Tris' last weeks in Albania were a whirlwind of wedding plans and other preparations for the future.
Roza came back from helping her niece adjust to life with a new baby, and was thrilled to learn of Tris and Tobias' engagement. Tobias asked the housekeeper to take Tris on an extensive tour of the house to find any changes or updates she wanted them to make before she came to live there permanently. Tris resisted. For one thing, the Eaton estate was already beautiful. Secondly, Tris had no interest in making more expense for Tobias or work for the staff. But Roza was eager, so Tris agreed to the walk through.
At Tris' insistence, they started in the kitchen. It was beautiful, but she knew that the most recent updates had been done by Marcus and the former housekeeper. She asked Roza what she liked about the space and what could be improved, then made notes. For the most part it was up-to-date and functional, but Roza offhandedly mentioned that the dishwasher was unreliable and she often had the cleaning girls hand wash the dishes. Tris added a new dishwasher to her list.
From the kitchen they went throuth the servants' wing of the house. The space behind the kitchen included a workroom and the home's laundry facility. Tris made note of little things that could be refreshed or improved upon to make the staff more comfortable or make their jobs easier. Upstairs in the servants' wing, Roza's apartment was cute and comfortable, but Tris noticed a few things that needed updating or refreshing. The empty apartment, hallways, and empty bedrooms and bathroom in the servants' wing desperately needed a fresh coat of paint, the wood floors needed to be refinished, and the rugs were worn, so Tris added those things to her notes.
The family section of the house had high ceilings, but the servants' wing had lower ceilings with a storage attic above them. Roza took Tris up to the attic, where she saw the stored belongings of three previous generations of Eatons - mostly art, rugs, and furniture. Tris spent an entire afternoon snooping under the drop cloths covering the furniture. She fell in love with a beautiful antique writing table with detailed wood inlay, and asked Tobias if she might add it to the left side of the fireplace in the master bedroom so she would have some workspace and an additional place to set things down.
Naturally, Tobias took Tris' request a step further. He had two of the groundskeeping employees bring the table and its matching chair down from the attic, and sent them out to be polished, repaired if needed, and to have the chair's seat reupholstered.
When Tris examined the suites in the family wing of the house, she found them all clean, though a bit stuffy from being closed up for several years. Tobias' old room was the most lived-in looking, with scuffs on the walls and wear to the floors. She added a fresh coat of paint, rug cleaning, and floor refinishing for that room to her list.
Evelyn's former suite was a surprise to Tris. According to Roza, the Eatons had never fully shared a bedroom. Marcus kept the master for himself, and his wife lived in the room beside it. A doorway between their dressing rooms kept the staff from knowing how frequently (or infrequently) the couple visited each other in their private rooms. After Evelyn's death, Marcus had all of her furniture moved to storage, her valuables sold, and her other possessions thrown out. He had the master bedroom's dressing room and bathroom enlarged, which made the second bedrooms' smaller, and got rid of the door between the spaces. Her room was repainted with stark white primer and left empty and half finished from that time on. The staff at the time had believed that Marcus was grieving and wanted the painful reminders of his beloved wife obliterated. Roza and Tobias saw Marcus as angry and callous.
Tris made no decisions or recommendations about Evelyn's room. Instead, she asked Tobias what he would like to do with it.
"I think we should leave it as it is," he said, "and in a few years maybe we can turn it into a nursery."
.
Tris was fascinated by the art in storage, but had no real idea what she was looking at in the dim space. She asked Tobias if it could all be brought down to the dining room for them to look at. He happily complied, since he had never seen most of it himself. On a rainy Monday in early August the grounds crew carried frame after frame, all original oil paintings, down to the dining room for Tris, Tobias, Tori, George, Amar, and Roza to examine.
When Tris looked at the collection covering every inch of the long dining room table as well as the walls, she was saddened. "All of this beautiful art - real, original paintings - just sitting in the attic," she said. "It should be in a museum or something where people can see it."
