He did not. When the Boeing 767-300 took off some fifteen minutes later, the seat beside her remained unoccupied.
He arrived at the international departure gate in time to see the aircraft carrying his wife lift off and head toward the west. Frustrated, breathless, exhausted, he raked weary fingers through his hair and swore softly.
“That’s not going to help any,” a familiar voice informed him, and he turned to find Bianca behind him, her face crumpled with misery.
The faint, unreasonable hope that Cassandra might not have boarded the jet died. “So she’s gone,” he said.
“She’s gone.” His sister, normally so calm, gave vent to her annoyance by rapping him smartly on the arm. “How could you let her down like this, Benedict, when you knew how much was riding on keeping your promise to her?”
He caught her hands. Held them firmly, knowing he was about to deal a blow she couldn’t possibly be prepared for. “It couldn’t be helped,” he said, and related what had happened.
For a moment, she looked at him uncomprehendingly, then fell against him with a cry. “Our mother had a brain tumor?” she said, when she could control her tears. “Oh, Benedict! Is that the reason for her headaches, and her odd behavior?”
“It would appear so.” He led her to a row of unoccupied seats, and waited until she’d composed herself a little before going into the details. “Fortunately, the tumor itself was benign. Removing it, though, involved delicate, potentially life-threatening surgery too complex to be performed in Calabria. She had to be flown to Rome where a team of neurosurgeons performed the operation last night.”
“You’re saying she underwent surgery yesterday, and I’m only now hearing about it? For pity’s sake, Benedict, why? You had no right to keep this from me. Elvira is my mother, too!”
“Once we had a diagnosis, everything happened too quickly. Her headaches were warnings of a time bomb waiting to go off. If we’d waited another week to seek a medical opinion—perhaps even another day—we might have left it too late.”
“Even so, a phone call to let me know—”
“Bianca, there was no time for you to get to her beforehand, so what was the point? You’d have done nothing but pace the floor all night, and fret at being too far away to be of any help. I decided it was best to wait until we knew the outcome of the operation.”
“And Cassandra? She didn’t deserve to be kept informed of the reason you didn’t show up when you said you would?”
“I’d have told her once we were headed back to the U.S.”
“Except you didn’t get here in time to do that. She was very angry, and very hurt. I don’t know how you’re going to make this up to her.”
“I do.” He checked his watch and saw that nearly an hour had passed since he’d arrived in Milan. He had no time to lose, if the plan he’d conceived during the flight from Rome was to succeed. “As her only son, it was my duty to see that our mother received the treatment she needed, but I’ve done my part here, Bianca. The rest is up to you and Francesca. Elvira’s facing a long road to recovery and needs her family’s support, but I can’t be the one she leans on. I have a marriage to look after, and a wife and child to care for. From now on, my first responsibility is to them.”
“Of course. I understand completely.” She reached up and kissed his cheek. “I can see you’re impatient to be off so I’ll get out of your hair. Call me with good news soon, and don’t worry about a thing at this end. Francesca and I will cope.”
He watched her leave, regretting having to lay such a heavy burden on her shoulders when she already had a family of her own to care for and he, in the past, had always been the one to step in when help was needed. Yet, what else could he do this time? At what point did he reclaim the right to live his own life?
He smelled of hospitals, of antiseptic chemicals; could even taste them. He needed a shower, a shave, a change of clothes, and, God knew, he needed sleep. But attending to those needs lay far down on his list of priorities. Eyes gritty with fatigue, he expelled a long breath and took out his cell phone.
“It’s Benedict Constantino,” he said, when the call went through. “I have to be in San Francisco before tonight. How soon can you get me there?”
He had another two hours to kill before the private jet was cleared for takeoff. Long enough to claim his luggage and take advantage of the amenities in the charter company’s executive lounge. Long enough to call Cassandra’s friend Trish, and enlist her help.
