I remember the first time I saw Angeline. She was so beautiful sitting there in the conference room at Redwood-so confident. I was so embarrassed when she caught me staring. I could feel my eyes grow wide and I blushed when she smiled, just a little, in response. Maybe it was the lighting, or maybe it was just my eyes, but her hair seemed to shimmer, her eyes sparkled and her lips . . . her lips and the way she ran her tongue over them made me quiver.
I'd felt like I was fifteen again staring at Donna Emerson in math class. Donna was the type girl who wore her sweater just a bit too tight, whose makeup was always perfect, and her skirts always seemed to show off just enough thigh to have all the boys drooling. A hussy, Naomi would have said. But what a hussy.
Only Angeline had style, something Donna never had. And I never felt for Donna what I began to feel for Angeline in the weeks following that first meeting. Angeline was more than just a pretty face or sexy body and that was clear from the get-go. She had brains and more integrity than anyone I had ever met. She was a woman driven and that came through in her division as its sales surpassed any other cosmetic company in the region.
But I'll be honest. I loved Angeline's hair and the way it fell down her back, thick and shiny. I loved her perfect nose and her full, pouty lips. I loved kissing those lips and whispering sexy things into her perfectly shaped ears.
She's different now. She's still beautiful, but I have to remind myself, if just for a second, that this is my Angeline in my arms, or next to me in bed. I wonder as I watch her across the boardroom table if the others sitting around us need to be reminded as well.
Unless you know Angi, know the nightmare the last few years have been, you'd have a hard time guessing that this Angeline is not the Angeline I first fell in love with. The plastic surgeons gave Angi back her face, rebuilt her nose and lips and pieced together a working semblance of an ear. Her head is covered in hair again, thanks to hair plugs, although what was once a thick main is much thinner and far shorter than ever before-just long enough to fall gracefully over the ear that Angi hates the sight of. Despite the work of the doctors, it will never look completely natural.
I can't say that I fell out of love with Angeline, but with my insecurities and her insecurities, things were bad for a long time. She wouldn't let me see her, not even after the burns were beginning to heal. Her family flew in from Texas and some even came from Argentina to be with her. She let them all in-let them all see what the bomb had done. But not once had she asked for me.
I'd done what Jared had said. I sent her flowers and called her room, even stopping by every so often hoping that today would be the day she would relent and let me in. But that day never came. I finally couldn't stand it any longer. I didn't care what Jared said, or what Jim or Arthur tried to tell me-they all sang the same tune: leave her alone, she'll come around. But she wasn't coming around. So I ignored them all and crept into her room after her family had left for the night.
Angeline was not pleased. I was hoping that once I was there, once she had a chance to actually see me, be with me, that she would change her mind and let me stay. Instead, she made it clear that she didn't want me there, didn't need me there and ordered me to leave her alone. I still remember her biting words,
'I've had enough Blair. I can't carry you any longer. I don't have the strength to hold you up-not now. Find someone else because I won't be here anymore. Or better yet, try standing on your own two feet for a change. I'm tired. You've taken too much and I just can't do this again.'
To say I was surprised is an understatement. I was hurt and horrified by what she was saying. Not once had she ever hinted that she felt that way. Did she really feel like I was draining her? Is that how she saw me all this time? As some sort of parasite?
I hadn't felt pain like that since, well, since Jim turned his back on me all those years ago. The hurt was physical and I thought maybe I was dying it was so bad. I couldn't reply, couldn't tell her that she was wrong, that I loved her. I could barely breathe. I saw her hand reach out and her lips were still moving but I couldn't hear her words. The room began to gray and I knew I had to leave, get away from there-away from the woman I thought would be mine forever.
I was supposed to go back to work not long after that fateful day. Instead, I took to my bed, claiming headaches and pain in my back. I refused to get up, unless it was to use the bathroom. I refused visitors and yelled at Naomi when she came to visit. I told her I didn't want her there-didn't need her. And when I realized that I was saying to her what Angeline had said to me, I only felt worse and begged her to forgive me. I began to cry-something I had not been able to do after seeing Angeline. It should have been healing, but instead it fed my grief and I found myself unable to control it.
Soon, Jared was there, poking and prodding, taking my blood pressure and talking about taking me to the hospital for an MRI to be sure my brain was okay. Jim came and I think even Simon and Arthur were there once or twice. In the end, Jared began to feed me Paxil and Naomi brewed teas that she poured down my throat whether I wanted to drink them or not. They made me get out of bed, dressed me, fed me and made me begin to live again.
