The Legacy
Page 43
I turn from the window at the sound of Adagio's soft voice.
“Are you coming to bed, amore?”
“Yes.” I slowly walk over and remove my robe. When I am finally settled in bed, I turn to my side and face my husband. “It was a good day,” I say with a sigh.
He smiles, pressing a hand to my cheek, letting his eyes roam over my face. “It was a good day,” he agrees.
I then quietly study his face, taking in the lines around his beautiful eyes, the result of years of laughter and living life to the fullest. I smile as my eyes move up to his full head of white hair and matching brows. Even with all the changes of old age, he is still the most handsome man in the world to me.
Fighting the light-headiness that is slowly descending upon me, I stare into his eyes again. “It has been a good life,” I say softly.
Adagio reads in my expression and voice more than I've said. Continuing to caress my face, tears fill his eyes. Then he smiles. “It has been the best, amore.”
Satisfied, I turn out the light and moved into his frail arms. “I will be yours forever, my love,” I whisper against his face, resting my hand against his heart.
“I know,” he whispers back with emotion as his tears wet my cheek. “I know.”
I'm yours forever, my love, my mind echoes once more as I slowly give in to the peaceful weightlessness–my spirit separating from the body in which I have experienced so much joy and happiness.
Epilogue
Hundreds of guests attend Cisely's funeral. The massive old church is filled with friends and acquaintances whose lives she touched, as well as her large posterity. The day is not one of grief, but joy as everyone remembers this remarkable woman and the wonderful life she lived.
The next week, all of the children return to their homes, leaving just Phillip and his family. Though everyone is concerned about Adagio, it is Phillip and young Adagio who are most worried. They know more than anyone how desperately the father and grandfather loved his wife. Phillip is concerned, but he can't help being amazed by the strength his father possesses. Instead of the family comforting him, he seems to comfort them.
Young Adagio spends as much time as he can by his grandfather's side, offering comfort and absorbing the love that has always been so tangible between them. He misses his grandmother terribly, and he knows he will lose his grandfather soon. It is only a matter of time.
Phillip helps his father out to the veranda to watch the sunset. It has been a little over a week since the funeral, but the daily ritual his father once shared with his mother has not stopped. He imagines his mother there, unseen, taking her place in the chair next to her husband during these times.
Squatting down by his father's chair, Phillip asks him if he needs anything.
Adagio looks down at his son, studying his graying waves and the lines etched around his eyes. Pressing a hand to Phillip's face, he stares into his eyes intently. “I am fine, son,” he finally answers.
Phillip holds his father's hand to his face, sharing his pain, yet admiring his courage and strength. “I love you, Papa.”
His father smiles and slowly leans forward, pressing a kiss to his son's forehead. “I love you too. Never forget how much. You and your brothers and sister have all made me and your mother so proud.”
Swallowing hard, Phillip stands to go back into the house. As he reaches the veranda doors, he hesitates. Overcome with fresh emotion, he moves back to his father. Leaning down, Phillip takes his face in his hands and kisses his cheek, saying with love and reverence, “I will always take care of things, Papa. Don't worry, all right?”
“I will not worry, son.” Adagio's voice is soft. “But please be patient with young Adagio.”
“I will, I promise.”
Rising and moving to the door again, Phillip pauses a moment to look back at his father's tired and weary form, sitting alone and taking in the sunset. He knows his father is desperately longing to be with his mother again. It is only a matter of time.
Adagio focuses his gaze on the colored horizon, his thoughts with his wife. His life with Cisely had been more wonderful than he could put into words. She had given him everything, had been everything to him. How he misses her now. He's only been without her for a little over a week, but he misses her with a painful intensity that reaches deep inside and threatens to tear his heart apart.
He has done well at being strong for his family, but right now, again participating in this familiar ritual without the woman who had been a part of him for so long, the pain is magnified, becoming almost unbearable. His vision of the sunset blurs as warm tears filled his eyes. He blinks them onto his lined face.
“Oh, amore,” he whispers, “I miss you so much.” Closing his eyes, he raises his face toward the heavens. “Please come for me soon.” He returns his gaze to the horizon as the sun slowly lowers. Looking down at his hands, he smiles as he pictures Cisely's light brown hand in his. He had never been able to resist touching her, and if he didn't have her in his arms, her hand was usually in his. She had become such a part of him, he had felt incomplete whenever she wasn't with him. He feels that way now.
He closes his eyes as tears continue to fall down his face. Please come for me soon.
