Girl of Vengeance

by Charles Sheehan-Miles

  Now she was in.

  Adelina followed her downstairs to the dining room and looked over the acceptance letter. She looked up at Andrea. “I’m so proud of you.”

  “I have to call Jessica and Sarah. And Julia. And … everyone. They’ll scream!”

  Jessica and Sarah had both decided to stay in Washington, DC after they graduated high school, both attending Georgetown University and living with Carrie and Rachel. Andrea didn’t think that would last too much longer. Carrie seemed to be ready for them to move into their own place.

  Of course, she’d see them all soon enough, when they arrived in London next week.

  She took her mother’s hand.

  Adelina said, “You know … three years ago, I never could have imagined … this. All of it. Us being together like this. I’m so happy.”

  Andrea smiled. “I am too, Mom. You have no idea. Okay. I’ve got to call.”

  She picked up the phone, trying to decide which sister to talk to first.

  Adelina. Calella, Spain.

  When Adelina Ramos stepped out of the taxicab she took a deep, cleansing breath and closed her eyes and counted to twenty. Then, for good measure, she counted a little more before opening her eyes. It had been more than twenty years since she’d stood on this sidewalk, next to this building, and the last time she’d had a panic attack that resulted in a months’ long hospitalization.

  There would be no panic attack this time. She clutched her bag under her shoulder and walked through the crowd that spilled out of the bar at the base of the apartment building.

  She knew the way.

  Up three flights of stairs, then down a long hall. It was brighter in here than she remembered, and cleaner. But then, the few months she’d lived here with her mother, she’d been in a deep depression. Grief at the loss of her father and of her innocence.

  Finally she reached the door. Number 32. She took a deep breath, bracing herself, then knocked on the door.

  Inside, she heard shouts. Luis, she supposed. “Mamá. Someone’s here!”

  Seconds later, the door opened.

  It was Luis. Older, much older than the last time she’d seen him. His face blanched, and he choked out a half strangled word she couldn’t quite make out.

  “Hola, Luis,” she said.

  He took her hand. “I … I didn’t think you would come. Ever.”

  “Luis!” The shout came from the living room. “Who is it?”

  Luis swallowed. “Come in,” he said.

  Adelina walked forward. She could feel her chest tightening; the beginnings of what could become a panic attack. She hadn’t had one in a long time. But she’d never be wholly healed.

  But she hadn’t come here to be healed. She’d come here to see her mother. She followed Luis into the living room.

  The apartment was different. Brighter, yet somehow smaller. The breeze blew the light cotton fabric of the drapes, and a television blared laughter in the corner. An old woman leaned on a recliner watching the television.

  Adelina stared at her mother.

  The years had not been kind to her. Her mother was at least seventy now. Her eyes seemed hollow, and deep trenches furrowed her skin. A cigarette burned in an ashtray next to her, the smoke lazily floating toward the window.

  Then she turned her face toward Adelina. Her face seemed slack, her eyes unfocused, as if she were blind and couldn’t quite make out what she was seeing.

  “Who are you? What do you want?”

  The words were knives in her stomach, and Adelina actually took a step back, gasping.

  Luis moved to their mother’s side and kneeled. He whispered, “Mother, it’s your daughter. It’s Adelina.”

  Her mother’s eyes widened and she seemed to search the room. “Adelina?” Tears began to run down the old woman’s face.

  “Hello, Mother,” Adelina said. She sighed, letting out a long breath, as her little brother, now in his forties, looked at her with worry in his eyes. Adelina had come to Calella daydreaming of confronting her mother. She’d imagined the scene, imagined telling her mother exactly how she felt about all those years of hurt.

  She’d imagined herself saying, You destroyed my life. You broke my heart.

  But now, tears were streaming down her mother’s face. She was shaking, looking up at Adelina with fear in her eyes. She expected it. She expected the explosion, the accusations, the tirade. It was clear enough that so did Luis.

  Adelina couldn’t do it. Her daughters had once thought the same things of her.

