Destined (44 page)

“What, Henry?”

“To have children living here, after
all these years, all the years of hoping? It’s been quiet far too long, my
dear!” the old man said, wiping away a tear. “And, a baby, Emily! Can you
believe it? What luck!”

“So, I take it you are OK with the
idea? Can I tell Siri?” I asked, smiling a bit tearfully myself.

“Oh yes, please do. I should probably
meet with her, and her husband, don’t you think? To make them the offer? What
do you think about rent? I’d just as soon make it a trade for housekeeping and
building maintenance, you know,” he said thoughtfully. “I really could use the
help. And now that we’re going to make our own power, we’ll have plenty of heat
and hot water for the whole building!” He looked very excited and beamed at me
happily. “Send Siri up to see me when you get a chance, would you? No time like
the present!”

“
Carpe diem
?”

“Absolutely! Wouldn’t Margaret be
pleased, Emily? A baby in the house, at last.” He looked starry-eyed, stroking
the cat absentmindedly.

I left him daydreaming and went down
to tell Siri. She laughed and hugged me, very excited. Then she grabbed the
store phone and called Tom at work.

“He’ll be over at lunch time!” she
said, hanging up the phone. “Let’s go up there for a minute before we have to
open, I want to see it again.”

We snuck up the back stairs and
slipped into the doorway that led to the third floor. Upstairs, she walked
slowly through the space, looking carefully and calculating where her furniture
might fit. There would be a bedroom for Siri and Tom, another for her son, and
another for the two younger children, plus a separate room for Gupta, who could
have the study. There was a big livingroom with a fireplace, and a separate
dining room. The kitchen was grubby, but could easily be painted and given a
new floor. Only one bathroom for this number of people was a drawback, but we
reminded ourselves that there were three other bathrooms in the building, one
of which was right downstairs.

We joined hands in the middle of the
bare, hardwood, livingroom floor and spun around, laughing. “I love it!” Siri
said, “Thank you so much Emily.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“Yes, you did.”

“Well, it will be good for all of us,
don’t you think?”

She nodded and asked me quietly, “Did
you know all of this was coming, the first day we met, on the street?”

“Huh?”

“You offered me your friendship, then
you offered me a job, and now, a home,” she said, somewhat shyly. “You have
completely transformed my life, Emily.”

“And you mine, Siri. You brought me to
Bella, and the others. We have all transformed each other, haven’t we?”

“Yes,” she said, “It’s true. And my
father is like a new man. He takes such an interest in things now, now that he
has his friend Henry to discuss it with.”

“Friendship is just as important as
sex, don’t you think?” I asked as we went back down the stairs to the second
floor landing.

“Absolutely!” she agreed.

“Men are wonderful, but they’re only
good at certain things,” I said as we stood in the hallway.

“I heard that!” Henry’s voice rang out
from the study.

“Of course,” I said loudly, “They are
essential for their wisdom and generosity!”

“Send her in!” came the voice again. “And
be warned, I brook no sycophants!”

“Yes, Henry,” I said, winking at Siri,
who swayed gracefully as she walked down the hall to beard our noble old lion
in his cozy den.

Tony approved heartily of the new
arrangement when I told him about it that night. He had been over to the University
for a second interview at the School of Management. They hadn’t offered him the
job yet, but things looked promising. He had met several of the faculty
members, and had observed a couple of classes. He was thinking about it. It
would mean a big change in his lifestyle, after having been self-employed for
over a decade.

“I’m not used to reporting to anyone
else,” he said, worried. “I’m not sure I could stand all the paperwork. It’s
been a long time since I was part of the corporate world, working for a big
organization.”

“Well then, don’t do it,” I said. We
were lying nested like spoons on the big brown leather couch in front of a
sweet crackling apple-wood fire in the fireplace, thanks to a limb that had
fallen in the little orchard at the back of the yard.

“Is it that simple?” he said.

“Yes, you don’t need to do it for some
reason, do you?”

“Only intellectually, not financially.”

“You need it intellectually?” I asked,
surprised.

“I suppose so. I have always been very
attracted to the ‘life of the mind,’” he mused.

I remembered what Henry had said about
Tony being a natural scholar.

“Well then, maybe you should do it,” I
said, spontaneously flipping my argument.

“You don’t care?” he asked.

“Me?”

“Yes.”

“What have I got to do with it?” I
demanded.

