Fifty-one
Jack
I stare at the breathtaking scene in front of me in awe.
“Well?” she asks beside me.
Snow falls onto my face as I turn and look at my beauty. Her face is framed in fur, her cheeks are rosy, and her eyes are sparkling like jewels. This is my woman. Sometimes, I still can’t believe I’ve been given this wonderful being just for me.
“I’m actually speechless.”
“That’s a first,” she says with a pretty giggle.
“True,” I agree. All she would tell me for days was to book five days off because we were going on a longish trip. When I pressed her, she insisted it was a surprise. Even when I reminded her about the fate of her last surprise she looked at me impishly, but refused to reveal a thing.
I climbed aboard Guy’s private jet, and I was the only fool who had no idea where we were going. Lena grinned at me and Guy just shrugged. All right for him. He knew exactly where he was going.
We landed in Moscow.
A two-hour helicopter ride and an hour long car journey brought us here. A hundred feet away from the edge of a huge Russian forest. Half-buried in the thick snow is a small house built from logs. It is as magical and enchanting as something plucked right out of a fairytale.
“This is where I come from,” she says simply.
For someone who spent his childhood on the railway tracks and on a concrete playground, this place is beyond beautiful. “It’s beautiful, Sofia.”
“You always wanted to know about me and my childhood and here it is. This is the beginning of my story. I will tell you everything. Little by little.”
I hold her around the waist. ‘I would love that, my sweet Princess.”
She wrinkles her nose. “I thought coming back here would be really hard. Even Lena was worried that it might be too traumatic, but it’s not hard at all, and I’m glad I came back. It’s time to put all those ghosts to rest.”
“It was on a day like this that my father found a den full of bear cubs. The mother was dead so he brought them home. You cannot imagine how cute they were. I adored them.” She smiles at the memory.
“What happened to them?”
She shakes her head. “I couldn’t have kept them anyway, but they are part of the ghosts that must be left behind.”
No wonder she doesn’t want to talk about her childhood. A right monster her father was.
I take her thickly gloved hands in mine. “I cannot describe in words just how much it means to me that you brought me here. To where your life began. Thank you for being so brave.”
“I’m not brave. You are,” she says.
“We’re both brave, then,” I say and laugh. Not because anything is funny, but from pure happiness. She tilts her head and laughs with me. Nothing is funny. Everything is funny. Snowflakes fall into my mouth.
“Oh, Sofia, Sofia. How you have changed me. I’m your greatest masterpiece.”
She shakes her head. “No, I’m your greatest masterpiece.”
A movement to my right catches my eye and I turn to look. A tall, broad man has come out of the house. Next to me I hear her breath catch. For what seems like an eternity, the man and Sofia stare at each other. Then he turns away slowly, walks back into the house, and closes the front door. Never was there a more profound rejection than that simple action.
Tears glimmer in her eyes.
“Hey,” I say softly.
“It’s okay,” she says swallowing the hurt. “He never wanted any of us.”
“I’m so sorry, my love.”
“It’s okay. Lena once told me that my father gave us all a box of darkness to take with us into our lives, but I realize that in fact, that box of darkness is a gift. The day I met you that box became my gift. If he had not sent me on my journey I would never have found you.”
“Oh, Sofia. I love, love, love you.”
We make our way back to the waiting car. The snow in some places is so deep we sink into it up to our knees. Once she falls backwards and I yank her out, giggling like a child. I open the car door for her and she turns to take one last look. There is longing in her eyes. She still wants her father. After everything he has done there is no hate in her heart.
“Want to go and see him?” I ask softly.
She smiles. “No. Lena was right. There’s nothing here for her or me. I was just taking one last look. I’ll never come back here again.”
Epilogue
Sofia
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGFToiLtXro
Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You.
“Baby, they’re playing our song,” Jack whispers in my ear.
I lean back into his hard body flirtatiously. “Since when is this song ours?”
He catches my waist and twirls me around as he has done a hundred times. “Ever since I saw your pretty pussy,” he says.
“I could take that the wrong way, you know,” I say sternly.
“I wish you would,” he whispers, his breath warm, his lips trailing my cheek.
“Everybody is watching,” I say.
“Fuck them. They’re getting free food. What more do they want?”
“I don’t think it’s the done thing for the bride and groom to have sex on the dance floor during their first dance.”
“Are you sure?”
“As you would say, abso-fucking-lutely.”
He grins. “Are brides allowed to be so potty-mouthed?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re just making this up, aren’t you?”
“No, it’s in the handbook.”
He smiles. “What handbook?”
“The bride’s handbook.”
He looks at me with that look. “Oh, that handbook. Have you read it from cover to cover yet?”
“No.”
“Let me tell you what else is in that handbook.”
“What?” I ask innocently.
“It’s better if I show you,” he says, and starts dragging me off the dance floor. People are laughing at us, but it is good-natured. I shrug and laugh too, and let myself be pulled away.
We get to the small room next to the reception and he tugs me into it and closes the door.
“You better make this worth my walk of shame back to the party.”
“Baby, don’t you worry. I’ll make it worth every second of your walk of shame.”
I don’t even have time to laugh, because my great big skirt is flying up around my face, and my thigh is over his shoulder and his mouth. Oh, his mouth. Ah …
Guy
Lena looks up at me, her eyes sparkling with happiness. This is her dream come true. We had everything and the only thing that was not right was Sofia’s unhappiness. Now Sofia has true love and our happiness is complete too.
When I gave Sofia away earlier I could hear Lena sobbing quietly. I stare into her face and suddenly it hits me. Oh, my God, I’ve seen that look before.
“You know, don’t you?” she says.
I’m too choked up to speak. I just lift my angel off the ground and twirl her round and round while she throws her head back and laughs with sheer joy.
Yes, I’m going to be a father again.
Blake
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JWTaaS7LdU
(I Will Always Love You)
I lean back in the chair to watch my wife dancing with my son, and my heart swells with pride. There is no woman more beautiful than my Lana. After all these years she still makes the blood pound in my ears.
Memories flood into my head: the first time I saw her through gauze veils in that pretentious restaurant. She was wearing the tightest, shortest, sluttiest orange dress and hooker heels. Every man in the room was staring at her. I could never have imagined then the journey we would take together. The discoveries our bodies would make, the light she would shine into the darkness of my soul, the children we would bear together.
My eyes slide down to my son. How big he has become. I remember the first time I saw him like
it was yesterday. Across the room in his mother’s arms. The knowledge was like a thunderbolt. My son! My whole body tensed. Then I had to pretend like I didn’t know he was mine.
I watch the intense expression on his face as he executes the steps he learned from me only a few days ago. I’m still getting used to his Mohican hairstyle. I have to confess I’m not a fan, but to give him his due he carries it off well. An unwanted thought occurs to me. I wonder what his grandmother would have made of it. What the hell am I thinking?
Of course, my mother would have hated it.
Every time I think of her waiting like some starving vulture for Sorab’s eighteenth birthday to come, fear fills my heart. I have done everything in my power to guide him in the right direction. It will be up to him. He will have to make the choice just as I had to.
I stand, walk over to them, and tap him on his shoulder. He looks up at me with a brilliant smile. My beautiful son.
“Do you mind if I cut in?” I ask.
He nods and releases his mother’s hand. How formal. How grown up. What a bittersweet joy to watch him grow up. He walks away and I turn towards Lana. She smiles at me. There is so much love in her eyes.
Ah, what a beautiful life this is.
THE END