  Instead, Adelina slowly dropped to her knees beside her mother, and whispered, “Te extrañé, Mamá.”

  I missed you, Mommy.

  Julia. London.

  “This is insane,” Alexandra said. “I thought my wedding was too complicated.”

  Julia laughed a little under her breath, then said, “Royal weddings are something else entirely, aren’t they? I’m glad I didn’t have to organize this one.”

  The crowds in London had been enormous. Enormous. Julia had never imagined anything quite on this scale. But they were away from the crowds now. Unlike the larger royal weddings, which were as much affairs of state as they were personal unions, this wedding was taking place at St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle.

  In Windsor Castle. Julia had been in a lot of places, including meals at the White House. But this was something else. From the room where they waited, she could see from the castle to the chapel itself. At any moment, Julia and her sisters would be summoned to the cathedral.

  Meeting the Queen had been terrifying. George-Phillip had seemed as nervous as any of them when Adelina presented all six of her daughters, along with the spouses of those who were married. The wedding itself had only a few hundred guests. Or maybe a thousand. Most of the titled nobility of Europe were here, along with many of the senior members of the House of Commons, the Prime Minister, the US Ambassador, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, who was presiding over the ceremony itself.

  In short—for one of the first times in her life, Julia found herself overwhelmed.

  Julia, Carrie and Alexandra had walked through the cathedral yesterday afternoon, while their younger siblings had decided to go to an amusement park instead. The chapel was incredible. Vaulted ceilings with dozens of banners and flags above arched windows of stained glass. The walls, erected of stone hundreds of years ago, appeared so light that they could blow away, with tendrils of stone arches supporting the ceiling above them. The cathedral could seat hundreds, easily.

  In this church were buried kings from hundreds of years ago: Edward IV, Henry VI and Henry VIII along with one of his wives, Jane Seymour. Later kings were buried in the Royal vault and the Memorial Chapel—including George-Phillip’s grandfather. History Julia had only read about had taken place over hundreds of years in this room, and now her mother would be joining part of that history.

  Julia, though, thought that did not account for her odd, maudlin mood. She was happy for her mother—incredibly so. Prince George-Phillip had been the man Adelina had lived and loved, even as she was a virtual prisoner, all those years. Julia had long since made her peace with her mother, and even her father, though it had taken more years of therapy to do so.

  But there was one thing she’d never made peace with, and her encounter with Harry Easton had brought that screaming back to her mind.

  Harry had been at an official reception in London two days before, which the sisters were invited to. She hadn’t expected to see him, but in retrospect, there was no reason to be surprised. After all, he moved in these circles. They were polite—not quite friendly, but not unfriendly either.

  Running into him, however, reminded Julia of the one thing in her life that no amount of money could buy. Now that she was in her mid-thirties, she’d accomplished everything she’d ever wanted in life. Except, in moments like this … moments when she watched Rachel laughing as she ran down the hallway chasing Jane, or watched Alexandra protectively curling her arms around her be
lly, when she watched Dylan and his joy at the prospect of being a father—Julia wished she could have that joy. She wished she could share that joy with her husband.

  But it wasn’t to be. Even the adoption agency they’d worked with had told her it might take a long time.

  People will be reluctant to place a baby with a family in your situation.

  By her situation, they meant, rock stars. Musicians. People who moved around too much. Never mind that Julia was chief executive officer of a major corporation.

  She closed her eyes. The longing grew worse every year, but today wasn’t hers, it was her mother’s. She reached out and took Alexandra’s hand. “Are you going to be okay?”

  “Of course,” Alexandra replied.

  She was glowing. Of course. At six months pregnant, Alexandra was clearly showing, and was vividly happy. In a few months she’d begin her final year of law school. Dylan had graduated and was working in a social work internship at a Vet Center in the Bronx. His primary job there was counseling of war veterans with PTSD, and he’d never looked happier.

  One of the protocol officers who worked for the queen appeared in the doorway. “Ladies, please come join the bride.”

