10
Angela looked outside the small kitchen window and found Tony in his herb garden. He grew all kinds of herbs. Italian herbs such as basil, oregano, rosemary and thyme, but also basics like parsley, aneth, chives and chervil. He even had some Asian plants, curry leaves and Thai basil. It was the place around the house where he could relax best; working with his hands, letting the early summer sun warm his back, neglecting the worries and troubles of his life.
Angela went outside. She tapped Tony on the shoulder, "Honey, can I talk to you for a moment?"
"Sure, Sweetheart. What is it?"
"Would you mind leaving your herbs alone for a sec? I'd prefer to talk inside the house."
"No prob," Tony answered. He put the rake aside, took off his garden gloves and followed Angela into the kitchen.
"A cup of coffee and a brownie?" Angela asked, her voice an octave higher it usually was. A wave of nervousness had caused this silly displacement activity; they just had had a coffee and a brownie before Tony had gone outside about an hour ago.
"What's the matter, Angela? You seem a little tense." Tony looked at her sympathetically.
Angela was so nervous, she couldn't stand still. She couldn't keep her mind from traveling back to the day Tony had confided in her after he had spent the night with Kathleen. The kitchen definitely wasn't the right spot for what she was about to say.
"Can we go into the living room?"
"What's wrong with the kitchen? We did a lot of talking in here. We talked about the kids in here. When you lost your job at Wallace & McQuade you cried in my arms in here. Sitting at this table you listed up the pros and cons of marrying Geoffrey."
"I remember all these conversations, Tony, but there's one I'd rather forget and I can't get it off my mind, that's why I prefer the living room this time. Please?" Angela insisted although Tony had already taken a seat at the small kitchen table.
"Okay, if it's so important to you," he complied, but he didn't really comprehend what was bothering her.
They had had all kinds of conversations in this kitchen - good ones and painful ones. They had fought in this kitchen, and they had kissed in there. He had pleaded for a second chance in this kitchen. He connected both good as well not so good memories with this room, but then it suddenly struck him. He had also told her about Kathleen in this room. Angela's face, when she had asked him whether it was over, had been branded into his memory. Her fearful, beseeching eyes had been haunting him for ages, albeit less often during the past years. But every now and then, especially when Kathleen had once again interfered in their lives, he recognized the same sadness in her eyes. And the more she tried to hide it from him, the more sorry he was that he had brought them both in this intricate situation with his affair.
"Tony?" Angela pulled him out of his reverie. She was standing in the door frame, holding the swinging door open for him.
He looked up and was relieved that he didn't see any of the sad emotions in her eyes he had just been thinking about. But he realized that she was anxious and nervous, and if she needed to go into the living room for talking something away, he wouldn't oppose.
"Okay, here we are, Angela. What's on your mind, Honey?" Tony tried to get the conversation started.
"I've done a lot of thinking lately. And talking. To all kinds of people."
"Yeah?" Tony got a little tense himself now. He didn't know what to expect from this conversation. And if he was honest, he had had enough difficult and complicated talks lately. It was so exhausting to get back to the most painful time of his life over and over again.
"It made me realize something about myself," Angela went on, unaware of Tony's latent apprehension.
"And what would that be?" 'No more reasons for why she can't marry me,' Tony silently prayed.
"That I should be grateful for what I have, instead of whining about what I lack."
"Uh-huh, ..."
"See, I talked to Lynnie when you were at Kathleen's. As you can imagine, she had a few questions she was dying to get answers for. She told me what Sam and she had talked about. Jonathan and I talked on the phone yesterday. And of course, Mother wouldn't spare me her advice as well."
Angela intertwined her hands; she had something important to say and kneading her fingers had always helped her to work off her tension.
"All this talking made me realize that we have three wonderful children, Tony. They are all ours. They lived with us - or they still do -, we raised them, we told them everything about life, they come to us for advice. They are wonderful, and I love them. All three of them." After a short break and a deep inhale she continued, "My life is wonderful. My life with you is wonderful. Who tells me that it would've been any better if we had been given the time to have our own baby? Nobody, because nobody knows how life would've turned out if this or that had happened or hadn't happened. Maybe I wouldn't have conceived. Maybe I would've miscarried. Maybe our child would've been sick."
Until now Angela had been scurrying around the living room, her movements followed closely by Tony's pair of eyes. Now she stood still and looked him straight in the eye.
"What I'm trying to say is that life wouldn't necessarily be better than it is right now, it could also be blue and sad. I am very happy now, and I should enjoy it."
"Angela, does this mean by any chance that you are willing to rethink what you said about not being able to marry me?"
"I've done quite a bit rethinking recently."
