I take her thin, cool hand in mine, wondering briefly if it was ever this frail before. It seems that I could crush the bones if I squeezed even a tiny bit tighter. “This is your home, Mom. No one will ever force you out of your home just because you’re sick.”
“This place was my home, but it was also my job. You can’t expect them to keep me around out of the goodness of their heart. When I’m no longer useful, they’ll find someone who is. I knew it all along. But that’s life, son. That’s business. This is still just a place. I can make a home anywhere. As long as you come by and see me from time to time . . .”
“But this is where you lived with Dad. It’s where all of my childhood memories are. I’m not going to let anyone take that away from you.”
“Tag, I’m telling you,” she says warningly. “Don’t do this for me. Don’t. Please.”
I give her my brightest smile and gently pat her hand. “Why don’t you worry about finishing that blanket before the second coming and let me worry about the rest? I’ve got this, Mom. I’ve got this.”
TWENTY-ONE
Weatherly
Twenty-one days. It’s been twenty-one days since Tag put a beautiful ring that probably cost him his whole life savings on my finger and asked me to marry him. Not a day has gone by that I haven’t been certain that I’m insane, that I haven’t been certain that he’s insane. But neither has a day gone by that I haven’t been, at least when I’m in his arms, the happiest that I’ve ever been.
The more I learn about him, the more compatible we become. We have so much in common in some ways—our love of the land and the grapes, our bond to family whether good or bad, our connection to Chiara—but in other ways, we are very different. He’s a risk-taker. I’m not. He’s a free spirit. I’m not. He’s willing to give up his life to help his mother. I feel like I’ve given enough to help my father. Our differences, however, seem to bring us even closer. It’s hard for me to find anything that I don’t like about him. Or even love. The way his eyes sparkle when he watches me walk toward him, the way he reaches for my hand like it’s automatic, the way he kisses me so often like he’s drawn to me without realizing it. The way his laugh seems to rumble in my chest, like he’s actually becoming a part of me.
If we weren’t getting married, I would probably worry more about falling in love with him. I would be afraid of giving my heart away to someone who might break it. But now, I don’t think much about it. I just feel. I just go with it. And it feels wonderful!
At first, I was content to just be able to spend my life with someone to whom I was so desperately attracted. But now, more and more with every passing day, I feel as though I’ll be spending it with my soul mate, with someone I’ll love for the rest of my days. Because I do love him. I think I have for a while now. I only hope he will one day love me in return.
I do think about that sometimes—what if I fall in love with Tag, but he never learns to love me the same way? But I try not to let those thoughts take root in my mind. Right now, it feels like we’re both falling. And there’s hope in that.
We were going to elope because my father is so against this union, but my mother had a cow and convinced him that we should at least have a small ceremony so that he can walk me down the aisle and she can see her only child get married. He grudgingly agreed to that. I think for a while he kept thinking it would all fall apart and he wouldn’t have to worry about it, but it hasn’t. We haven’t. Tag and I have spent every day together, every night together, too, and we are even happier as the days go by.
Dad and Michael left Chiara two days after Tag gave me the ring. I don’t know what Dad has cooked up to replace the way he expected my marriage to Michael to affect the company, but I feel sure he’s got something up his sleeve. As long as it doesn’t involve me, though, I don’t really care what it is.
Mom came to visit after that, ostensibly to talk me out of the “ludicrous notion” of marrying beneath me. It only took her three days to see that she wasn’t going to make a bit of headway. That’s when she went home and talked to Dad about a real wedding. Since my charity received the anonymous donation and I no longer have to rely on my father’s money to keep it afloat, they have no leverage to force me into or out of a marriage. As I’d always dreamed, I got to pick who I want to spend the rest of my life with.
And now, here we are. My wedding day. I went from the prospect of marrying Michael, a man I had zero feelings for (unless vague disdain counts) to marrying a man I can’t wait to wake up to every morning, all in the span of a month. It’s surreal, but in the best fairy-tale kind of way. Even my friends are envious, especially when they met Tag. I think then they understood how things could’ve happened so quickly and how I could be so happy.