I hated them so much for that. It wasn't until weeks later, when I was thinking straight, that it occurred to me that Jared should have left long ago. When I asked about his job, Jared put me off with some vague answer about looking for a position closer to Washington. It was Naomi who told me that Jared had lost his job when he left again to be with us.
How could I screw up so much in such a short lifetime? I threw away ten years of school to chase a dream. I followed a man I thought was my Holy Grail into unknown lands only to be abandoned and accused of betrayal. I put my trust in friendships after all the times Naomi told me we could only trust each other. I fell in love with a woman who I thought loved me. But each time, I was proven wrong. Each time I was forced to pick up the shattered pieces and shake myself off, putting a grin on my face to let the world know that it was okay. It hadn't hurt. And now I was the reason another man had lost his dream.
But Jared hadn't blamed me. When I was finally able to get out of bed without someone there to wake me, when I could eat a meal and enjoy it, and smile at my company, I asked him. Why did he come if it meant losing his job? And he told me-because I needed him. It was all still too raw at the time, so I just nodded and swallowed my eggs past the lump that had grown in my throat and blinked back the tears.
Two months after my world shattered, the phone rang heralding the start of something new.
It had been Angeline but not. It was like speaking with a stranger you had shared just a few shallow details of your life with. It was a difficult call to get through. Angi apologized, said that she was afraid and tired and it was so much easier to just rely on her family. She hadn't meant to hurt me like she had-she just wanted to push me away. I said I understood and wished her luck in her recovery and said I'd be here if she needed, or wanted, to talk. I felt so numb talking to her, placating her. Like I wasn't me and she wasn't her. We were strangers in a way we'd never been. I thought that was it. I would never hear from her again.
Only, I did. Short calls, talking about the weather, or work-I'd finally gone back to Redwood. The calls grew more frequent and longer. She'd tell me stories about her family and how they were driving her nuts, and I'd tell her about mine. I finally worked up the nerve to ask about the surgeries and to my relief, and I think hers, she told me.
I became her confidante-a role I never thought I'd be in again. I was glad to be there for her, to listen to her as she described the pain she felt with each new cut of the scalpel. The fear she felt when she thought about her future and how she would have to face the 'real' world again soon. And the anger, finally the gut wrenching anger that just bubbled out and flowed like lava.
I listened but I never shared. It hurt to be afraid of the woman I had once loved, but I was. How could I ever confide in her again with her voice echoing in my head, accusing me of taking too much and draining her dry?
And finally, the day came when she wanted to see me. I thought I'd be able to do it, no problem. But when I tried to leave I found out different. I sat in the car for close to an hour, turning the ignition on, then off again. I finally climbed out and let myself back into the condo. I was afraid and guilty and restless, but I couldn't force myself back into the garage. I remember looking at my office, at the pile of work waiting there. I'd wandered into the rec room but nothing appealed to me. So I went upstairs, ignored the kitchen and climbed into bed. I watched the sun set over the water and felt the air chill around me. I ignored the phone's shrill sound as it rang again and again.
I didn't work up the nerve to call her for over two weeks. It dawned on me then that in all the time we'd been sharing phone conversations, that it had been Angi calling me. Not once had I called her. In those two weeks, I did a lot of thinking and confiding of my own. Only I turned to Jim as my confidante.
Since the bomb, Jim's been right there when I've needed him. It's like he realized that he'd been holding a part of himself back. I don't know what demons he killed but I was glad to have him at my side. He filled my time in the hospital with inane stories of the Major Crimes gang-stories that the others hadn't shared because they were the star stooges. He'd admitted that he had been afraid of getting too close again-of redeveloping an unhealthy codependent relationship. And I know that took a lot of guts for the man to admit. He is so not 'Mr. Feelings'. But I appreciated the effort.
He visited a lot once I was back home and I'd often found him doing things around the condo, like fixing leaky faucets or changing the oil on the car. But he didn't hover. He left that to Naomi. He was just . . . there. The biggest change though, was that he began to tell me things. Things he never willingly told me before. Like how, on William's birthday, he'd gone over to his dad's house with a gift and found his father having a large party he hadn't known about. How hurt he'd been when Steven answered the door. There was a time Jim never would have told me any of that.