"I see. Good. Have you come to a conclusion?"
"Yes."
"So you're done thinking - or rethinking - and have made a decision?"
"Yes, I have."
Tony threw Angela an asking look. He wasn't sure why she had become so taciturn all of a sudden. Was it a good sign or not? She was torturing him with being so vague. He couldn't tell whether she wanted to let him down gently or tried to raise his hopes. Both seemed possible at that point.
"Come on, Angela, throw me a bone! Don't let me starve here!" he begged.
"I love you Tony."
At least she spoke in full sentences now.
"Okay, no surprise here! Any reason for telling me just now?"
It seemed as if he had to tear every answer out of her.
"And I want to spend the rest of my life with you."
"Go ahead, Angela. You're on the right track," Tony encouraged her. He would've liked to grab her shoulders and shake everything out of her. 'She wants to marry you after all,' a voice screamed in his head, a voice he didn't dare to believe yet.
"Uhm," Angela cleared her throat.
"Do you want me to ask you again?" Tony said in his soothing voice, "I can kneel down if you want."
"No," she chuckled and shook her head, "there's no need for that."
"Sure?"
"Yes."
"So?"
"I ... I'll ask you."
"Ask me what?" He raised an eyebrow. His nerves were strained to the utmost.
Angela cast down her eyes and whispered, "Whether you still want to marry me."
The wrinkles on Tony's forehead slowly disappeared. He would've wished the voice in his head gave him a shout once more.
"What did you say?"
This time Angela looked at him, her eyes wide open and determined. "I want to be married to you, Tony. Marry me, please!"
He had been afraid that he had misunderstood the first time, because she had spoken so quietly, but now he was sure he had heard her right.
"Baby, you don't have to plead with me! Of course I'll marry you! If you want, we elope right away and return tonight as Mr. and Mrs. Micelli!" he joked but Angela didn't laugh. The matter was too serious and she had struggled too much with making the decision to be able to laugh about it.
"I've wanted to be your wife for as long as I can remember," she admitted.
"Since I first showed up at your doorstep?" Tony grinned. It was his way to cope with the situation which gave rise to joy on the one hand, but had come so out of the blue that he wasn't sure whether he could trust his feelings on the other.
"Well, maybe not since that early," she now smiled, but became very sincere right after, "but I guess I thought about it once in a while after you had accidentally told me you loved me the day of your appendectomy."
"Ey oh, Angela, I might've been drugged at the time, but I didn't say anything I didn't mean. I said it, and I meant it."
"And I meant what I said when I was sleep talking."
"Gee, we were truly masters of unspoken emotions! Remember that bartender who once told us we would make a great couple if we could only stay unconscious? If I think back now, I can't explain anymore why we were so reluctant to acknowledge our feelings. On the way we somehow forgot to fall in love. It seems as if we had become so used to smother our feelings for each other that we couldn't stop, ... until it was too late at some point." A heavy sigh escaped his throat. It still gave Tony physical pain to think back to the time everything had begun to go wrong. "If we had been a bit more forward from the start, we could've-"
"No!" Angela cut him off sharply, "no more what ifs, Tony! I'm sick of twisting and turning the past! It's no use! We only have this one life, and we try to live it right, to make the right decisions at the right time. And we both decided that it was too early for us, and we were right. It wasn't only about us, it was about us and ... our children. We did it for Samantha and Jonathan. Our family was sacred to us."
"It still is, Angela."
"Yes, it is, ... If there's one thing I regret, then it's that I allowed Kathleen to tear us apart for good. She made us break off our friendship, and I shouldn't have let that happen so easily. I should've fought harder for it. For you!"
"Actuallyyyyy, ..." Tony chewed his lower lip.
Angela furled her eyebrows. "Actually what?"
"Sometimes I think because she so badly tried to erase you from my memory, our marriage never had a real chance. If Kathleen had given me the freedom to keep you as my friend, I might've stayed in that marriage much longer, despite being unhappy in it - for Lynnie's sake."
"So you mean we have to thank her?"
"Not really!" He grinned, but then banished his ex-wife out of his mind instantly. He didn't want to think or talk about her right now, but about the woman who was standing in front of him. She was the object of his desire. She had started out as his boss, had become his friend, later his confidante and soul mate. After their friendship had come out of its artificial hibernation she had been his girlfriend, his life partner and lover. And it seemed that right now they were at the threshold to something new, something both had wished for and daydreamed of for a long time.
"You know what, Angela?"
"What?"
"You and I have been good together from the start. We became a family very soon after Sam and I had moved in, although we were total strangers, coming from different worlds."
"You realized earlier than I did, remember? When I lost my job at Wallace & McQuade and you tried to cheer me up with saying that we would get through it as a family."