CHAPTER TWELVE
THROUGHOUT the long, endless journey home, Cassie tried to come to grips with her situation and decide how she was going to proceed, once she was back in familiar territory. But weariness, while not allowing her to sleep, seemed to have robbed her mind of its ability to reason. She existed in a vacuum, totally removed from everything and everyone around her.
She wished she could remain there forever. It was, in a strange, out-of-this-world sort of way, very peaceful, except for those moments when, without warning, Benedict wandered into her thoughts. Then the pain and loss besieged her on all sides.
She felt wounded. Betrayed. Robbed of joy. For a brief, lovely time, he had loved her. But not enough. Never enough. And her mind, clicking into gear, recognized that it all had to end. She couldn’t keep putting herself through the mill this way. It was too destructive, too debilitating, too humiliating.
Her flight touched down in San Francisco just after seven that night, nearly an hour later than scheduled because of air traffic delays leaving JFK in New York. No one was there to meet her because she hadn’t let her friends know she was returning. She was too fragile to tolerate their sympathy. All she wanted was to go home and surround herself with the things she loved—her grandmother’s china, her bombé chest, her paintings, her rugs. Things didn’t hurt. Only people could do that.
She took a taxi from the airport, paid the driver, then stood a moment on the sidewalk and let the fact that she was home at last seep into every pore. Now, she could take charge of her life again.
Leaving her bags inside the lower lobby, she climbed the stairs and let herself into the town house. The place had been closed up for nearly four months, yet the moment she opened her front door, the fragrance of flowers—of freesias—assailed her.
She had always been susceptible to the memories evoked by scents. A whiff of Chanel No. 5 brought her mother to mind as vividly as if she sat next to her in the quiet living room. A good Cuban cigar took her back to childhood, and Aspen at Christmas with Trish whose father lit up after dinner, and filled the house with the rich smell of expensive tobacco.
And now the intoxicating perfume of freesias swept over her in waves and brought Benedict alive in her mind more thoroughly than if he’d been standing there in person.
Dazed, she walked into her living room and found it full of flowers. Of freesias in glorious shades of purple and burgundy and yellow, in vases on the mantelpiece, and the coffee table. On the window ledges and the desk. Then, belatedly, she realized other things: the music coming from her stereo—songs from the forties about lost love found again, and two hearts beating as one; the windows open to the soft evening air; the aroma of bread warming in the oven.
As if drawn by invisible threads, she wandered through the other rooms. Came upon more freesias in the bedroom, and a sinfully seductive nightgown laid out on the bed. Discovered candles burning in her bathroom.
Finally, with her pulse fluttering and her spirit caught midway between hope and despair, she made her way to the terrace where she found the glass patio table set for dinner for two—and Benedict.
“Welcome home, mi adorata,” he said, his voice embracing her like velvet.
“This is not possible!” she exclaimed, clutching the edge of the French door for fear she might faint with shock. “You’re not really here!”
To prove her wrong, he came to her and swept her into his arms, and the feel of them closing firmly around her was very real indeed. “I am here,” he said, “beca
use this is where I belong. With you, my bella wife. Always with you.”
“No,” she protested, struggling to free herself because the temptation to forgive him was too overpowering to resist, and she knew she shouldn’t give in to it. “You didn’t meet me in Milan. You didn’t keep your word.”
“No,” he admitted, releasing her just far enough that he could look into her eyes. “I did not, and for that I will always be sorry. But if you’ll let me explain, perhaps you’ll find it in yourself to forgive me one more time.”
“I don’t know that I can,” she said, but allowed him to draw her down beside him on the padded cushions of the love seat under the eaves.
“Then at least agree to listen, before you pass judgment.”
Well, she could hardly refuse to do that. And in all truth, as her shock dissipated, she found herself agog with curiosity. “How long have you been here?” she asked, sinking against him despite her best intentions to remain at a distance. “When did you have time to go to all this trouble?” Then, as another thought occurred, “And how did you get inside my house? You don’t have a key!”
