She burst through the double doors of Clarisse's private sitting room with typical Mia gusto.
"Grandma!" she panted. "Is it true? Is Joe leaving?"
"He is." The answer was small and quiet, coming from the direction of the sofa. It was only then Mia realized the entire space was saved from complete darkness by one small lamp on a bookshelf near the doorway. She blinked, adjusting to the lack of light, and made out the fuzzy shape of her grandmother. She blinked again, not believing her eyes. Clarisse, queen of Genovia, was sitting in her silk pajamas with her bare feet on the sofa, her knees drawn up so her chin rested on them and her arms wrapped around them.
The most capable, unflappable woman Mia had ever known was the picture of hopelessness, and it scared the hell out of her.
"Grandma?" she ventured more calmly, slowly making her way to Clarisse. Her eyes shifted to Mia. Her mouth smiled, but it was such a failure that Mia nearly cringed. "He promised to stay for a year after the coronation, to supervise the transition," Mia said softly. "Why would he do this? Just…leave?"
"He wouldn't do that to you, darling. And I'm sure if you asked nicely, he would stay on a little longer. He's never been able to deny you anything." She smiled, and this time it was real. No less eerie, but at least genuine. Except for changing her expression, she had yet to move a muscle.
"But why -"
"Because I told him to leave."
Caught up in her observation that her grandmother was steeped in a sadness so profound, the words didn't register right away. Her eyes widened in disbelief as she realized what Clarisse had told her.
"But why?" she repeated unknowingly as she lowered herself onto the edge of the coffee table in front of Clarisse. The queen didn't mention one word about princesses and sitting on tables.
"Because it was selfish of me to keep him here. He has given me everything. I have nothing to offer him. I never have."
Mia understood. In fact, it startled her on how many levels she understood. Despite feeling woefully inadequate most of the time, she knew how much she had grown in the past five years in order to arrive at a place where she could relate to a woman she had once thought cold and distant and infinitely higher than she.
She knew about Joe and her grandmother.
She knew, finally, about the unromantic nature of her grandmother's arranged marriage to Rupert. That, for Rupert, there had been others.
She knew the chance to be queen was one of the world's most rewarding experiences. But she harbored no illusions, and accepted that it was also one of the world's loneliest.
On the eve of her own arranged marriage, preceding her own coronation, she knew Clarisse meant she had indulged in the love of someone who could not belong to her.
She also knew if there was one person who ever lived and deserved happiness, it was Clarisse Marie Mignonette Renaldi.
"You are the least selfish person I know," Mia said, her quiet tone in no way masking the depth of feeling in her words. "And you have so much to offer."
She held her hands out to Clarisse, who stared at them almost shyly. Mia smiled. Slowly, Clarisse unclasped her own hands from their resting place on her forearms, and reached for her granddaughter's. As soon as the younger hands wrapped around the older ones, the effect rippled throughout the rest of Clarisse, whose body unfolded and relaxed.
Mia would never know what made her do it, but as Clarisse's feet came to rest on the floor, she slid seamlessly to her grandma's newly revealed lap and tucked her head under Clarisse's chin. She felt Clarisse's arms wind around her, holding her firmly in place.
"Probably you don't want to talk about it," Mia said.
"You have become remarkably perceptive, my dear," Clarisse replied warmly, with no hint of sarcasm in her teasing.
"But maybe, just to satisfy my own inappropriate curiosity, I could ask a few simple questions -" She felt her grandmother's chest lift slightly, filling with air to press out a protest, so she hurried on to finish. "- and then it'll be done! I promise. Nothing too personal. No gory details. Really."
Joe wasn't the only one who had trouble denying the princess what she wanted. "Alright," she relented, the gathered breath releasing in a sigh.
"Was it an argument?"
"Of sorts."
"Who started it?"
"He did!" It slipped out quickly, sounding sharper and more wounded than she had intended. "Well, maybe we did. We both said a lot, but sort of...picked and chose what we listened to, mostly all the worst things."
"Is he sorry?" It was a safe bet she would get "yes" as an answer. Every time Mia had managed to catch a glimpse of Joe throughout the day, he'd had the same haunted expression that his queen did now.
"Yes." There it was, barely audible.
"Are you?"
Mia knew the nod of her head was the only response Clarisse could manage.
She took a deep breath, summoning all her courage against what she feared to be the truth. "Is it my fault?"
"What?"
"This whole thing with Nicholas, and other things like the wooden leg and the chicken in the throne room, and then this morning with the video footage..."
"Our fight was over before we heard about that. Well, the last part, at least." Clarisse surprised both of them when she chuckled. "Anyway, my darling, that is a mess of your very own. What could that possibly have to do with ours?"