The familiar warmth that sweeps over Adagio is accompanied by a growing feeling of fatigue. He keeps his heavy eyelids closed, his body relaxing in the chair.
When Adagio finally opens his eyes, kneeling before him is his beloved, and he heaves an awe-filled sigh. Cisely looks the same as she did over fifty years ago, and her beauty takes his breath away.
She smiles up at him with eyes full of love, then reaches up and softly caresses his face.
“Amore,” he whispers breathlessly, leaning forward.
Rising a little, Cisely presses a kiss to his lips and he closes his eyes, releasing a shaky breath. She stands, holding a slender hand out to him, her eyes roaming over his youthful, handsome features.
“Let's go home, my love.”
Adagio smiles as her silky voice again washes over him. He places his hand in hers. Taking a few steps, he stops and looks back, allowing his eyes to momentarily rest on his tired old body in the chair. Turning back to his wife, he reverently touches her face before drawing her into his arms and kissing her fervently.
“Yes, my angel,” he whispers against her lips, “let us go home.”
The End . . . Of One Life And The Beginning Of Another A Preview of
That Kind of Love
A Legacy Novelette
Andrew is dead. And the sigh that escapes me is one of relief and gratitude. My blind eyes can make out the shadows of medical personnel moving around the hospital room, but I can't see Andrew's still features. I don't need to. There is a new silence in the room–the absence of irregular shallow breathing–for the
next few moments. Then the soft sobs of his mother and mine dispel that silence.
With Andrew's death from undetected heart disease comes my freedom. The pressure of my parents to marry him has vanished and I feel as if a great weight has lifted, brightening my world like the sun coming out after a long, murky year of rain. I don't mean to be cold, but I've never loved Andrew. I've never even liked him. Nevertheless, my parents have been relentless in their desire to merge our family with Andrew Tanner's, to strategically combine two financial empires.
Andrew had been willing to put his own happiness aside, as well as mine, and go along for the ride. Had everything gone through, I would soon be trapped in a gilded prison I couldn't see, and would likely have died in. That death would have been a slow one, stealing my strength and my spirit a little each day until all of the things that have made me me disappeared, leaving an empty shell, my armor weakened, emotionally scarred and battered. Just like our parents, with Andrew, it had been all about the money. Love had nothing to do with it because, hey, let's face it. Who needs love?
“I do,” I had told him. And he'd laughed. He actually laughed! It was never about our wants or desires. It w
as about our parents pimping us out to insure that the two companies went to bed together as soon as possible. “After all,” Andrew had said, “the end justifies the means. Blind, deaf or lame, it makes no difference to me.”
I offer my condolences to the Tanners, and then extend my cane and turn to leave. I imagine the mouths of the men silently opening and closing like fish lying on a shore in need of water, and the women shooting invisible fire darts with their eyes. Later on, I am sure my parents will dutifully harp about my cold and heartless exit, hoping to guilt me into showing the influential world the face of a grieving and heart-broken fiancee.
But the days of me feeling guilty are long gone. If anything, I feel sympathy for the Tanner's loss. Andrew was their only son–their Golden Boy–the child they based their hopes and dreams on. His sisters are a different matter. Other than marrying rich men and breeding more sons to work in the family business, their two daughters are treated as if they are of no consequence.
And since I'm an only child, my parents' dreams and ambitions for me are shot . . . unless a new financial opportunity emerges, an opportunity that will drive them to once again attempt to prostitute me for their gain. Of course, it figures since I'm not the daughter of their blood. I was adopted by them during one of their philanthropic trips down south. Boy, did they ever rack up brownie points for adopting a token black baby, and a blind one at that!
Will I always be worth so little to them?
However, I have been given a healthy dose of strength, and I will no longer let my parents–Mr. And Mrs. What Can You Do For Me Patton–run my life. Thanks to the good Lord, I am in charge now, and I am open and ready to receive the kind of love, and the kind of life, He has in store for me. In God's eyes I am worth more. I don't know how much more, but definitely more than the value my parents place on my existence.
The trust fund I inherited four years ago on my twenty-first birthday has given me the financial freedom to live on my own in a downtown highrise condominium that I own outright. And the money I earn giving violin and cello lessons takes care of my needs. I guess you could say I have it all.
Yes, you could say that . . . but you would be wrong. Until now, the thing I have desired most– what I have needed most–has eluded me.
I smile, sensing a coming change. A change bringing a life that has always been mine. A change I have been prepared for, and one I am now ready to receive.