So it was Jim to whom I turned. He listened and asked questions and in the end I knew why I was so reluctant to grow any closer to Angeline. She'd rejected me once and it was like the straw that broke the camel's back. I'd had so much rejection in such a short period of time. I'd thought I'd finally found someone who I could trust, after all I'd gone through. And I'd been wrong. I was afraid to try again.
But Jim, he hugged me tight and whispered in my ear how sorry he was that he was the one to make me so afraid to try. I was shocked. I know, and he knows that he threw me to the wolves, but to hear him admit it, admit that what he'd done was still so strong and damaging, well, I was stunned. But he also made me see that people deserved another chance-that Angeline deserved another chance, like Jim had been given. And he was right.
So, after two weeks, I did something I never thought I'd do again. I called Angeline. I apologized, and I confided in her this time. I told her what I was feeling, why I couldn't go to see her. I told her all of my fears. She cried and I cried, and we talked for a long time. And we both felt a difference now that we were both being honest.
No, I didn't go to see her right away. We began to call again-both she and I. And when I was ready, I finally went to see her.
I was shocked at how different she looked. There was still so much damage, so many scars. And the areas the surgeons had worked on had come out different than they'd once been. But this woman, with all of her scars, was the Angeline I had come to know in the past months. And I know that I was not the same man she had once loved.
But we talked and I told her about my back, and the shunt that would stay in my brain until it began to cause problems. I told her about the disabling headaches I still get and the occasional bouts of vertigo. I ran my fingers along her spine to demonstrate where my bones were fused with metal rods.
She told me about the surgeries she'd had and the ones yet to come. She let me touch her nose, feel her lips with my fingertips. I held her hands, both of them, and was grateful that she could still grip me back with her thumb. And after a while, she didn't look like an extra out of one of the "Night of the Living Dead" movies. She was beautiful.
I continued to visit and after awhile, her family stopped giving me the evil eye and started including me in their conversations. When they went for food, they made sure to bring enough back for me. And one day, her mother came in carrying a large box. A box that made Angi groan and cover her face.
The box was filled with photo albums and magazines, and even videotapes. I stayed for hours that night, watching Angi grow up on film. Her mother and father told stories and we laughed. Then, the remaining two aunts and Angi's cousin Manuela filled the time with pictures and stories of their life in Argentina. When I finally left, I was asleep on my feet, but had a ridiculous smile on my face. I also had a standing invitation to visit the family in Argentina.
It's a been a long and tiresome road, but we've made it.
Now, two years later, I can look back and remember without the bittersweet pang of sorrow. My Angi, the Angi I have married today, is so much more than the woman I met in that boardroom-more than the woman who finally let me share her pain. She is a survivor. She is strong and persistent and beautiful.
She is my wife.
A gentle squeeze on my hand brings me back to the present and I smile broadly before pulling the hand of my bride closer, until she is near enough to kiss. I love the feel of her lips on mine, so warm and soft. After a moment, she pulls away.
"Wow," she murmurs, touching her lips with her fingertips. "Wherever you just went, you need to go there more often."
I shake my head and lean in again, brushing a feather light kiss across her cheek, and whisper in her ear, "No, this is where I need to be. Right here, right now, with you."
Angi is blinking back tears as I pull away. "I love you Mr. Sandburg," she declares, somewhat huskily, her voice tight with emotion.
"And I love you, Mrs. Sandburg."
We sit and stare at each other for a minute before Angi begins to laugh. I join in and after a few minutes we begin to calm down.
"Senora Sandburg," Angi says, as though she's testing its flavor.
"Si, mi esposa," I reply, grinning. "Mrs. Sandburg. It's got a nice ring to it, if I do say so myself."
"Mi esposo," Angi says, sliding out of her chair and kneeling between my legs. Her dress flutters out around us, finally settling like a silk blanket to the floor. She grabs a small sandwich off the plate sitting in front of me and breaks off a small piece.
"We must eat," she declares before feeding me the small bite. I grin and suck on her fingers before she pulls them away.
"Eat now, play later," she scolds, biting into the remainder of the sandwich. I open my mouth to protest just as my stomach rumbles loudly and defiantly.
She smirks but says nothing as she retrieves more food off the plate. We eat in silence for awhile and as she feeds me small bites, I run my hand over her veil and down her back. She leans into the touch and I begin to massage her shoulders in earnest.
"Mmn," she moans. "That feels exquisite-don't stop."
