The main characters don't belong to me but to the creators of CSI NY tv series. But Maria Kostopoulos is totally mine! And Dr. Irene Samaras too.
Lily Moonlight helps me with the translation, as you know, and I'm very grateful for it.
I Can't Say Goodbye
Chapter 18
It was two o'clock in the morning when Mac Taylor finished talking to his mother. He was unaware of how much he had missed her until they had little times like this, when Millie told him off and hit him in the arm for punishment as he talked. In the end, however, she supported him, advised him and made clear her opinion.
"My son, in this story you've behaved like a real idiot", was Millie's first comment.
"Thanks, Mom, I love you, too"
"It's simply that you're useless in matters of love, Mac, you have to admit it. Stella has been there for you for over ten years and everyone realized it a long time ago... everyone but you. And it turns out you have to drink to finally decide yourself to... you know, complete a relationship. She must love you a lot for not telling you to go to hell that night."
"I know, I know. I'm not proud of it, but I never dared because I didn't know if Stella also felt something else, like me, or if "us" was just a great friendship that would be lost if I tried to take it to the next level"
"And you didn't even think to ask, genius? Believe me, sometimes it works"
"I know. Now I find it amazing having missed so much time, mostly because of my cowardice "
"That's my boy! Coward, but realistic and sincere. Son, what I'm asking myself now is: Why are you still here and not on your way to Athens to be with your wife and your daughter?"
"Mom, it's Thanksgiving, and I'm always with you."
"Honey, sometimes in life there are priorities. I'll give thanks to God for having made you finally see the light, but what you should do is travel to Greece and bring back Stella and my granddaughter as soon as possible. My God, my granddaughter! I will go completely crazy, I know, I'll be the craziest grandmother in the history of humanity, son, I wished it for so long... and I had almost lost hope. And a girl! Tomorrow I will go out to buy wool and I'm going to start knitting like a woman possessed... Or more like a grandmother possessed!"
"I've also come for the furniture, Mom... I think the rocking chair and the cradle are still in the attic, right?"
Millie stared at her son.
"Stella told you?"
"Told me what?
"That last year when you were here for Thanksgiving, I showed her the rocking chair and the cradle."
"No, she didn't say anything, I don't know why."
"Oh my God, what a pair... Well, I think she was a little moved seeing it. A week ago I was in the attic cleaning. My God, I left it as if it was going to be used again... That makes me wonder... I have powers, ha, ha! And you know what I found too? Charlie!"
"Charlie? I can't believe it!" Mac's face lit up. "Mom, I've been preparing the nursery, the room is already painted and waiting for the furniture... and I want my daughter to use the same that I had. What do you think? I came to prepare the shipment"
"I think that furniture was kept there for a purpose and it was this, son. Will you send Charlie too? It's perfect, he hasn't even been attacked by moths or anything... I'll put him in the cradle for safety... Mac, you need a new mattress, though." She paused and thought for a moment, before her eyes lit up. "Tomorrow we'll buy it, then we'll pack everything and call a shipping firm. As soon as that's done, you'll look for a ticket toAthensand go and bring them back home"
"Tell me, Mom... About showing Stella the cradle... Was it by chance or you had Machiavellianly planned it?"
Mac looked a bit suspicious when he asked this to his mother. Millie looked away and coughed a little.
"Well, let's say... half and half. It is true that I had to go to the attic to get something, and I invited Stella to come with me so she'd know the whole house. Then when we were there, I thought she'd like to see your baby stuff. And of course she liked it. Honestly, I thought that someday it could be used when you both decide to start a family. What I didn't expect was that it was to happen already next year. And above all I thought it would be in, let's say... a more conventional way. A marriage proposal, a wedding, and after that, the baby. But son, you did it by starting at the end! By the way, do you already have the ring? Because I hope that by the time you see Stella again it will be the first thing you do."
"No, I haven't bought the ring yet. It's another matter I have to solve tomorrow"
"Mac, if you don't mind... Would you like to give Stella my engagement ring? I would really like her to have it. It's the ring your father gave to me and before your grandfather had given it to your grandmother. It's beautiful, do you remember it?"
"Mom, but you..."
