“So, you and your mother seem more patched together.”
Melissa gave him a puzzled look. “What an interesting way to phrase that. We came a long way today to having a better relationship. There will always be that knee-jerk response to keep her at arm’s length, but I think I’ll be able to include her in things more. We’ll see. Meanwhile, I need to talk to you about something that is kind of important.” Melissa threw her last swig of wine back and set the glass aside.
Joshua raised a brow at the sudden tension in the air. Melissa rose and quickly walked from the room. She came back holding the journal she had discovered before leaving California, open to a specific passage.
“I found this hidden in my desk when I was packing to come here. It was enlightening and after you read it, I will understand if you walk out that door.”
Joshua took the open book from her and set his own wine aside. He began to read and Melissa watched with something akin to dread spreading through her as a wide range of expressions passed over his face. When he was done he looked up and couldn’t quite pick an emotion to feel. He got up and was surprised to feel nothing at Melissa’s wince.
“I’m not leaving but I need to know what exactly I just read.”
Melissa checked the rush of relief, scared he might still leave. “That is the authentic journal of my ancestor James Yards. He wrote of everything he had learned from that period of time. My parents had it authenticated when they found it and all the dates have been matched with actual events that were documented in our area of California at the time those pages are dated. My ancestor is the one that wronged yours. I’m sorry.”
Joshua looked into the devastated eyes of his love and couldn’t find the anger he was sure he should have felt. It was her people who had made his family need to fight for everything they had, because her great-great-whatever had killed and took what wasn’t his. But Joshua just didn’t have the need to be mad. His love was too great to let it be tainted by how horrific his past had turned out to be. He closed the book and set it aside. Joshua looked over sharply at Melissa’s gasp.
“Have you ever felt something close to a heartbeat when you were in any of my houses? Wow, that made me sound so spoiled, but all around me has felt like a beating. Very Poe of me, with his Telltale Heart, but it has always felt as if I have never been alone. Someone was always with me, feeling their heartbeat in my own. It was comforting after my father and sister died. When you shut that book, suddenly everything is very quiet. I must sound nuts, but that’s the best way I can think to describe it.”
“You don’t sound crazy. You sound like you have been under a ton of pressure and then you found this and it just added to everything. I know you. The guilt you must have been feeling since reading this? Unimaginable. We need to talk to my mother. She might faint at your feet. That’s the first time I met Max. He came to my house saying that this was all true and not one of my family members believed him. When she sees it all in writing, I’ll make sure to remember to catch her. Why are you looking at me like that?”
Melissa was staring at Joshua with a face so goofy, she wouldn’t have objected to being carted away to a padded room. “First of all, it is extremely exciting knowing I am so well understood. The guilt in my bones has felt like lead. To think I came from someone who would do something so awful, it was like a poison in my body. Second of all, when my mother confirmed that everything was true, my first thought was to go to your mother myself and try to make things as right as I could. Do you think she’d talk with me?”
Joshua nodded and picked up his glass to smooth out from the emotional rollercoaster he had just come off. He ended up choking on that wine.
“I also think you should forget everything I said this morning and go get the ring box from your dresser.”
Joshua came to his feet so fast Melissa was jostled back down to the pillows. He made the wait right here signal and ran from the room. The only glimpse she caught of him was as he carried a large box out to the patio.
Heart in his eyes, Joshua came to take Melissa outside. Tears poured from her eyes when she saw what was in the box. He had set up candles and rose petals in a circle under the big tree in the middle of the yard. A radio next to the circle of joy was softly playing rock music. Melissa gave a watery laugh at the music choice. He led her to the center and got down on one knee. Melissa had never imagined her proposal but this one was starting off really well.
“I have brainstormed for weeks with a hundred different ways of doing this since we got serious. None of them seemed good enough to soothe your feathers. So now I’m winging it. Melissa, the first time I saw you, I was bleeding from the mouth and you looked like an angel full of righteous anger, calling me and your brother morons for fighting. I knew you and I would be together because you made me want to be calm. Very rare feeling for me. You calm the raging of emotions in me. You bring peace to me, every time you blink. I want to be the best husband I can for you, for the rest of our lives. I love you. Will you marry me?” He opened the box in his hands and revealed a ring that made Melissa’s teary eyes pop wide. “Yeah, my grandmother liked her diamonds big.”
Melissa got down on her own knees in front of Joshua. “The first time I saw you, it was like a raging bull and I was the china shop. You bowled me over and from that day on I have been so entranced by you. You made me love in a way I never thought I would with another person. In the way that isn’t out of obligation, it’s with an open heart and excitement. I want to be the best wife to you I can be and that in and of itself is a miracle. With you I can see myself becoming a better person. A person more open to happiness and partnership. I don’t have to do everything on my own. I can share with you. I love you back. I would love nothing more to marry you.”
