AllFreeNovel
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He’s told me of Catherine, of his heartache. He’s told me his truth.
Now it’s time for me to share mine.
He’s closing in for another kiss.
I stop him. “Cannon.”
“What?” His lips brush over mine, a starburst of tingles dancing over me.
“Listen. I want to tell you something.”
My words stop him, making him sit back in his seat. He leans an elbow on the armrest, resting his head in his hand. The steady gaze of those deep brown eyes tells me I have his full attention.
“I’m listening,” he says.
“You shared your story with me. Now, I’d like to share mine.”
“Alright.” He pulls back.
I take a deep breath. “My mother was a woman from a simple life with big dreams. She went to college in New York and after graduation she stayed, building a fancy life for herself as an interior designer. Her clients loved the influence she brought from our simple Italian countryside village. Apparently, she was quite successful and even afforded her own high-rise apartment in Manhattan.”
This is a story my grandmother told me. This is the first time I’m sharing it. To hear myself say it out loud feels strange, like I’m narrating a film. I have to take a sip of my now cold coffee to continue.
“Let me get you a fresh one,” he says, reaching for my mug.
“No, that’s okay.” I push the cup away. I don’t want the flight attendant hovering over us, it’s too intimate of a moment.
“Anyway,” I continue, “in one instant, everything changed. One beautiful, carefree night spent with a handsome colleague with hazel eyes, drinking champagne on balconies, dancing under the stars, making love in his loft apartment would destroy her dreams.”
His brow furrows over his intense gaze. “How?”
My skin suddenly feels cool, a chill passing over me. Maybe I do need that coffee. “She found herself pregnant with me.”
“But a child is a blessing,” he says.
“Not when you’re a single woman with no children in your plans,” I say. “The colleague had no interest in becoming a father. Doing all he could to avoid my mother, he quickly found new employment with a company in a different part of the city. She stayed and made it work until I was ten, but then things got hard for her. With no family around to support her, she moved back in with my grandmother, back in our small town, back to the yellow house and the pharmacy job. It was as if she’d never left, the only trace of her other life being the dark hair and hazel eyes I’d inherited from my father, and a set of antique American china dishes she’d painstakingly packed up and brought back with her.”
“She couldn’t find any happiness when she came back?” he asks.
“I guess not, because…” I get to the most painful part of the story for me. “When we got back, it wasn’t long before she took off. She couldn’t handle being back in her old life, I guess. Maybe she didn’t want to be a mother any more. I don’t know, but either way, she abandoned us, and I haven’t heard from her since.” For some reason, I bare my soul, telling him the most intimate details of my thoughts. “I’m sure Nonna doesn’t blame me, but whenever she speaks of my mother, she can’t seem to meet my eyes.”
“That can’t be true.” He opens his arms to me. “Come here.”
I lean against him, absorbing the warmth and strength of his body as a comfort. I reach up, brushing a tear from my eye. “So you see, I don’t want to end up like that, having a man take away my dreams, then growing so bitter I give up on the ones I love.”
“How can you think that of yourself? Up until now, your whole live has revolved around caring for your grandmother.”
“Yes, because she was there for me when my mother left. So, now I’m there for her. But what if my love doesn’t extend past her, what I owe her? What if I was to get married, or have a child, then begin to feel like my mother did, and abandon them?” I shake my head. “I could never live with myself.”
He squeezes my arm, his voice going to that deep timbre I love so much. “Exactly. You could never do that. You aren’t your mother.”
We sit in silence for a moment, then he asks, “What are your dreams, anyway?”
I shrug. “I really don’t know. Up until a few weeks ago, my only thoughts were of caring for my grandmother. When I came to Fire,” I take a deep breath, thinking of how it felt to walk down that red and gold hallway, to be chained to a padded leather wall, to be with Cannon for the first time, “it’s like I woke up from a deep sleep, like my entire life had been on hold and now, it’s opening up.”
Like a flower just about to bloom.
“What if being with someone doesn’t mean the end of something, but the beginning. The start of good things to come?” he asks.