“But Trish does,” he said. “And Trish is a true romantic. Thank her for setting the scene, and thank me for having enough sense to turn to her when I needed help. Otherwise, you’d have found me sitting on the doorstep when you came home.”
“But why, Benedict? Why put me through so much needless heartbreak?”
“Because I had no choice,” he said, and told her the whole story.
“You could have phoned and warned me,” she said, when he was done.
“And said what? That I was putting my mother ahead of my wife yet again, after promising it would never happen again? Should I have preyed on your sense of decency and fair play to blackmail you into staying in Italy when you were desperate to come home?” He shook his head. “No, it was better to tell you everything after the fact, when we were together again. Unfortunately, I arrived too late to make that happen in Milano, but I did my best, cara. I missed you by only a few minutes, and for the rest of my life, I will regret what that must have cost you.”
She looked at him and saw that she was not the only one who’d suffered. Indeed, to be fair, he’d paid by far the greater price. Worry and exhaustion were painted on his face in equal measure.
“Well?” He returned her glance candidly, ready to accept whatever decision she meted out to him.
All her anger and pain dissolved. Overwhelmed, she pulled his head down to her breast and stroked her fingers through his hair. “You did what you had to do, my darling,” she said softly. “And you’re not the only one with regrets. As your wife, I should have been there to help you through such a very difficult time. I know how much it hurts to lose a mother. For your sake, I hope Elvira makes a good recovery.”
“I hope so, too. I would like you to know her as she used to be, instead of as she was these last few months. But what matters most is that you and I are together again.” A tremor shook him. “I could not face losing you, Cassandra. You are more than my wife, you are my life.”
Courtesy of Trish, there was crab fresh from Fisherman’s Wharf for dinner, and sourdough bread, and salad, and delicious little pastry shells filled with fresh strawberries. But it all had to wait until much later, when the moon had risen and the air had turned too cool to eat outdoors. Because there was more important business needing attention, and that took place in the bedroom.
“Te amo, Cassandra,” he said, after they’d made love with the quiet intensity of two people who’d come too close to losing everything that mattered to them.
“Te amo, Benedict,” she replied, lifting her face for his kiss.
November, four months later.
Even from the road, it was plain to see that the Constantino property was well-cared for, that order had been restored. The orchards stood lush with fruit. Huge padded baskets hung from the tree branches, slowly being filled with the precious hand-picked harvest of bergamot.
At the palazzo, a different Elvira waited. Still chic and sophisticated, still loving her ornately formal home, but with a softer edge to her voice, a warm albeit nervous welcome in her smile.
“I’ve brought your grandson to meet you,” Cassie said, placing Michael Vincenzo in her mother-in-law’s arms. “He is so much a Constantino that I think it’s time the two of you met.”
“Grazie,” she replied, clearly on the verge of tears. “Grazie tante, Cassandra. It is more than I deserve. They tell me I treated you very poorly, cara. I hope you’ll allow me to make it up to you and embrace you into my family as you deserve.”
With a warmth she’d never have thought possible six months ago, Cassie enveloped both her son and his grandmother in a swift hug. “Of course! We all deserve nothing but good things from here on, Elvira. I’m very happy to see you looking so well.”
“And I,” she said, regaining her composure with difficulty, “am so grateful to you. I have only to look at my son to know that you are a good wife who makes him very happy, and to look at your son to know that you are also a very good mother. So, now we will go into the house. The rest of the family is anxious to meet this little one, and Speranza has been preparing for his visit for days.”
Crooning softly to the baby, she led the way through the cavernous front hall to the salon at the back of the palazzo. Yet somehow, the gloom of the place seemed less oppressive, the cold of the ancient stone less pervasive.
Perhaps it had to do with Benedict’s arm around her waist, and the secure knowledge that he would always be there, whether or not she needed him. Or perhaps it was much simpler than that, and merely had everything to do with love.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-7102-3
CONSTANTINO’S PREGNANT BRIDE
First North American Publication 2004.
Copyright © 2003 by Kathy Garner.
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