehow, beyond his understanding, beyond his fathoming, she had made it after the storm. She had lived a long, full life. She had known a long, happy marriage. She had produced seven children, all of consequence.
She had made it.
And somehow he knew that in her happiness she had grown to forgive him.
Nick Johnson closed the book. He removed his spectacles and reclined into his chair with an unburdened heart.
The storm had passed.
And like Maya, he knew peace.
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