It had been a long week without her and I'm relieved it's finally over. From the reaction I'm getting from Angeline, she feels the same. I'm a strong believer in tradition, but a week without seeing the love of my life was sheer torture!
My touches slow and my hands begin to remember the feel of Angeline beneath them. I'm aroused now and the way Angi moans as my fingers ghost over her dress tells me she is as well. We begin to kiss and I fumble with the pearl buttons on the back of her dress. I manage to get three undone before a sharp rap at the door signals that we have company.
Angi pulls away quickly but I grab her and pull her back into my arms.
"No, they will see!" she protests, giggling.
"My cufflink is caught!" I hiss back, making her giggle even harder.
Another tap on the door followed by, "You two decent in there?" Damn, it's Jared and that means Jim and probably Arthur are there as well.
"Um, just a minute!" I call back. I tug my hand and fumble to release my sleeve. I finally manage to free myself and hurry to redo the buttons on Angi's dress.
"Rapido!" she breathes, still giggling and now hiccuping as well.
I finish and any telltale signs of what we were doing have been erased. I stride to the door and unlock it, pulling it open. As I thought, my step-father and my best friends are waiting impatiently.
"Dinner's almost over," Arthur says pushing past me and sidling up to Angi. "The guests are restless." He takes her arm and guides her over to my side, slipping her hand onto my arm. Then, he gives us both a little shove and we're on our way back to the reception hall.
The evening passes in a blur of dancing guests, the murmur of blessings, and free flowing wine. The last dance of the evening is the tango and Angi glides into my arms effortlessly. I don't realize that the floor has been cleared until the music dwindles to an end and I look away from my love to see we are the center of attention.
My face flames and Angi moves closer, wrapping both arms around my waist and laying her head on my chest. I'm surprised by such a tender move in front of all of our friends and family, and enclose her in my own embrace.
Angi finally pulls away and we move through the crowd to the doors, accepting hugs, kisses and handshakes as we go. I pause at the door and look back at the sea of faces, friends and family, old and new, who've joined us to bless our marriage: Naomi, Jared, Jim, Arthur and Marissa, Ken and Marla, and Simon surrounded by the Major Crimes gang, and finally Oscar and Elena Mercado. They're all raising their glasses in a salute and I slip through the open door before I can make a fool out of myself.
With Angeline at my side, I feel better than I've felt in quite awhile. It's been a long road, but we've made it. I can't help but wonder though, what our future holds for us.
I'd felt like I was fifteen again staring at Donna Emerson in math class. Donna was the type girl who wore her sweater just a bit too tight, whose makeup was always perfect, and her skirts always seemed to show off just enough thigh to have all the boys drooling. A hussy, Naomi would have said. But what a hussy.
Only Angeline had style, something Donna never had. And I never felt for Donna what I began to feel for Angeline in the weeks following that first meeting. Angeline was more than just a pretty face or sexy body and that was clear from the get-go. She had brains and more integrity than anyone I had ever met. She was a woman driven and that came through in her division as its sales surpassed any other cosmetic company in the region.
But I'll be honest. I loved Angeline's hair and the way it fell down her back, thick and shiny. I loved her perfect nose and her full, pouty lips. I loved kissing those lips and whispering sexy things into her perfectly shaped ears.
She's different now. She's still beautiful, but I have to remind myself, if just for a second, that this is my Angeline in my arms, or next to me in bed. I wonder as I watch her across the boardroom table if the others sitting around us need to be reminded as well.
Unless you know Angi, know the nightmare the last few years have been, you'd have a hard time guessing that this Angeline is not the Angeline I first fell in love with. The plastic surgeons gave Angi back her face, rebuilt her nose and lips and pieced together a working semblance of an ear. Her head is covered in hair again, thanks to hair plugs, although what was once a thick main is much thinner and far shorter than ever before-just long enough to fall gracefully over the ear that Angi hates the sight of. Despite the work of the doctors, it will never look completely natural.
I can't say that I fell out of love with Angeline, but with my insecurities and her insecurities, things were bad for a long time. She wouldn't let me see her, not even after the burns were beginning to heal. Her family flew in from Texas and some even came from Argentina to be with her. She let them all in-let them all see what the bomb had done. But not once had she asked for me.
I'd done what Jared had said. I sent her flowers and called her room, even stopping by every so often hoping that today would be the day she would relent and let me in. But that day never came. I finally couldn't stand it any longer. I didn't care what Jared said, or what Jim or Arthur tried to tell me-they all sang the same tune: leave her alone, she'll come around. But she wasn't coming around. So I ignored them all and crept into her room after her family had left for the night.
