His Wounded Light (40 page)

My breath catches at the sight of mother and son walking slowly towards the altar. Eddie looks all grown up in a suit, and I can see how this experience has matured him—he somehow looks so much older, so much more put together than he did a year ago; a young man and no longer a boy. And Isabel. Wow. Her beauty today is luminous and entrancing. She’s smiling as she walks up to meet me and I can’t help but grin back at her. I motion for Emmy to take Maddy from my arms as I reach out my hand for my bride.

“I have never seen you more beautiful than you are today,” I whisper.

She takes my hand tenderly and moves into her place right beside me. The wedding ceremony is abbreviated and quick. We have asked that we be given a few minutes to recite our own vows in front of our family and two friends. The priest gives his blessing and asks us to face each other. I take Isa’s hands in mind and my voice starts to shake as I tell her what’s always been in my heart.

“
Isabel, from the first day I met you nearly twenty years ago, I knew that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you. Today, I reaffirm my commitment to you all over again. What we went through in the past year is a testament to the fact that life will never be perfect. We react to these tests in so many different ways and though I failed the first time, I will never fail again. I will always remember how you never gave up on me, how blessed I am that you continue to love me, how much I love you and our children. On this day, I promise to be your solace, your home, your haven from all of life’s future storms. I will love you and cherish you all the days of my life. Find yourself again in me, Isa. Lose yourself in my eyes. Trust that I will never let you down. I love you.”

“
I love you too,” she whispers as she dabs her eyes with a Kleenex and composes herself to address me.

She grips my fingers tightly and I squeeze back, as enamored by her beauty and poise as I was the first day that we met.

“
Alex, no matter what life may bring, know that I am your partner and your wife. My love for you is unconditional and enduring.
It fills my heart entirely, there is no place for anyone else but you. A life with you is all I ever wanted; you, Eddie, Maddy and Sophie fulfill me more than you will ever know.
As I look into your eyes right at this moment, I can see your love for me clearly and I am lost. Lost in the ocean that has held me for the past twelve years, lost in the beautiful blue sky that will forever be my refuge. There’s no other place in the world I would rather be than right here with you. It has always only been you, Alex. It will always be only you. My life didn’t begin until I met you. You have my heart. You are my soul. I love you.”

I am captured by her words and tears stream down my face as I grab her and dip her and kiss her like my life depends on it, even before the priest pronounces us as husband and wife. Her cries turn to giggles as we beam at our family and walk down the steps towards them. I hold her close to me, afraid to let her go.

I’m never going to let her go.

One week later, we are standing in the middle of the Piazza San Marco in Venice, Italy. We have just finished a limited tour of the Plaza, especially arranged in an electric car that transports us around, complete with our own personal tour guide. Isabel arranged for this knowing that my walking long distances must still be done gradually. The daily walks along the Pont des Arts a few weeks ago had negatively affected my recovery.

Paulo, our guide, calls us “the honeymooners.” We do play the part of lovers pretty competently; sometimes we are so engrossed in touching and kissing and holding each other that we don’t even hear what he’s saying, but he continues on in good spirits, knowing that Isa and I are making up for our lost time together.

“Excuse me, Paolo,” Isabel interrupts him as he tells us of the history of the Clock Tower, “I think we’d like to go back to the hotel soon, after one last stop.”

“Sure, Mrs. Ailey. Where would you lovebirds like to go?” Paulo responds teasingly.

Isabel says she will miss him when we leave. She’s grown somewhat attached to him since he’s been with us for two weeks now. He’s flown to places in Europe with us and he’s become quite a good friend.

“Saint Mark’s Basilica, please. Our last stop before the hotel,” she instructs distinctly.

The look that she gives me as she utters that last sentence gives me chills. It hasn’t changed between us. I want her every minute of every day.

Our tour of the Basilica is slow and indulgent. We take our time walking around, absorbing the beautiful church filled with mosaics on the ceilings and walls. Isa tells me about the many different images depicting scenes throughout the life of Christ. She knows that I tire easily, so we take breaks by sitting down on random pews and saying a prayer or two at various shrines. As we reach the end of our tour, we approach one last shrine to light candles for our loved ones. We light one for Sophie, for her mother, Claudia, and for both sets of grandparents. We also light one for our family and we give thanks for the blessings that we continue to receive. We finally light one for us, for our love, our friendship and our marriage. I say a silent prayer thanking God for bringing her back to me. The mood is solemn and pious. Isabel and I are lost in prayer.

Minutes pass and I am roused from my thoughts by a slight nudge from my wife. I turn my head towards her to find a sneaky, impish expression on her face.

“Hey, A, did you forget something?” she asks beguilingly. Her eyes are lit up and she’s softly stroking my arm.

She’s not asking me to have sex in here, is she? Oh my God. Get your mind out of the gutter! You’re in church, for Christ’s sake! Oh, I mean for Pete’s sake!

“Here? Where?” I ask, confused.