He slipped the ring on Melissa’s finger as if it was made for her. Joshua surged to his feet with Melissa in his arms and spun them in mad circles, locking his lips over hers. They heard clapping from the background and saw Liz jumping up and down in her room. She blew kisses then closed her windows to give them privacy.
Joshua led Melissa back to the patio and took a velvet box from off the table.
“I get two velvet boxes in one night?” Melissa raised an eyebrow.
Joshua laughed.
“Well, this one is more practical. I had the general in mind when I was getting the ring from my mother. This isn’t an heirloom, but it will make the next however long you make me wait more bearable.” He opened the lid, and lying in the box was a necklace of small metal rings linked together, gold, silver, and rose gold. Joshua removed it from the box and took the ring off Melissa’s finger.
She silently missed its presence on her hand. At the center of the necklace there was a clasp, a cluster of diamonds that opened. Joshua unhooked it, placed the bottom of the ring inside and closed the clasp, locking the ring in place. He then placed the necklace over her head, where her engagement ring nestled lovingly between her breasts.
She almost jumped up and down. “Joshua, it’s perfect. I love it so much! Hey, do you know what we get to do now?”
Joshua shook his head.
“We get to go have engagement night sex.” She laid the steamiest kiss Joshua had ever been given in his life and then raced into the house. Looking forward to all the nights of newly titled sex they’d have for the next fifty years, Joshua rushed into the house behind her.
~ ~ ~
After a solid three weeks of being a successful productive adult, Melissa could not take the nagging thoughts her own brain was putting her through. It was almost Christmas and she had just finished a successful expansion which no one in her life thought she was going to pull off. The factory her clothes were made in was bigger and ten times more efficient. She was able to hire more employees so there was less stress on the employees she had. She was shipping more orders and had signed more contracts to carry her lin
e in more department stores, and all she wanted to do was get home to Joshua’s mother and have the closure she needed.
Melissa walked in the front door from a day of endless meetings, positive though they be, it was still a day of listening to people talk. She heard lots of noise from the kitchen and the scents in the air rivaled the bistro down the street. She strolled in to see Joshua adding finishing touches to a set of plates on a little table by the window. Next to one of the plates was a folder.
“Well, if I knew you could cook so well, I’d have let you move in sooner.”
Joshua gave her a lightning-quick, impish grin and with a flourish took the dish cloth off his shoulder. He pulled out the chair from the side with the folder and handed her a chilled glass of wine. She sat to the pretty plate and was so excited to see real food on it instead of the proper business lunch food. Melissa reached for the folder, but Joshua stayed her hand.
“Hold it. Sit down first and relax.”
Melissa smiled as Joshua sat across from her and raised his own wine for a toast. She clinked her glass to his and felt the first sip smooth all her rough edges from the day.
“Okay, now you can open the folder. I can see your hand twitching.”
Melissa opened it and gasped. “Tickets for California. God, I was just thinking today how what I really want is to see your mother and try and get some closure for all of this. How on earth did you know this is exactly what I needed?”
Joshua smiled and held out a bite of spaghetti from his own plate to her. Melissa leaned over absently and took it. When the flavor hit her, her eyes flew to Joshua’s.
“Yeah, my mama taught me how to cook.” He laughed as he wiggled his eyebrows at her.
Melissa set the folder aside and engaged her brain into the moment. She couldn’t wait to pack for her trip home.
~ ~ ~
“Oh wait.” Melissa paused on the walk up to Joshua’s home. She reached for the ring on the necklace and slid it on her finger. “Seems this little gathering should have some happy part to it.”
Joshua smiled huge and tugged her up for a kiss. “My mother is going to lose it when she sees you’re actually wearing it. I finally had her convinced to being okay to waiting. I swear, our mothers are so pushy.”
Melissa rolled her eyes and smiled when the front door opened. She was greeted again with the same enthusiastic love and welcoming as the last time she had been to the house and made a vow to herself that her home, wherever it was based, would always feel that way.
“It’s so wonderful to see you guys! I bet it’s much chillier here than in Italy.”
Melissa nodded and handed over her coat. They all settled in the big comfy family room. Melissa had the book in her oversized pocketbook and it felt like an anvil sitting on the floor. Joshua could see the worry on Melissa’s face and ran a hand down her hair. Melissa reached up to take his hand but it was grabbed mid reach.