  Julia took a deep breath. She reached out and took Carrie and Alexandra’s hands. They in turn, reached out to Jessica and Sarah. Andrea closed the circle. Julia said, “Let’s go.” She smiled, and broke the circle. The six women went down the stairs to meet their mother. They wore matching blue dresses with long flowing skirts. Julia thought that some of her sisters were more comfortable in these outfits than others. Sarah looked like she wished she’d been able to sneak in combat boots. She was probably the only woman in the cathedral with visible tattoos.

  Adelina was ready when they arrived. She had dyed her hair back to its normal black—she’d been greying more and more in recent years. She wore a beautiful white gown, which glistened with tens of thousands of hand-sewn pearls. Julia knew exactly how much the dress, with its pearls, had cost. She’d commissioned it in China and had it flown to London for her mother.

  Adelina reached out and took Julia’s hand. She wore white gloves, and her skin was flushed. Her eyes were brimming with water.

  “Please tell me that’s waterproof mascara,” Julia said.

  Adelina blushed. She blushed. Julia swallowed. She’d often thought of her mother as a harridan, as old, as vicious. She’d never once thought of her as a bride.

  “Oh, Mother, I’m so happy for you,” Julia said.

  Adelina leaned forward and gently kissed her eldest daughter’s cheek. “I’m so grateful to have you here with me,” she whispered.

  The ceremony was planned to be informal. The state royal weddings were much more lavish, including, normally, the arrival of the bride in a horse-drawn glass carriage. George-Phillip and Adelina had made it clear early on they wanted a much smaller and more private ceremony, with family and friends only. Windsor Castle and Saint George’s Chapel was selected as the site primarily due to its privacy.

  The procession began with the pounding of drums outside, probably heard for miles around, followed by the sound of the band. Julia and her sisters slipped to the window to look out toward the chapel, but at the insistence of the protocol officer, Adelina stayed put.

  Outside, the procession had begun. Julia watched as a team of horsemen crossed the courtyard, followed by Prince George-Phillip, and his cousin, the Prince of Wales, who walked on foot. George-Phillip wore the black uniform and white belt of the Royal Marines, with his medals from the Falklands War and his reserve service. Although he no longer served, he was an honorary Colonel and still wore his uniform on state occasions.

  Behind the two Princes were the guests of honor. Adelina had insisted on breaking with tradition, and had six bridesmaids, all adults—her daughters. In order to balance out the wedding party, George-Phillip was accompanied by six other men, including a visibly uncomfortable Dylan Paris and Bear Wyden, both of whom seemed to squirm in their tuxedos.

  Bear had almost violently resisted attending the wedding, but after Dylan personally went to his apartment and argued with him, he finally agreed. Now Director of the Joint Terrorism Task Force, Bear was based out of New York City, with frequent visits to Washington to see the kids. His ex-wife, Leah, had long since recovered from her injuries.

  Julia turned back and walked to her mother. Adelina was breathing slowly and deeply, and wore a dreamy smile on her face.

  Julia said, “I think it’s almost time. They just went in.”

  A moment later, the protocol officer opened the door. Just outside the small chamber stood Crank’s father, Jack Wilson, who had agreed to act in lieu of her father who had passed away many years before. Jack was a former Boston cop, sentimental and demonstrative, and when he saw Adelina in her dress his eyes watered. He held an arm out and she took it. He glanced back at Julia and she smiled at him. Of course. He had a tiny orange, white and green flag on his lapel—the national flag of Ireland. Julia suppressed a laugh. The papers in London would get play out of that for years.

  The chamber orchestra just inside the entrance of the cathedral began playing. The walkway between the castle at the chapel was two hundred yards, guarded on both sides by a phalanx of Royal guards in bright red uniforms. On the grass on either side were hundreds—possible thousands—of spectators. Royal weddings in general got a lot of attention, Julia knew, but George-Phillip was so far removed from the throne it normally wouldn’t have attracted much interest. But the media attention around the events following Andrea’s kidnapping—and George-Phillip and Adelina’s decades long love—had captured the attention of both countries. For days, news media on both sides of the Atlantic had replayed the video captured on the front steps of the federal courthouse in Washington, DC, when George-Phillip had saved Adelina’s life.