"Maybe you don't think you can be with him because you have to be with me."
"Oh Mia." The crack in Clarisse's voice unnerved her to no end. "No. You will find your footing. You will succeed, and I know that. It's just..." Mia was patient while Clarisse found the words for something she had never spoken aloud. "Joseph knows who I am apart from Genovia, from all this. And he's the only one. Not even I know." She felt Clarisse's face press against the top of her head, felt her mouth turn into a sad smile. "He is convinced he wants that woman, whoever she is. I am not convinced she even exists."
They were both quiet for awhile. Mia found herself thinking how different this hugging was from the first time she had been embraced by her grandmother, the day she told Clarisse she would not assume her role as princess. Her mind ambled along the memory of that afternoon. She had been afraid to tell her, to lose - not only an entire country - but the little bit of family that had been restored to her after her father's death. But Clarisse had reassured her. "Oh my dear. You are first and foremost my granddaughter."
My granddaughter. For Mia to be a granddaughter first and a princess second, Clarisse had to be a grandmother before she was a queen.
"You are an extraordinary person," she had told Clarisse. She said it again now.
"You are an extraordinary woman, Grandma. And I'm pretty sure that's the reason you are an extraordinary queen. Not the other way around."
Mia felt Clarisse's arms tighten around her, and another sigh - this one shaken by unshed tears - escaped into her dark hair. "Thank you," Clarisse whispered.
"He loves you," Mia said simply. "And you love him."
"That's hardly enough to ensure a fairy-tale ending."
"Maybe there's no such thing. Maybe no one gets a fairy-tale ending." She lifted her head to look directly at Clarisse. "It may not be easy. It may not be pretty. But it is real. Grandma, tomorrow I am going to marry a man with whom I am not in love. Just like you did." She pushed on, determined not to be tripped up by the pain in Clarisse's eyes. "And there is no guarantee I will ever know anything else. Statistically, you shouldn't know anything else. Maybe that's part of what makes you doubt it," Mia mused, almost to herself, before shaking her head and returning to her original thread. "You have the opportunity to love and be loved for real, Grandma. If he's sorry, and you're sorry, I think you should go for it. Don't send him away."
"What if it's too late?" she murmured, not unaware that they were two of the least expert people to be advising one another in relationship matters.
Mia, also aware of their combined lack of inexperience, had to laugh. "I may not know much about these things, but Joe has been waiting an awfully long time, and he looks pretty miserable to me. I think he would be open to reconciliation."
"I don't know what he meant more - the things he apologized for, or the apology."
"We all say stupid things sometimes. Well," she grinned, "present company excluded. Take it from me: stupid things slip out way easier than sincere apologies. And Joe is nothing if not sincere."
"It just all seems so…" Clarisse frowned, and Mia watched her usually eloquent grandmother at a loss for words for the second time in the space of a single conversation. "…broken. Something's broken between us, and I'm not sure how to move forward. Or if we can."
"Some things are worth fixing. And you're not going to find another Joe Romero. He's kind of a limited edition."
"I was groomed from childhood for marriage to your grandfather. When I finally made my vows, I made them, not only to a king, but to an entire country. I've never simply been someone's life partner."
"Then you should give it a go. It's healthy to try new things."
"He could have a life with someone else that would be far easier than the one he'll have with me."
"Sure, but where would be the fun in that? Besides, you're pretty one-of-a-kind yourself."
Clarisse looked into pleading, optimistic eyes, and the image of her granddaughter grew blurry.
"It's okay if you need to cry, Grandma."
She let out a small, embarrassed laugh. "My father always told me not to cry."
"But you've been hurt." Both of them knew it was not just an argument, but years of loneliness and sacrifice to which Mia referred. "So you just go ahead and cry. Besides," she added, "it's your turn."
Mia's gentle permission overrode Clarisse's weakening defense against the onslaught of emotion and, for the first time in a very long time, she cried in the comfort of another person's arms.
Mia held onto her grandmother - the woman she looked up to and adored and feared more than any other person - and treasured the trust that afforded her this intimate glimpse into her inner life. She wondered more fully at the depth of Clarisse's sacrifice. She marveled at her mastery of the art of bearing up flawlessly so no one would ever detect her wounds, the fissures that had lain beneath a mask of graceful and unfaltering regal composure. For years, it had seemed unfair to Mia that Clarisse, unnaturally poised and icy calm, expected her to bend her own boisterous personality to fit within such impossible restraints. But now, seeing Clarisse's own struggle, she finally realized bending was necessary for anyone in her position. Necessary, and not so impossible.
Nestled on Clarisse's lap in the semi-darkness of the royal chambers, she learned a great deal more than about being a queen than had ever been covered in a single lesson.
It would be a turning point in both their lives.