Tobias agreed. "I think we should consider the art all around the house, pick the things we want to surround ourselves with, and sell or loan out the other things. I know Tobias the second liked collecting art, but I don't see the point in having all of these beautiful things just so they can sit in an attic getting dusty."
"Um, guys?" Tori said, getting everyone's attention.
They all turned to look at the artist, who was staring at a drab, brown painting as tears ran down her face.
"Tori!" George and Tris exclaimed in unison.
Tori reached a shaking hand toward the canvas, but stopped herself before she touched it. Tris moved closer and saw a familiar signature on the canvas. "Oh my god," she breathed. "Tobias, you own a Van Gogh."
"Not just any Van Gogh," Tori said in a shaky voice. "This one has been lost for years. It's widely believed that it was destroyed."
The group gathered around the painting and stared at it in awe.
"What do we do?" Tobias finally asked.
"We have to tell someone," Tori said, still obviously stunned by her discovery.
"But who do you call?" George asked.
"I'll contact someone at the Van Gogh museum," Amar said, leaving the room.
The art sorting took on a new intensity after Tori's discovery. Each piece brought out of storage, and each piece hanging throughout the house was examined, and Tobias' friends helped the couple search the internet for information as they made an inventory. Amar made an appointment for an art appraiser from a London auction house to come to Albania and examine the collection. The Van Gogh museum agreed to send someone at the same time. Amar and George began searching the family's archives, stored in a vault off Tobias' home office, for any paperwork, receipts, or journal entries that explained how the paintings - especially the Van Gogh - came into the family's hands.
Tobias asked Tris for her opinion about the pieces from the attic and the artwork already on display throughout the house.
"Shouldn't we wait to see what we learn?" Tris asked.
"I own all of these paintings legally," Tobias said. "We are free to do what we want with them. I think the best thing to do is decide which works from the collection we want to display in our home. After that we can decide what to do with the others."
"They're all so beautiful, but I have an idea about the Van Gogh," Tris said timidly. "If it's really a long-lost Van Gogh original, there will be a lot of fuss about it in the art world, right?" Tobias and Tori nodded. "So if that's real, we should either donate or loan it to the national art museum in Tirana. It would be good publicity for the museum, and also for Albanian tourism. Art people from around the world would travel to see a found treasure like that, right?"
"I love that idea," Tobias said with a smile. "I think a temporary, but long-term loan would be the way to go. Once the hype fades we could bring it home, donate or sell it, or send it around the world in a traveling exhibit."
.
The next afternoon, Tris came across Amar in an upstairs hallway. Since she had a moment alone with Tobias' assistant, she nervously asked him for some help.
"I know we have ten months until the wedding," she said almost shyly. "I know that you, Tobias, and the wedding planners will take care of everything, but I don't... I don't know what to do about my dress. It… It's kind of a big deal, but this whole international wedding thing is complicated. I don't know what to do."
"If you were getting married back home, what would you do?" Amar asked.
"I guess my mom and I would go to a store, try things on, and pick something. It would probably need to be altered since I'm so short. I don't know. How would it work if Tobias was marrying someone more like him? A rich Albanian girl?"
"It wouldn't work," Amar said with a grin. "He would be miserable. You are uniquely perfect for him."
Tris blushed. "That's not what I was asking and you know it," she said. "How would the wedding dress work?"
Amar thought for a minute. "I hate to tell you this, but you're not looking for a wedding dress. You're looking for at least three."
Tris gasped. "What?" she asked. "Three wedding dresses! Why?"
"Well," Amar said as he thought through the days of a typical Albanian wedding, "probably four, actually. First you will need a dress for your arrival. That can be colored if you want. Bringing the bride home to the groom's family is actually part of the wedding week. Second, you will need a white cocktail dress for the groom's night celebration when everyone comes here to meet you and welcome you to the household and community. For your actual wedding day you will need the traditional white wedding gown. After the ceremony brides usually change during the reception party into something that's less elaborate, but still bridal and white - something they can move in. Things are a little unusual since you are coming from America, and also because Tobias has no family, but I think four should do. Maybe five if you count what you're wearing to leave for your honeymoon."