Angeline was not pleased. I was hoping that once I was there, once she had a chance to actually see me, be with me, that she would change her mind and let me stay. Instead, she made it clear that she didn't want me there, didn't need me there and ordered me to leave her alone. I still remember her biting words,
'I've had enough Blair. I can't carry you any longer. I don't have the strength to hold you up-not now. Find someone else because I won't be here anymore. Or better yet, try standing on your own two feet for a change. I'm tired. You've taken too much and I just can't do this again.'
To say I was surprised is an understatement. I was hurt and horrified by what she was saying. Not once had she ever hinted that she felt that way. Did she really feel like I was draining her? Is that how she saw me all this time? As some sort of parasite?
I hadn't felt pain like that since, well, since Jim turned his back on me all those years ago. The hurt was physical and I thought maybe I was dying it was so bad. I couldn't reply, couldn't tell her that she was wrong, that I loved her. I could barely breathe. I saw her hand reach out and her lips were still moving but I couldn't hear her words. The room began to gray and I knew I had to leave, get away from there-away from the woman I thought would be mine forever.
I was supposed to go back to work not long after that fateful day. Instead, I took to my bed, claiming headaches and pain in my back. I refused to get up, unless it was to use the bathroom. I refused visitors and yelled at Naomi when she came to visit. I told her I didn't want her there-didn't need her. And when I realized that I was saying to her what Angeline had said to me, I only felt worse and begged her to forgive me. I began to cry-something I had not been able to do after seeing Angeline. It should have been healing, but instead it fed my grief and I found myself unable to control it.
Soon, Jared was there, poking and prodding, taking my blood pressure and talking about taking me to the hospital for an MRI to be sure my brain was okay. Jim came and I think even Simon and Arthur were there once or twice. In the end, Jared began to feed me Paxil and Naomi brewed teas that she poured down my throat whether I wanted to drink them or not. They made me get out of bed, dressed me, fed me and made me begin to live again.
I hated them so much for that. It wasn't until weeks later, when I was thinking straight, that it occurred to me that Jared should have left long ago. When I asked about his job, Jared put me off with some vague answer about looking for a position closer to Washington. It was Naomi who told me that Jared had lost his job when he left again to be with us.
How could I screw up so much in such a short lifetime? I threw away ten years of school to chase a dream. I followed a man I thought was my Holy Grail into unknown lands only to be abandoned and accused of betrayal. I put my trust in friendships after all the times Naomi told me we could only trust each other. I fell in love with a woman who I thought loved me. But each time, I was proven wrong. Each time I was forced to pick up the shattered pieces and shake myself off, putting a grin on my face to let the world know that it was okay. It hadn't hurt. And now I was the reason another man had lost his dream.
But Jared hadn't blamed me. When I was finally able to get out of bed without someone there to wake me, when I could eat a meal and enjoy it, and smile at my company, I asked him. Why did he come if it meant losing his job? And he told me-because I needed him. It was all still too raw at the time, so I just nodded and swallowed my eggs past the lump that had grown in my throat and blinked back the tears.
Two months after my world shattered, the phone rang heralding the start of something new.
It had been Angeline but not. It was like speaking with a stranger you had shared just a few shallow details of your life with. It was a difficult call to get through. Angi apologized, said that she was afraid and tired and it was so much easier to just rely on her family. She hadn't meant to hurt me like she had-she just wanted to push me away. I said I understood and wished her luck in her recovery and said I'd be here if she needed, or wanted, to talk. I felt so numb talking to her, placating her. Like I wasn't me and she wasn't her. We were strangers in a way we'd never been. I thought that was it. I would never hear from her again.
Only, I did. Short calls, talking about the weather, or work-I'd finally gone back to Redwood. The calls grew more frequent and longer. She'd tell me stories about her family and how they were driving her nuts, and I'd tell her about mine. I finally worked up the nerve to ask about the surgeries and to my relief, and I think hers, she told me.
I became her confidante-a role I never thought I'd be in again. I was glad to be there for her, to listen to her as she described the pain she felt with each new cut of the scalpel. The fear she felt when she thought about her future and how she would have to face the 'real' world again soon. And the anger, finally the gut wrenching anger that just bubbled out and flowed like lava.