“Look how my mother’s ring sparkles on your finger. I want your mother’s phone number and—”
Joshua stood and took his mother by the shoulders. He lightly nudged her into a chair. “This is going to be a very long engagement so relax and let Melissa say what she came here to say.”
His mother nodded and stayed quiet. Melissa moved to the edge of her seat.
“Mrs. Bates, I came here because I need to try and make right something that my family did to your family over a century ago. I have something for you to read and afterwards I hope I still have the love you spread around so amazingly.” Melissa handed over the journal and flipped to the right pages.
Joshua’s mother took the book and a pair of reading glasses out of her hair.
The minutes ticked by in tense silence. Joshua was trying desperately to read his mother’s reaction. Melissa was trying to see if she was about to get booted out of the house. When the book was closed, Isadora looked up with tears glistening her eyes.
“Your father came here with the same intentions. He didn’t have this. Seeing it in print means validation to all the things that were rumored to have happened to my ancestors. I appreciate this. I want to apologize for how I treated your father. I wasn’t exactly harsh but I did not treat him kindly. If you’re looking for some type of closure or resolution, I can give that to you. What happened so long ago was so terrible, to gain success through the taking of so much, however it should not be something that comes between happiness in the future. I can’t wait for you be a part of my family. A healing of sorts, bringing the two families together.”
Isadora saw Joshua put a hand over his heart and gave a nod. “I know you’ve felt that pulse, almost like a beat?” Melissa spun to look at Joshua and he nodded too.
“Yeah, I’ve always felt the beat. A heartbeat.” Melissa wiped at tears and pressed her forehead against Joshua’s. His mother saw a love strong and true. It was going to be a wonder to see them grow together.
As the rest of the family came home, the day ended happier than how tense it had started. Isadora put together a huge meal and when the news of the engagement was revealed, there was champagne and a lot of toasting. Melissa felt like she was floating when they finally left for the night. She was feeling just mellow enough to want to spread the news a little further.
“Can you drive to my house? My mother should be sitting in her greenhouse right about now and I think she’ll be pumped to see my new bling, bling.”
Joshua nodded and turned the car in the direction of his girl’s house.
Melissa opened the door to the house and walked back to the glassed-in space her mother had stuffed with plants and one little chair. She saw Anna, wine at her elbow, new book in her lap, and that she was totally lost in thought.
“Well, that’s not a nice way to treat that book.”
Melissa laughed like a hyena at her mother jumping up, dropping the book, and catching the wine glass before it hit the floor.
“Melissa! What are you doing here?” Anna ran over and embraced her daughter. She saw Joshua hovering in the background. “Well, it’s a party.” She hugged him as well and ushered them into the kitchen.
“We went to see Joshua’s mother. I showed her and Joshua the journal and got some pretty amazing closure to all the things haunting me from the moment I read that book. I also wanted to give you your big moment.”
Melissa held out her left hand and lost all ability of hearing when her mother screamed and began to jump up and down. She ran over and grabbed Joshua and he rolled with the moment and jumped up and down with her.
“How long are you going to keep me on the leash before I can start planning?”
Melissa handed her mother a slip of paper. “That’s Joshua’s mother’s, Isadora, phone number. You have three years to make this wedding as crazy as you want. We want beach and all of our family. Otherwise go nuts.” Anna went straight to her phone and Melissa tuned out after, “Hello, this is Melissa’s mother.” She squeezed Joshua’s hand and wandered out to her tree.
The sun was just starting to set and the leaves were all afire. Everything was still green. It was like riding a bike. She reached up and grabbed the bottom-most branch, rubbed smooth from all the years she had grabbed it. Melissa climbed up to the top-most branch and fit her body into the groove that she had made over time. She looked out over the view and felt everything in her soul level out completely. She suddenly realized it was time to make new dreams. Melissa had her career and her successful life. And as an added bonus, she had a man who loved her to share it all with.
Melissa had no idea where the next few years were going to take her. Certainly through the craziest wedding planning of her life. Well, the only crazy wedding planning of her life, but with the wood of her tree nestled into her back, the land around her settled for the first time, and the sky pearling with twilight, Melissa wasn’t concerned with the what ifs coming h
er way.
Brittany Yeats lives in New Jersey with her mom and sister. She loves to read, write, go to the beach, and play with her cat. She is excitingly planning her wedding to her wonderful fiancé, Sammy. In 8th grade, Brittany found out she was related to William Butler Yeats, sparking her passion for a writing career. That passion led her to study Creative Writing in college at Fairleigh Dickenson University. She has paid the bills by working as an office manager for a landscaping company and lately at an insurance company. She is excited to finally be able to follow her true calling in becoming an author.
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