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‘If I hadn’t been expelled I could have gone to university, and we wouldn’t have had to struggle, we wouldn’t have nearly lost everything when you became ill, we could have...’
‘Could, would, should? Theo, you seem to think that it all would have been so easy for you had you not loved Sofia back then. But look at what you have now. Look at what you’ve achieved. It is impossible to say what might have happened if you had not been expelled, but it is undoubtable what did happen, and what you have now.’
‘But we wouldn’t have had to come back here. You wouldn’t have had to feel beholden to your family, the cruelty and prejudice you experienced... And then with the vineyard... The hours, days, weeks, years of hard work—’
‘I wouldn’t change a thing. Life is not meant to be easy, Theo. Easy is...nothing,’ she said, throwing her hands up as if throwing around air. ‘Meaningless. It is the hard work that makes it all the more precious and wondrous. It is the difficult times, the sacrifices that make the joy all the more valuable, the love. And every sacrifice you think I’ve made? I would do it again and again, because I love you.’
‘But Sofia is right. I would have brought humiliation not just to her but her country.’
‘But you did not,’ his mother repeated with much more emphasis than before.
‘All this time, all I have thought about is myself, the vengeance I wanted, the debt I felt she owed.’
‘Theo, from what I saw of Sofia, of the truly brave and powerful woman I met, she carries that burden herself. And will always carry that burden. But it is for her to do. You? You are the only one who can help her. The Sofia that you fell in love with ten years ago, and the Sofia that is the woman she has become. Yes, she may have to think of her country first...but you? You get to think of her first.’
He felt his mother’s words deep within his chest. He felt her acceptance of his sins, his mistakes, ease some of the guilt in his heart. Soothe the way towards his own forgiveness for himself. Not for his attempt at revenge, but something deeper. But was it enough?
Theo stood and rolled his shoulders, flexing the ache from his muscles before placing a kiss on his mother’s cheek.
‘I need some time to think.’
Aggeliki nodded in response.
‘Maybe I’ll go and see Sebastian for a few days, but I’ll be back. Soon, I promise. I love you,’ he said, placing one last kiss on Aggeliki’s forehead before walking back to the estate through the miles of vineyards between the two buildings.
Within minutes he was too far from his mother’s house to hear his phone vibrate with an incoming call, and within hours the phone’s battery had died, long before Theo returned to retrieve Sofia’s voicemail.
* * *
What on earth had she been thinking?
As Sofia stood tucked behind the door at the back of a church packed full of nearly eight hundred of the world’s leading figures, she couldn’t stop the tremors that had taken over her body. Was this how Theo had felt that night ten years ago? Hopeful that she would arrive and fearful that she wouldn’t?
She cast a quick glance to where her assistant was peering through a small sliver of space in the doorway, watching for
Theo’s arrival at the wedding that Sofia had never cancelled. The scared look in the young woman’s eyes enough to tell her that Theo was still not there.
She had sent her father back to sit with her mother, after kind, coherent words of love had eased an age-old ache, but not this fresh one. And this time she had not batted her father’s words away, but really listened, taken them to her heart and held them to her as if something astounding and precious.
She tried to take a breath, but the tightly corseted white satin dress just didn’t expand enough to allow for it. Her hold on the exquisite garland of flowers, peonies and thistles, had become looser and looser as time had worn on, and they now hung from her listless arms at her side. The smile she had worn with determination hours before was rapidly losing its brilliance as Sofia now became convinced that he wasn’t coming.
The ache in her heart was devastating, but she refused to cower beneath the pain. If this was his decision, then she would bear it. Her country would bear her mistakes too. But they would survive. This wedding, this marriage, it had been for her. The one thing she had selfishly wanted all those years ago, and again now. But she knew that no matter what the future held, all she needed to do was put one foot in front of the other. And if that was down an aisle to tell her guests that the wedding was off, then she would do so.
She couldn’t blame Theo. She understood the pain she had caused, and the hurt he felt not only from her actions, but also from his father’s. Forgiveness was already there, in her heart, because she understood him, and loved him. Even if she never got to utter the words to him in person.
She gave a final nod to her assistant, who disappeared to instruct the organist not to play the wedding march as she opened the door and began to make her way down the aisle.
The unsettled and deeply curious guests all turned to watch her as she took her first step, her second and a third. Already aware that something was off, in the silence, Sofia’s heart sounded in her ears like a drum.
She willed away the tears that threatened to fall. She did not want to share them with these people. She would hold them to her in the darkest of nights, but not let them fall here, beneath the streams of sunlight falling through the stained-glass windows.
As she reached the top of the aisle where the priest stood, but the groom did not, she turned. Her mother’s sad smile, encouraging and understanding, was full of love and that was all Sofia needed.
She took a breath, ready with the words she had prepared just in case...
The sound of the large wooden door being pulled open with a force that screeched across its hinges cut through the silence and there, cast in shadow amongst the brilliant rays of sunshine, was Theo Tersi.
The open promise of love shining bright in his eyes was what she’d longed to see and a sob of joy escaped her, the smile no longer forced, but came to her lips without hesitation. He took proud, deep and quick steps towards her, perhaps a little unceremoniously, closing the gap between them in moments, pulling her close and into a passionate kiss full of love and joy, much to the twittering giggles from the church’s many guests.