I listened but I never shared. It hurt to be afraid of the woman I had once loved, but I was. How could I ever confide in her again with her voice echoing in my head, accusing me of taking too much and draining her dry?
And finally, the day came when she wanted to see me. I thought I'd be able to do it, no problem. But when I tried to leave I found out different. I sat in the car for close to an hour, turning the ignition on, then off again. I finally climbed out and let myself back into the condo. I was afraid and guilty and restless, but I couldn't force myself back into the garage. I remember looking at my office, at the pile of work waiting there. I'd wandered into the rec room but nothing appealed to me. So I went upstairs, ignored the kitchen and climbed into bed. I watched the sun set over the water and felt the air chill around me. I ignored the phone's shrill sound as it rang again and again.
I didn't work up the nerve to call her for over two weeks. It dawned on me then that in all the time we'd been sharing phone conversations, that it had been Angi calling me. Not once had I called her. In those two weeks, I did a lot of thinking and confiding of my own. Only I turned to Jim as my confidante.
Since the bomb, Jim's been right there when I've needed him. It's like he realized that he'd been holding a part of himself back. I don't know what demons he killed but I was glad to have him at my side. He filled my time in the hospital with inane stories of the Major Crimes gang-stories that the others hadn't shared because they were the star stooges. He'd admitted that he had been afraid of getting too close again-of redeveloping an unhealthy codependent relationship. And I know that took a lot of guts for the man to admit. He is so not 'Mr. Feelings'. But I appreciated the effort.
He visited a lot once I was back home and I'd often found him doing things around the condo, like fixing leaky faucets or changing the oil on the car. But he didn't hover. He left that to Naomi. He was just . . . there. The biggest change though, was that he began to tell me things. Things he never willingly told me before. Like how, on William's birthday, he'd gone over to his dad's house with a gift and found his father having a large party he hadn't known about. How hurt he'd been when Steven answered the door. There was a time Jim never would have told me any of that.
So it was Jim to whom I turned. He listened and asked questions and in the end I knew why I was so reluctant to grow any closer to Angeline. She'd rejected me once and it was like the straw that broke the camel's back. I'd had so much rejection in such a short period of time. I'd thought I'd finally found someone who I could trust, after all I'd gone through. And I'd been wrong. I was afraid to try again.
But Jim, he hugged me tight and whispered in my ear how sorry he was that he was the one to make me so afraid to try. I was shocked. I know, and he knows that he threw me to the wolves, but to hear him admit it, admit that what he'd done was still so strong and damaging, well, I was stunned. But he also made me see that people deserved another chance-that Angeline deserved another chance, like Jim had been given. And he was right.
So, after two weeks, I did something I never thought I'd do again. I called Angeline. I apologized, and I confided in her this time. I told her what I was feeling, why I couldn't go to see her. I told her all of my fears. She cried and I cried, and we talked for a long time. And we both felt a difference now that we were both being honest.
No, I didn't go to see her right away. We began to call again-both she and I. And when I was ready, I finally went to see her.
I was shocked at how different she looked. There was still so much damage, so many scars. And the areas the surgeons had worked on had come out different than they'd once been. But this woman, with all of her scars, was the Angeline I had come to know in the past months. And I know that I was not the same man she had once loved.
But we talked and I told her about my back, and the shunt that would stay in my brain until it began to cause problems. I told her about the disabling headaches I still get and the occasional bouts of vertigo. I ran my fingers along her spine to demonstrate where my bones were fused with metal rods.
She told me about the surgeries she'd had and the ones yet to come. She let me touch her nose, feel her lips with my fingertips. I held her hands, both of them, and was grateful that she could still grip me back with her thumb. And after a while, she didn't look like an extra out of one of the "Night of the Living Dead" movies. She was beautiful.
I continued to visit and after awhile, her family stopped giving me the evil eye and started including me in their conversations. When they went for food, they made sure to bring enough back for me. And one day, her mother came in carrying a large box. A box that made Angi groan and cover her face.
The box was filled with photo albums and magazines, and even videotapes. I stayed for hours that night, watching Angi grow up on film. Her mother and father told stories and we laughed. Then, the remaining two aunts and Angi's cousin Manuela filled the time with pictures and stories of their life in Argentina. When I finally left, I was asleep on my feet, but had a ridiculous smile on my face. I also had a standing invitation to visit the family in Argentina.
It's a been a long and tiresome road, but we've made it.
