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I drop onto my knees, barely noticing the bite of the hardwood against them, and grasp his hand and press it to my face. It’s soft, covered in a sea of age spots, and gnarled. But it’s still strong and big as it had been when I was a little girl. This is the hands that checked my brow for fevers, held handlebars, bandaged my knees, and wiped away my tears. Now, it sits limply in my grasp and the man it’s attached to is looking at me with a dispassion that reaches the center of my greatest fear - losing his love.
“Pops, please. I’m sorry. I love you. Forgive me.” I beg numb with shock. He can’t mean it.
Who am I, if not his? Who will love me, if he doesn’t? Despair, the likes of whi
ch I’ve never known casts a shadow over my heart. I tighten my grip on his hand. “I’ll do anything.”
There’s no affection, or indulgence in his pale blue eyes when he looks pointedly at my left hand. “Marcel Landel is coming to dinner on Saturday. Look pretty.”
Two Years Later
Two Year Later
An Echo In Time
Regan
When I met him, Marcel was a larger than life public persona. From his wife’s sudden death, to his brother’s arrest for solicitation to his ascendancy to head of his family’s business empire - his name was constantly in the news. And he was ready to get married again.
He’s brilliant, rich, successful and was considered a most eligible bachelor - by women closer to my mother’s age than mine. But I was who he wanted.
The night we met, he made his intentions clear. “When I look across the table and see an old face, it reminds me that I’m old, too. I want to gaze at youth and be reminded that I’m as young as I feel.”
My husband may have inherited his good fortune, but he was no brainless, wasteful heir. He’d been working as his father’s right hand for years and had already helped transform Landel into one of the largest multimedia companies in the world. They own film studios, television networks, Cable and satellite channels, radio stations, restaurant chains and luxury resorts all over the world.
Marcel was a shrewd and pragmatic businessman. He treated the negotiation of our prenuptial agreement no differently and had a checklist that he wouldn’t stray from.
He wanted a woman who was well educated, but not too well. No younger than twenty-one, but no older than twenty-five. She must have wealth of her own and no criminal ties, and most importantly, she must be fertile. And he wanted proof of all of those things before he’d sign anything.
For a woman who had decided that marriage and children were not in my future, it was a very bitter pill to swallow.
But, I did. I slept with him until a blood test showed I was pregnant. And then, we set a date. My grandfather called me the morning the announcement was made and invited me to lunch.
It was a knife in my heart when he had a stroke an hour after he called me. It left him paralyzed and robbed him of his speech. But the die was cast. We’d signed a prenuptial agreement, I was pregnant. There was no turning back.
I smiled through every fitting, every thinly veiled insult from his mother, and did what I knew my grandfather’s love was conditioned on. I never complained or hinted at my unhappiness.
Until the week before our wedding when he announced that we would be living in Paris. In a house we would share with his fork-tongued mother.
It was the drop that made the well of rage inside me overflow. I threatened to call off the wedding. I’d sobbed and screamed and drained that emotional well dry and did my duty.
Marcel jokes that he pulled off the heist of the century getting me down the aisle. Everyone laughs but me. It’s no joke at all I gave him everything he wanted in a bid to regain my grandfather’s trust and affection and never knew if I’d been successful.
That phone call inviting me over was the last time I heard his voice. I like to think I saw approval in his eyes, but my banishment from employment at Wilde World still stands.
And yesterday, we laid him to rest. Burying my grandfather without making amends is something I’ll never recover from. This trip home, the first since my wedding, has aggravated a lot of old wounds. Somehow, the glutton for punishment in me decided that meeting Matty for lunch would be a good idea.
It’s the first time we’ve seen each other since the day we all got fired.
Jack married her college sweetheart and moved to California and we haven’t been in touch since.
Matty stayed in Houston, but I know she’s struggled to find work. Nerves, excitement, and hope lighten my stomach as I stop at the valet stand.
“Welcome to Ruggles on the Green, Mrs. Landel.” The young man who opens my door, leans down. I return his obliging smile and accept the hand he’s offering and let him help me from the car. After a whole year of marriage, I’m still getting used to my last name and the deference it brings.
I follow the hostess through the restaurant and stop every few feet to respond to greetings from people I don’t know.
By the time I reach the table where Matty is already waiting, I’m desperate for a familiar face and give a giddy wave when we make eye contact.
