Chapter 38 Charlotte
Charlotte
We entered the Sistine Chapel with a throng of tourists through the labyrinthine Vatican Museums. I took a breath as I stepped over the threshold into the cool air of the sacred space.
Vibrant frescoes covered every inch. A faint odor hung in the air—something musty like the most treasured books in Dad’s library.
A backpack brushed against my shoulder, and a tall woman elbowed me as she shuffled past. I tried to edge forward, but I could barely move against the crowd.
Everyone stood staring up at the famous ceiling, transfixed.
I craned my head to look. I’d seen this place in textbooks, and built it up as something in my head, and now, here I stood.
Someone pushed past me again, and Cole gave them a fearsome look. “Watch where you’re going.”
I touched his arm. “It’s fine. It’s busy.”
A guard’s voice sliced through the chaos. “Shh. Quiet, please.”
Cole threw a disdainful look at the entrance. “The guard’s the one making all the noise.”
I turned as best I could, scanning the intricate biblical scenes. Hard to see anything above the sea of heads.
A body pressed against me, forcing me to step closer to Cole. I whispered in his ear, “Michelangelo painted all of this alone. He couldn’t find an assistant he was satisfied with so he did it all by himself. If you want to get a job done, do it yourself, right?”
He raised an amused eyebrow. “I’ve never found the sixteenth century more relatable.”
Another elbow landed in my back, and I was moving forward even though I didn’t want to. I reached for Cole’s hand, but he slipped out of sight. He found me again a moment later. Too busy. Too many people.
“We should go,” I said. “Maybe come back later.”
Cole peered down at me. “Are you OK? You don’t look happy.”
This wasn’t how I wanted it to be. I shouldn’t have come. It was better in my imagination. “I don’t like how crowded it is.”
The guard’s annoying voice sliced the air again. “Shh. Quiet, please. Stop talking.”
“This is ridiculous.” Cole wrinkled his nose. He took me by the shoulders. “Wait here.”
“Where are you . . . ?”
He was gone before I could finish, cutting his way through the horde of tourists back the way we’d come.
I craned my neck to the ceiling again, only to get shuffled forward.
Never mind. Sometimes things just didn’t live up to your expectations.
Maybe I’d known it never could. That’s why I hadn’t come here on the first day.
Cole returned. He cupped my face and stroked my cheeks with his thumbs.
“It’s OK. It’s going to be better in a minute,” he said.
The guard’s voice reverberated through the space again. “Everybody move out, please. Keep moving forward.”
I shot Cole a look. “Time to go?”
He glanced at his watch. “Not us. We’ve got five minutes.”
Bodies filtered around us to the exit. “What do you mean?”
“We’ve got five minutes in here after the crowd clears out before the guard lets anyone else in. Needless to say, I also asked the guard if he’d be so kind as to shut the fuck up.”
The realization dawned on me. It was too crazy to be true. “How much?”
He ran his thumb around his lips, but said nothing.
“You bribed the guard. How much? How is that even possible?”
“‘Bribe’ is an ugly word.” Cole glanced at his watch again.
“We struck a deal on favorable terms. Don’t think about it.
Just enjoy it while it lasts. I’m only sorry I couldn’t get you longer, but then I’d have to bribe the pope, and I imagine he’s a more upstanding kind of bloke.
At least, that’s what it claims on Wikipedia. ”
I watched the last person leave and turned back to Cole in shock. “I can’t believe you pulled this off.”
He pressed a kiss on my temple. “Savor it. It’s all yours.”
With no people, the space was vast and soaring.
The tight feeling of compression around my lungs eased off.
Ditching my backpack on the floor, I dropped to my knees and lay on my back.
Cold marble kissed the length of my spine, and I pressed my palms flat at my sides, drinking in the images I’d been obsessed with as a child.
My heart pounded in the stillness. There was so much life in the frescoes.
Everything was in motion. A fizzy energy buzzed inside of me. The beauty hit me like a freight train.
I was a little girl in the woods. Cole sat on a mossy rock next to our bikes, cross-legged, watching me.
Sunlight pierced the canopy and splayed light over my easel.
A carpet of bluebells sprang from the earth, and the colors and shapes held me transfixed.
My paintbrush moved across the white page in confident violet strokes.
And I had the deepest sense that I was exactly where I was supposed to be, doing exactly what I’d been born to do.
Cole’s finger touched mine, sparking me to life, bringing me back to myself.
A lightness and warmth like I’d never known filled me.
My face was wet with tears. I couldn’t speak.
I could barely breathe. He turned his face toward me.
I couldn’t judge his expression, because I couldn’t tear my gaze away from the ceiling.
I stared up at the almost-touching fingertips of God and Adam. The moment before creation.
A quiet revelation wrapped around my heart.
In among the duty and responsibility of caring so deeply for someone else, my life had become small.
I didn’t begrudge that. I’d wanted to be with my dad when he needed me.
It had mattered. But I had to figure out what came next.
I missed Dad so terribly, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t try and open my arms to the world, to create, to laugh, to travel, to have adventures. To work on making my life . . . bigger.
Another tear slipped down my cheek. “It’s amazing . . .” I opened my mouth and closed it again. “I hoped it would be.”
Cole wrapped his fingers around my hand. His whisper was low in my ear. “Is it wrong that you’re probably lying here having a profound experience, and I’m thinking about all the dirty things I’d like to do to you in here? I don’t know how much I’d have to pay the guard to turn the other way.”
I whacked him lightly on the arm. My laughter echoed around the cavernous space. “Yes. It’s very wrong. You’re a sex maniac. It’s a chapel. Look at the ceiling. Behold the enduring greatness. Stop thinking with your dick. There’s no way we’re fucking in here.”
“Spoilsport.” He squeezed my hand. “The problem is it doesn’t matter what’s in a room, all I ever want to look at is you.”
I turned my head to gaze at him. His eyes locked with mine, and I couldn’t tear myself away, not even to the ceiling. Behold the enduring greatness. Stop thinking with your heart. Your poor, stupid heart. Footsteps and chatter brought me back to my senses. Tourists began to swarm in again.
The guard’s voice rang out. “Shh. Quiet, please.”
Cole sighed. “Looks like our five minutes is up.”
“I can’t believe you did that for me.”
He stood and offered me his hand. Pulling me to my feet, he gave me a relaxed smile. “I told you, Mrs. Ackroyd. You marry me, I make your life better.”