"Four or five," Tris repeated, and Amar could hear stress in her voice. "Amar, what am I going to do?" she asked, her voice breaking.
Amar opened his arms to Tris, and she collapsed into him, sobbing. He held the young woman in a fatherly embrace while she cried, and fired off a text to his boss behind her back.
A: Planifikimi i një martese nga ana tjetër e botës është stresuese. Tris është duke kaluar një kohë të vështirë me të, dhe ka filluar të qajë. Ne jemi në korridor jashtë dhomës suaj të gjumit tuaj.
(Planning a wedding on the other side of the world is stressful. Tris is having a hard time with it, and has started crying. We are in the hallway outside your bedroom.)
Seconds later, Tobias came running up the stairs. Amar passed Tris gently into her fiance's arms, and she began sobbing all over again, increasingly hysterical as she gave in and vented her feelings.
"I can't do this!" she cried. "I don't know how! I can't afford five wedding dresses - I can't even afford one wedding dress that's good enough for the event you'll be expected to have! How do I plan my wedding from the other side of the world? My parents can't afford such an elaborate wedding, and I don't even know the Albanian traditions! I'm going to embarass you and look like an ignorant American fool!"
Tobias scooped Tris into his arms and carried her to the master bedroom where he set her on the bed, laid down on his back beside her, and pulled her onto his chest. "First of all, Beatrice," Tobias said, emphasizing Tris' full name like a scolding parent, "I could never be embarrassed by you. I love you. Do you love me?"
"You know I do," Tris replied, snuggling closer for comfort.
"Do you trust me?" Tobias asked.
"With my life," Tris said.
"Do you want to marry me, share my life, and be each other's family?"
"I do," Tris said softly.
"Then from this moment on you are not a nervous, middle-class, American university student playing dress up. You are a member of this family, and the queen of this castle. Everything I have is yours, because I am yours and you are mine. I'm having Amar put money in your bank account. You can use it for anything you want or need. It's yours, because all of this is yours. You can afford pretty much anything you can imagine.
"Yes, planning a big, Albanian wedding from far away is going to be hard. I know that. But Amar has hired the best wedding planner in Tirana. Her name is Sasha, and she speaks English very well. She knows what to do. She knows all about the traditions, who to hire, and where to find things. You can talk to her about the plans. If she has questions about things like colors, or what kind of cake to get, or any of that, she will call you. Just relax and let her take care of it. It will be beautiful, I promise."
Tris nodded against Tobias' chest and sniffled. "But what about all those dresses?" she asked. "Where do I get the kind of dresses that are worthy of an Eaton's wedding?"
Tobias sighed. "I don't know," he admitted, "but Amar or Sasha will. Before you go back to Chicago, I think we should take you shopping for the main dress. The other clothes you need for the wedding week can be bought in Chicago with the money I'm putting in your bank account. I'm sure they have personal shoppers like the one we met in New York, and Amar and the wedding planner can give you help with that, too, if you don't know what you need. Okay?"
Tris nodded again, and snuggled into Tobias' side. "I'm sorry," she said quietly. "I just started thinking about going home, and I got so upset and overwhelmed. I'm going to miss you so much. Ten months feels like forever. And then I started thinking about the wedding, and especially how to deal with everything from that far away, and I just… fell apart."
Tobias kissed the top of Tris' head. "You know," he said almost smugly, "I think we are getting good at this relationship. We are both learning to talk to each other about our feelings, and how to accept love."
Tris giggled at Tobias' prideful tone, then suddenly sobered. "How are we going to stand being apart for a year?" she asked, her voice heavy with emotion.
Tobias turned onto his side to face Tris. "I don't know," he said, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. "This big bed is going to feel empty without you. But it's not a year, Zemra ime, it's ten months. And I promise we'll be together at Christmas, whether I go to you or you come to me. And spring break - I can fly over and pick up you and your friends for a few days in the sun. I'm coming for your graduation, too. A couple weeks after that you'll fly home to me, and we'll have the rest of our lives together."
"I love you, Tobias," Tris said.