"Of course I remember. It was the first time you let me have a look at your vulnerable soul."
"It was the first time you made me feel I could rely on you come rain or shine. As if we had been married back then already."
"I guess we were like a married couple all those years."
"You're right. The way you fought at my side to keep custody of Jonathan, ..."
"The way you wanted to give Samantha the best education with sending her to Montague, ..."
"They are our children."
"Yes, they are." Tony bit his tongue. He wasn't sure whether he should ask this particular question, but he needed to know. He couldn't start into this new life with her without knowing. "What about Lynnie?"
"What about her?"
"Do you feel like she's your daughter, too?" He held his breath.
"She's someone else's daughter."
"So you're having a more difficult relationship to her because Kathleen is her mother?"
"Not because Kathleen is Kathleen, but because she's so omnipresent. She plays a much more vital role in Lynnie's life than Michael ever had in Jonathan's. But I wouldn't call it difficult, it's just a different relationship to her than to the other two. I'm reminded that she's not my daughter every second weekend, when she's over at Kathleen's, and that's not so easy to cope with. But I love her, Tony! I love her just like I love Sam! She belongs to my life like the other two. She's a wonderful young woman!"
"Well, I have the feeling that Lynnie won't see her mother that often for the time being. Kathleen really screwed it up!"
"Maybe she finds her way back to her mother some day. I hope so, because I've seen how Jonathan suffered from lacking his father."
"I hope so, too. That was what I tried to explain to Kathleen the other day. I'm not sure she understood, but I think I made her contemplate at least. Life would be a lot easier for all of us, if she managed to concentrate on improving her relationship to her daughter instead of trying to harm ours." He took Angela in his arms and looked at her. "Which brings me back to our relationship."
"Yes?" Angela returned his look with an expression on her face so innocent and casual that for a split second he doubted that they had really talked about marriage a few moments ago.
"Are we facing a major shift here?" he asked.
"If you want to call it that," Angela answered. "I, on my part, don't see so many changes."
"Well, you'll have to accommodate to a new last name."
"Oh, ... right!" Angela's eyes sparkled as she played along. "That'll be a huge change! I'll have to get a new passport, I'll have to practice my signature, we'll have to change the name plate on the letter box, ... Oh my god!" She put a hand in front of her mouth, "Do I have to rename the Bower Agency in the end?"
"Aaangelaaa, don't make fun of me!"
Angela beamed at him. "I don't! I just feel so lighthearted! I've really been struggling with this, Tony, you know. But now that it's been spoken out, ... I simply know I'm doing the right thing. I love you, and I want to be married to you."
Tony gazed at her. He had waited for this particular moment for a long time, and he knew exactly what he wanted to happen next.
"Wait here, I'll be right back!"
With this he turned on the spot and scooted upstairs. He was away for too little a time for Angela to muse about what for, so as soon as she had realized that she was standing in the middle of the living-room all alone, he was back again.
"Close your eyes."
"What's this all about, Tony?" Angela had to chuckle, still in a playful mood.
"Close your eyes," he repeated, and when she had followed his orders with a girlish giggle, he drew something out of his pants pocket and held it out in front of her face. "You may open your eyes now," he then said.
Angela did as asked. When her eyes fell on the item in front of her face her jaw dropped and she almost forgot to breathe. The tomfoolery which had appropriated her mind just a few moments ago was gone from one second to the next. She was unable to utter a single word, she only stared at him with eyes so wide, he was afraid the eyeballs might fall out.
"You recognize it?"
"Of course I do," Angela managed to say. She took the item from his hand and looked at it. It was a filigree golden ring with a little sea blue chalcedony. The gemstone with an oval cushion cut was wrapped in a simple, unfussy setting. Slowly, only very slowly was Angela able to look away from the piece of jewelry and into Tony's eyes.
"Remember where you saw it first?" he asked.
"Sure. In Sicily, when we visited your uncle Aldo's winery. We were strolling through the little village and I spotted it in the window of this tiny, secluded antique shop. But the shop was closed and we left for New York the next morning," Angela said, still marveled by the fact that she was holding the ring she had fallen in love with so many years ago in her hand right now.
"When we returned to uncle Aldo's estate, I told Lucia about the ring. I left her some money, she went there the next day, bought it for me and sent it over. I have it in my keeping ever since. It's not really valuable though, it's not a truly antique piece."
"It's the most precious piece of jewelry I've ever got," Angela told him in a tearful voice. Her knees got wobbly upon hearing the ring's story. She took a few steps backwards and collapsed on the sofa's armrest, unable to take her eyes off the ring in her hand. "I can't believe you did this." Her voice could still hardly be heard. "I can't believe you bought this ring."