"I will be happy if you give it to Stella. When you married Claire it was so fast and you did it your way that I didn't want to intrude, but Stella... She's special to me, you know? She is so helpless, I don't want to think what her childhood was like, growing and becoming a woman on her own. Claire had her mother and all her family at the wedding, however Stella has no one, so I want her to take something of mine, something of the family. I want her to feel she belongs somewhere, to people who love her and will never let her down"
Mac leaned over to hug and kiss his mother
"You're great, Mom, you're the best."
"I know, I know. Mac, and I'll tell you another thing. By the time you see Stella, I don't want a single reproach coming out of your mouth, nothing that makes her feel guilty for not having told you about the pregnancy and all that stuff. She will feel bad enough, and sufficiently concerned, wondering what she will tell you, to make her feel worse. She didn't tell you because she couldn't, okay? I wouldn't have known what to do in her case, discovering she's pregnant when she's thousands of miles away and without the possibility of returning for a long time... Swear you won't throw anything back in her face."
"If that's what you want, then I swear I won't. But I didn't think about doing that anyway, Mom. I can't deny that at first I felt bad for her not telling me about the baby, when in each message she says she loves me... But she said in the first one that she had something important to tell me, but she wanted to do it looking into my eyes."
Millie sighed, and yawned suddenly, lack of sleep catching up with her.
"Well, son, let's leave our soap opera for the night, I'm exhausted. Tomorrow we have many things to do. I'm going to bed."
Mac suddenly remembered that he had made a copy for his mother of his daughter's ultrasound image. He reached into his jacket pocket
"Take this with you." Millie reached out, puzzled, and when she saw it, her mouth opened in astonishment.
"Is it? Is it?..."
"Baby Taylor in person, or almost-person. Don't you think she looks like me? Or like you, in fact, I've always been told that I looked like you."
Millie was lost for words looking at the little round-faced little thing. At last she could articulate a sentence
"She's my granddaughter... I actually have a granddaughter! She's beautiful, son, really beautiful! "She kissed her son on the cheek, stroking the other, and went to her bedroom while gazing at the image in her hands. Now it was totally real, tangible. She had a granddaughter.
Mac went to his room, but his mind was too active to sleep. He went to the attic, trying not to make any noise. In the corner near the door, covered with clean white sheets, were the things that tomorrow morning he would pack and send toNew York. He lifted the sheet covering the cradle and his face lit up.
"Charlie, my friend! Long time no see!" Mac bent down to hug the neck of his childhood's first major friend, his rocking horse. He passed his hand across the horse's back, as polished and smooth as he remembered. The colours remaining alive, with the saddle painted in bright red and gold. How had he ridden Charlie in his imagination through meadows filled with buffalos, Indians, soldiers... As he grew older and his legs instead of hanging just dragged, his new interest in cars and speed had shifted Charlie mercilessly from his throne of favorite toy. "But now, my friend," Mac thought "A new golden age is waiting for you."
The first direct flight from Chicago to Athens departed on Tuesday evening, local time, arriving in Athens late Wednesday afternoon, by the time difference. The day before Thanksgiving. Mac couldn't prepare a scene and a dialogue to serve him as a pattern of behavior because he knew nothing of what would happen and what would be Stella's reaction on seeing him. He couldn't even foresee his own reaction when he saw her, with that marvelous transformation in her body because of the small life that both had created. In the party's pictures he had seen, he had thought she was more beautiful than ever, but who knew how both would finally react.
On Monday, the furniture had been sent and on Tuesday afternoon, before leaving for the airport, Mac called his doorman to ask if it had arrived. The man told him it was already unpacked and placed in the pink room, as they had agreed. His wife had placed the cradle's clothes as he had indicated, and the cushions on the rocking chair. Everything was lovely. They had also placed the little horse in the middle of the room.
Mac had lived through such great emotional turmoil, and had had so little sleep that during the trip he finally succumbed to exhaustion and slept for hours, which greatly refreshed him. When he arrived, at last, at Athens, he was rested and felt a happy man. While waiting to pick up his luggage, he was comforted when he passed his hand over the slight bulge that the box with the ring formed on the inside pocket of his jacket. What would Stella's face look like when he offered it? He couldn't wait any longer...
To be continued...