Her hand flies to her mouth as she desperately tries to stifle her laugh.

“Oh my gosh! Alex! No! I meant, this!” She dips her hand in her purse and pulls out a charm attached to a white ribbon, the same A&I charm that we left in Hong Kong almost one year ago.

“Oh, sorry, baby. Now I’m embarrassed. I didn’t know what you were trying to say!” I respond defensively. I still can’t stop thinking about it. I think I want to go home now.

“Don’t be,” she whispers seductively in my ear. “I’ve been thinking of the same thing since you kissed me behind one of the pillars at the Plaza.”

We stand up to find a place to leave our charm. After searching for an appropriate place for a few minutes, she decides to tie it underneath the metal grate that holds the perpetual candles. Perpetual. Undying and unending, just like my love for her.

“Here. Another one, Alex. Another memory made and shared with the world.”

***

“We have to stop meeting like this,” he says with a cordial smile.

His reaction is a world apart from the encounter that we had nearly six months ago. This time I’m here to see him. He’s sitting at a glass desk in an office overlooking the beautiful mountainside. This man has really done well for himself. There’s a wheelchair next to his office chair, but he sits tall and strong as he waits for me to start the conversation. What’s most significant about his workspace are the dozens of pictures scattered around of his wife and two children. He has a beautiful family—one that I coveted for too many years, until I realized that they were never meant to be mine.

“Thanks for agreeing to see me. I know you just arrived from the States.”

“Yesterday.”

“Did everything go well?”

He winces visibly and thinks thoroughly before he responds. “I’m better, yes. I’m not sure whether that means that my life will be back to normal.”

“Ailey, I’m here to speak to you about Isa. Six months ago, you gave me the chance to come back into her life. Do you know what happened between us?”

“No. I assume you’re still together? Are you leaving for Paris with her tomorrow?” His voice is shaky and I can tell that he isn’t dealing well with this conversation at all. He’s fidgeting with his hands, constantly touching his ring finger for an object that remains there. He never removed it.

“I’m going to marry Rose in two months in England. That’s where her family is from.”

He breathes an obvious sigh of relief before leaning back into his chair. I nod my head to let him know that it’s okay to show me how he feels.

“So who is she with? Is she with Martinez?”

“She’s with no one, Ailey. No one. We realized that what we had is in the past. You’re all she thinks about. She was always honest with me about that. She loves only you.”

He swivels his chair abruptly towards the window, facing away from me. I don’t need to know why he does that. The emotion in his voice is enough to explain it. I’ve been there so many times before that I want to help the guy. Every action has a consequence and more often than not, you never get a second chance. He speaks before I can verbalize this thought.

“Tell me about her, Cain. Tell me what I put her through. I need to know the extent of my damage so I can spend my whole life repairing it.”

“What you did to her was unacceptable. You were a coward who hid behind your big ass ego. You offered her to me. You gave her away. Everything Isabel did after she took that fall was just her trying to survive. Losing the baby killed her, Ailey. And no one was there to help her pick up the pieces of her heart. I know exactly what she tried to do. For ten years, I did the same thing. I fucked myself into obscurity, drowned my desperation in meaningless affairs, meaningless relationships. I’m not saying that that’s what Isa did, but I’m saying that you need to forgive her for her weakness. This is all your doing, Ailey. Take responsibility for it.”

“What happened with Martinez?” I still can’t see his face, but his voice is soft and uneven.

“She had a brief affair with him. Very brief. She didn’t love him, but I’m going to tell you that he was there for her at a time when her world went very dark because of the baby. She hurt herself as a result of the guilt that she felt about losing your child.”

I hear a muffled sob from behind the tall chair. From where I sit, I can see the chair shake back and forth, his arms moving around to shield his face.

“And you?” he asks, his voice devoid of emotion.

“She doesn’t love me. We grew apart in the years that passed. You are the love of her life, Ailey. Not anyone else. Not me. Stop being a selfish bastard and give Isa her life back. Whether or not that means you’re in it, I don’t know, but she doesn’t deserve to live in all this guilt and pain.”

“She told you that she still loves me?” he asks, somewhat surprised.

“It’s been you all along. Since the day she decided to marry you, she has never swayed. You have a hell of a lot of mess to clean up. Do it soon. And if you don’t want her, let her go. Leave her be.”

“I thought I was doing her a favor by leaving her,” he says sadly.

“Whatever your reasons are, they’re not good enough. Fix this. Fix it soon. You and Isa belong together.”

He clears his throat and rotates the chair back so that we’re facing each other. His eyes are damp and his face is red.

I continue to say my piece. “You and I, we’ve loved an amazing woman, Ailey. Haven’t we wasted enough years on regret? Life’s too short for this, I really need to get mine started. As for you, you have everything. You have a life that many men would kill for. Don’t blow it. I’m not sure whether she’s going to give you another chance, but she loves you. And I thought that you should know that.”