"I pictured it to look wonderful on your hand and I thought it was a perfect engagement ring."
"That was almost 20 years ago! And you were involved with Kathleen at the time."
"I didn't buy it for her, ..."
Angela bit her lower lip and swallowed hard. She stared at Tony, petrified. "You bought an engagement ring for me, although you were in a relationship with someone else?"
"You know that I never planned to marry her, Angela! I kept this ring together with your father's cuff-links in the back of my nightstand drawer when I was in that marriage. And whenever I felt that life was bleak I had a look at it, and it cheered me up. Somehow I knew that one day it would end up where it belonged. Do you want me to put it on your finger?"
Angela didn't answer him, but gave him the ring and held out her left hand. He took both, the ring as well as her trembling hand, and gently slipped the ring on her left ring finger. Then he pulled the hand up to his mouth and placed a tender kiss on it.
"I guess we're engaged now," Tony said with a smile.
"Uh-huh." Angela still wasn't able to speak in full sentences. She was too overwhelmed by what Tony had done without her knowledge all those years ago, so Tony decided to do the talking, "If you ask me, a kiss is definitely called for."
"Yes, definitely," Angela breathed with a nod.
They engaged in a kiss which started as a light butterfly kiss, their lips hardly touching, but it already threatened to throw Angela off balance. She held on to Tony for dear life, and when he breathed "I love you, Angela. I've always loved you" into her ear, she gave him an all-consuming kiss which made him forget time and place. Only when Tony's lips were swollen from Angela's fiery kisses, and Angela's sore from Tony's stubble, they stopped and pulled apart.
Tony squeezed Angela gently and asked, "So, do you want a big wedding or a small?"
"What do you want?"
"I asked you first!"
"Alright, ... I'd prefer a small wedding. Just the family and our closest friends. It's family this is all about, isn't it?"
"Finally, we'll be an official family; after almost 25 years of living as a family. Even when we were apart, there still was this familial bond. If not necessarily between us, it was there between Jonathan and Sam, and between Sam and you. We never lost contact, and I always knew that it was something worth fighting for. And the best is yet to come!"
"So, we were like a married couple from early on, huh? I guess we really were, well, just for the, ... uh, ... you know, ..." Tony said, stroking Angela's hair. She had put her head on his chest and inhaled his masculine scent. The four-poster bed, which Angela had slept in alone for so many years, was all rumpled, their heated bodies covered by the big duvet.
"Sex?"
He grinned a little embarrassed. "Yep! I'm glad we caught up on that!"
"So am I!" With her index finger she drew little circles around his nipples. "You know that I would've let you take me to bed in Jamaica, don't you? If you had made a move."
"Yes, I know. And I was tempted, believe me. That was hell of a kiss we shared on that bench!"
"It was the second time we spoke about marriage."
"I remember. Until and unless, ... My wording was a bit awkward."
"I understood what you were trying to say."
"You've always understood me."
"Do you remember when we first spoke about marriage?"
"Sure. At Paul's and Isabelle's wedding. When we walked down that aisle, as maid of honor and best man, I pictured us as bride and groom."
Angela smiled. "So did I."
"I know," Tony said with a boyish grin.
"How did you know?"
"It was written all over your face!"
"No, it was not!"
"It was, Angela. And I was spooked."
"Spooked?"
"We were in a solid employer-employee relationship back then. We had become friends, granted, but you were off-limits for me, your housekeeper!"
"Did you really think I was such a snob?"
"I know you weren't, that's why I was so spooked. It was always me who had more problems with the social conventions, not you! Imagining how people would talk about you, whispering 'she's dating the maid' in a condescending tone, made me want to throw up."
"Is that why you pushed me into Geoffrey's arms that night?"
"I guess so. But then I became so jealous, and when he threatened to take you away from me I had to intervene!"
"I'm glad you did, because it showed me that you indeed had feelings for me. I had doubted that already. But I wouldn't have married him anyway though, I knew myself that I wasn't into that relationship deeply enough to marry him."
"You hid that quite well."
"I'm a master of hiding my feelings."
"Not always."
"Like in Jamaica?"
"For example. The way you told me you wouldn't mind if I mowed lawn in Central Park took my breath away."
"I was only being honest."
"That's exactly what took my breath away."
"At that moment, I was so positive that we would end up being married."
"So was I! And I really can't explain why the things that happened afterwards did happen. Not up to this very day."
"It sure was a long journey."
"Long and rough and windy."
"How will it continue, what do you think?"
"It will be exciting and uplifting and full of love!"
With this he sat up, made her lean back, gently stroked her cheek, and kissed her.