  Jack and Adelina began their slow walk across the courtyard. Adelina’s daughters followed in pairs—Julia and Alexandra first, then Carrie and Andrea, followed by the twins. They were organized by height, rather than age. Behind them in the procession, Adriana Poole walked. She wore a blue dress, and held the hands of Jane and Rachel as she walked. Jane and Rachel were far apart in age, but wore matching green dresses. Rachel’s face was rosy and chubby. Since the bone marrow transplant, she’d needed no further transfusions, and was as healthy and happy as any little girl on earth. She didn’t listen very well though. She tugged on Adriana’s hand, trying to pull away, then twisted in circles. Jane came around the other side and picked her up and the two girls giggled.

  Julia took a deep breath as she stepped forward with Alexandra at her side. Julia hated that she was envious of her sisters. She didn’t want to feel that way. But when she watched the beauty of Rachel’s laughter, and the swell of Alexandra’s belly, she ached inside to be a mother.

  The music got louder as they approached the entrance to the cathedral. Though she’d been in there the day before, this was different, she realized, as they walked up the steps and entered.

  The crowd hushed, hundreds of people standing on both sides of the aisle facing inward. Julia heard as Andrea, behind her, sucked in a breath as she saw the crowd inside the cathedral.

  It was hard to really get a sense of the scale of a cathedral like this. But with hundreds of people in the cathedral, with trees extending down both sides of the church, overhanging the aisle and still not reaching the ceiling which was way, way up. The detailing on the ceiling was incredible; the windows were huge, making the entire structure feel light and tenuous.

  The procession continued down the aisle. Enormously tall but slender columns stretched into the sky far above the people on each side, who wore colorful outfits, dresses of green and red and blue, the men in suits with far more variety of style and color than would happen in the United States, and the hats. So many hats, some of them crazy, some of them beautiful, some … better not mentioned at all.

  As they moved further down the length of the cathedral, she saw Crank, sitting in the
third row, not far from the Queen. Julia flashed him a smile, and he returned it, then winked at her. They’d been married for considerably more than a decade, but she still felt a flush down her face and body at his wink.

  At the front of the cathedral, George-Phillip stood nervously, hands at his side. His eyebrows seemed to move of their own accord as he gazed on his approaching bride. He tried to look serious and royal, but he couldn’t keep the tremendous smile off his face.

  Finally, they reached the crossing. Jack, who had obvious tears on his face, passed Adelina’s hand to George-Phillip. Then he bowed to the Prince and stepped to the side.

  George-Phillip and Adelina joined hands.

  As the ceremony continued, Julia’s eyes moved from her mother to each of her sisters, standing in a line at the front of the cathedral. Carrie, who had lost a husband, but gained a beautiful little girl and a father. Rachel stood with Adriana Poole and Jane to the side of the cathedral, waving at the audience, a toothy smile on her face. Carrie stood straight and tall, a smile on her face as she watched their mother finally reaching for her own happiness.

  Alexandra’s face was flushed. The night before, Julia had felt her stomach, and felt the baby move. She’d visited Alexandra and Dylan several times during their pregnancy—all of the sisters were closer now than they had once been. Dylan and Alexandra were incredibly happy. When asked where she planned to work, she’d announced she was going to try for the American Civil Liberties Union. “Abuses like Dad’s and Leslie Collins’ shouldn’t be allowed. I want to work for someone who can provide a counterbalance.”

  Sarah looked radiant. College agreed with her—as did her now long-term boyfriend. Her twin Jessica had a warm smile on her face. Jessica’s recovery had been a long and difficult struggle. She and Dylan had become close as they occasionally attended 12-step meetings together, both in New York and Washington. He’d acted as a mentor to his younger sister-in-law.