Now, two years later, I can look back and remember without the bittersweet pang of sorrow. My Angi, the Angi I have married today, is so much more than the woman I met in that boardroom-more than the woman who finally let me share her pain. She is a survivor. She is strong and persistent and beautiful.
She is my wife.
A gentle squeeze on my hand brings me back to the present and I smile broadly before pulling the hand of my bride closer, until she is near enough to kiss. I love the feel of her lips on mine, so warm and soft. After a moment, she pulls away.
"Wow," she murmurs, touching her lips with her fingertips. "Wherever you just went, you need to go there more often."
I shake my head and lean in again, brushing a feather light kiss across her cheek, and whisper in her ear, "No, this is where I need to be. Right here, right now, with you."
Angi is blinking back tears as I pull away. "I love you Mr. Sandburg," she declares, somewhat huskily, her voice tight with emotion.
"And I love you, Mrs. Sandburg."
We sit and stare at each other for a minute before Angi begins to laugh. I join in and after a few minutes we begin to calm down.
"Senora Sandburg," Angi says, as though she's testing its flavor.
"Si, mi esposa," I reply, grinning. "Mrs. Sandburg. It's got a nice ring to it, if I do say so myself."
"Mi esposo," Angi says, sliding out of her chair and kneeling between my legs. Her dress flutters out around us, finally settling like a silk blanket to the floor. She grabs a small sandwich off the plate sitting in front of me and breaks off a small piece.
"We must eat," she declares before feeding me the small bite. I grin and suck on her fingers before she pulls them away.
"Eat now, play later," she scolds, biting into the remainder of the sandwich. I open my mouth to protest just as my stomach rumbles loudly and defiantly.
She smirks but says nothing as she retrieves more food off the plate. We eat in silence for awhile and as she feeds me small bites, I run my hand over her veil and down her back. She leans into the touch and I begin to massage her shoulders in earnest.
"Mmn," she moans. "That feels exquisite-don't stop."
It had been a long week without her and I'm relieved it's finally over. From the reaction I'm getting from Angeline, she feels the same. I'm a strong believer in tradition, but a week without seeing the love of my life was sheer torture!
My touches slow and my hands begin to remember the feel of Angeline beneath them. I'm aroused now and the way Angi moans as my fingers ghost over her dress tells me she is as well. We begin to kiss and I fumble with the pearl buttons on the back of her dress. I manage to get three undone before a sharp rap at the door signals that we have company.
Angi pulls away quickly but I grab her and pull her back into my arms.
"No, they will see!" she protests, giggling.
"My cufflink is caught!" I hiss back, making her giggle even harder.
Another tap on the door followed by, "You two decent in there?" Damn, it's Jared and that means Jim and probably Arthur are there as well.
"Um, just a minute!" I call back. I tug my hand and fumble to release my sleeve. I finally manage to free myself and hurry to redo the buttons on Angi's dress.
"Rapido!" she breathes, still giggling and now hiccuping as well.
I finish and any telltale signs of what we were doing have been erased. I stride to the door and unlock it, pulling it open. As I thought, my step-father and my best friends are waiting impatiently.
"Dinner's almost over," Arthur says pushing past me and sidling up to Angi. "The guests are restless." He takes her arm and guides her over to my side, slipping her hand onto my arm. Then, he gives us both a little shove and we're on our way back to the reception hall.
The evening passes in a blur of dancing guests, the murmur of blessings, and free flowing wine. The last dance of the evening is the tango and Angi glides into my arms effortlessly. I don't realize that the floor has been cleared until the music dwindles to an end and I look away from my love to see we are the center of attention.
My face flames and Angi moves closer, wrapping both arms around my waist and laying her head on my chest. I'm surprised by such a tender move in front of all of our friends and family, and enclose her in my own embrace.
Angi finally pulls away and we move through the crowd to the doors, accepting hugs, kisses and handshakes as we go. I pause at the door and look back at the sea of faces, friends and family, old and new, who've joined us to bless our marriage: Naomi, Jared, Jim, Arthur and Marissa, Ken and Marla, and Simon surrounded by the Major Crimes gang, and finally Oscar and Elena Mercado. They're all raising their glasses in a salute and I slip through the open door before I can make a fool out of myself.
With Angeline at my side, I feel better than I've felt in quite awhile. It's been a long road, but we've made it. I can't help but wonder though, what our future holds for us.