* * *
Treviso, Italy
Fixing his teary emerald gaze on the large granite headstone bearing his grandparents' names, Adagio Phillip St. John the third removes his sunglasses and heaves a deep sigh. It seems sunglasses have become a part of him, a shield and a mask.
It has been a month since he lost the two dearest people in the world to him, and his heart still carries a fierce ache. How he misses them! They had always been an example to him of how he wants to live his life, and the love they shared was truly a thing to behold. His mother and father share a deep love as well, but what his grandmother and grandfather had between them was indescribable.
Adagio is thirty-five years old and has yet to marry. And he will never marry until he finds someone he can share that kind of love with–the kind his grandparents shared. He refuses to settle. His brothers and sisters constantly tell him he is too picky, but his grandparents knew different. They truly understood him.
While he has always been called Dagio by the family to avoid confusion, his grandmother always called him young Adagio because he was a mirror image of her husband in his thirties. Frequently Adagio sat with his grandmother looking through photo albums, and each time they came to a picture of his grandfather, Adagio was amazed at how much he looked like him, even more so than his father, Phillip. It was uncanny.
Blinking tears onto his face, Adagio pulls a folded piece of paper from his back pocket. It is a letter he found inside his grandmother's journal along with two keys. She had given the book to him the day before she passed away. Tearfully opening the journal on the day of her funeral, Adagio had been surprised when the envelope fell from between the pages. It was addressed to him. A fresh tear stain appears on the paper as he unfolds it and again reads his dear nonna's final words to him.
My, Dearest Young Adagio,
By now I am most likely gone from this earth , but I'm never far away from you. I know you are hurting just as your grandfather is. I'm so sorry to cause you pain and would have spared you from it if I could. But the pain will one day fade and healing will come.
Since the day you were born, you have always been my light and my joy, and your grandfather's as well. And even though I will not be there to watch you find love and raise your own children, I will be watching from afar. You are probably thinking, “Yeah, right, Nonna. I'll never find anyone like you and will probably die a lonely old man.” And don't try to deny it because I know you.
This part again draws a wide smile from him. She really did know him well.
Now, I know you recognize the keys and there is no need to tell you what they are for. When your grandfather and I pondered what to do with the old house in the states, the answer quickly came to us. No one understands the importance of the house and how much it means to us more than you. You and your grandfather share the same heart, which is why you
could always read me so well.
So this is what I would like you to do. Pack your things and move to Salt Lake. The move will be painful for your parents and they will miss you greatly, but you won't be gone long. This is a necessary step because your ife won't truly start until you are where you belong. Remember what your grandfather told you about looking for love and finding it in God's time Well, my dear boy, it looks like your life up to this point has mirrored his. And as surely as he found the love of his life, you will, too. I have a good feeling about this, and you know your nonna is never wrong, right? Shake your head.
Chuckling, Adagio shakes his head no.
Adagio, I love you more than I can say, and I always will. I am proud of the man you have become. Now go live your life, and be happy. Remember, I will never be far away.
Love,
Nonna
P.S. Remember to take the ring. You remember where it is, right?
Yes, Nonna, I remember. He pulls her emerald engagement ring from his pocket, pondering the story behind it. It was given to his grandfather by his own mother to give to his future wife. His grandfather had taken it everywhere he went, never guessing he would eventually be placing it on the finger of the woman who had become his best friend.
And now it is my turn.
Folding the letter, Adagio puts it back in his pocket and wipes his eyes. He looks at the headstone one last time. “I love you, Nonna, and you, Nonno,” he whispers. “And I will try to make you both proud.” He smiles, then puts his sunglasses back on and walks away, charting a course toward his new life.
About The Author
J. (Jewel) Adams stays crazy busy with her family and writing. She has written several books in different genres and is also a motivational speaker to both youth and adult audiences.
In her spare time (when she has any) she likes to curl up with a good book and a healthy stash of orange Tic Tacs. She and her family reside in Utah.
Jewel loves hearing from her fans. You can contact her at
jewela40@gmail.com
Visit Jewels Blog at jewelsbestgems.blogspot.com
Books by J. Adams/Jewel Adams The Wishing Hour Tears of Heaven Place In This World The Journey
Against the Odds Mercedes' Mountain
Ebooks
The Wishing Hour
The Legacy
Tears of Heaven
Place In This World: The Sequel to The Journey The Journey
Mercedes' Mountain
For Love of Angel
Elise's Heart
Children's Book
Forbidden Portals: The Quicksilver Project
For more books please visit Jeweladams.com
ADAMS, J., The Legacy