“Quite a lot, actually. If you wanted
to.”

“Oh! Well, I think you should do
whatever makes you happy, Tony.”

“You don’t care if your husband has a
nice, steady job with good benefits?”

“My what?”

He was silent for a beat.

“Your husband?” he said.

I was silent for a beat.

“My husband,” I said, stressing the
word, “Had better know that I want him to do something he is passionate about,
not just something with good benefits.”

I twisted around on the couch to
discuss this interesting topic face to face. He was smiling at me fondly.

“I suppose there are good benefits to
being passionate, as well?” he said, kissing me.

“Absolutely,” I said, kissing him
back.

“Emily?”

“Yes?”

“I think we ought to get rid of your
apartment,” he said. “It’s very wasteful for two people and a cat to take up so
much space, don’t you think?”

“You have a point.”

“Are you ready to sacrifice your
independence?”

“Yes, I think so. Are you?” I asked.

“Sweetheart,” he said, “I gave that up
the day I saw you sitting on the bench in the park with your eyes closed,
basking in the sun like a beautiful lioness.”

“You did? And all this time, I’ve been
trying to entrap you!”

“No, that’s just what you thought. In
fact, it was I who was trapping you.”

We smiled at each other, both of us
caught at last, all defenses defeated and finally safe together in blissful
mutual captivity. I felt liberated and empowered in a way I had never felt
before. I could totally be myself. So this was what it felt like to surrender
to trust, to give up fear of betrayal! It was like walking out into the
sunlight after living in the shadows for as long as I could remember. I basked
in it, like the beautiful lioness I had somehow become, thanks to his vision
and its power to manifest in me.

Description: Men,
women and children rise from their graves, awakened by the horn of the angel
Gabriel, who calls them home to Paradise.

Meaning:
 
Spiritual awakening. Answering the call
to a higher level of wisdom. Release from prison or the bonds of materialistic
thinking.

In the course of living happily ever after, which is
exactly what Tony and I proceeded to do next, my fresh new positive attitude
and a constant feeling of exhilaration led me to a host of interesting
realizations. I was fearless and balanced inside, so I was looking at the world
with more confidence, and I think I was even less distracted, paying more
attention. It was an awakening. The lioness was alive and well, poised to
pounce, and I threw myself enthusiastically into various soul-enriching
projects.

Siri and I both moved, late that fall,
and we were all settling into our new homes and getting comfortable with the
space. Siri’s belly was starting to pop out, and she happily indulged her
nesting instinct as she painted and decorated the rooms on the third floor. Tom
and the kids left their shoes at the bottom of the back stairs, and tried not
to stomp on the floor, but there were lots of cute little giggles everywhere.
Gupta was upstairs and down, offering help wherever it was needed. He liked to
polish the brass and silver, and the store never looked better. He protested
that he was doing Siri’s lamps anyhow, so it was no trouble, but I knew that
wasn’t entirely true and I was grateful to him. He was extremely helpful, and
we all told him so.

When I was moving the last of my
things over to the house by the park, I stood in my empty apartment and looked
up through the skylight, remembering all the nights, all the moons and all the
dreams. Just as I was about to unplug it, the phone rang. It was Mom.

“Hi honey, how is the move going?”

“Pretty well, I’m almost done. How are
you?”

“Great!
 
I got in nine holes of golf this morning, it’s gorgeous down
here!”

“That’s good, Mom.”

“So, you’re still sure about this,
Emily?”

“Yes, very sure.”

“OK, honey, I trust your judgment.”

“Thank you for saying so, I appreciate
that.”

“I can’t wait to meet him,” she said
confidingly, “The girls at the club were all swooning over his picture, he’s a
real Dream Boat!”

I grinned at that, and made a mental
note to tell Tony what she’d said.

“Mom, I was just about to turn off
this phone, so you should call me at the new number or on my cell from now on,
OK?”

“Sure thing, honey. Just checking in.
I’ll let you go now, love you!”

“Love you too, Mom.”

Tony and I had invited Mom, plus
Marika and his parents, to come for Christmas. My brother and sister sent their
love, but would spend the holiday together with all their kids in the Mid-West
this year. I was excited about hosting the holiday here. We had two good-sized
guest rooms that shared a bath, where Mom and Tony’s sister could stay, and we
could put his parents up at the comfortable hotel on Main Street, a beautiful
historic place only a few blocks away.