Epilogue
Epilogue
One year later
“Y OU MEAN THEY WANT us to come back again already?” Ellie smiled, shaking her head. Her dark hair was loose and it fluffed around her face in a way that had Xavier staring, as always.
He blinked, trying to focus on the conversation at hand instead of his beautiful wife. “Apparently Joshua looks to have grown in the photos.”
At this, Ellie laughed properly. “We were there three weeks ago…”
“What can I say? My parents dote on Joshua.”
Ellie ran a hand over her swollen stomach, feeling the baby’s shape through the firmness of her pregnancy belly. “Yes, we couldn’t have asked for more loving grandparents.”
Xavier sipped his coffee, his eyes holding his wife’s over the rim of the coffee cup. “Even if my mother did her best to ruin my life.” He said the words mockingly, but Ellie’s cheeks flamed.
Despite Ellie’s insistence, Maria had confessed her role in things to Xavier shortly after they’d returned from their honeymoon. Beset by guilt, the older woman hadn’t been able to let it go. Fortunately, things between Xavier and Ellie had resolved so beautifully by then that he hadn’t been able to muster much enthusiasm to be angry about it.
He’d simply told his mother that she’d had no place to interfere, and that Ellie was his reason for living and in the future, Maria should do everything she could to support his wife.
And that had been the end of the matter, except for the occasional tease from Xavier.
“Yes, well, all that aside,” Ellie grinned across at him. At that moment, Joshua pitched himself into the lounge room, a grin on his cherubic face, his uniform so adorable.
“Janice says it’s time to go,” he chirruped, and Ellie nodded.
“Then you’d better come here to collect your cuddle, Master Salbatore,” she said, picking him up in her arms and kissing his head. When she placed him to the ground, he ran around the other side of the table (he rarely walked when there was space to hurricane through the house) and Xavier tousled his hair.
“We shall see you tonight?”
“Yes. Daddy, when are we going to see Abuela and Abuelo again?”
Xavier caught Ellie’s eyes over Joshua’s head, a smile crinkling his eyes.
“Do you ever suspect we are being conned, querida ?”
Ellie nodded. “Most definitely.”
“Well, then,” he placed Joshua back on the ground. “Off to school and your mother and I shall discuss another visit to Spain.”
“Yay!” Joshua ran from the room, as happy and confident as any little boy could ever be.
“Are you free for lunch?” Xavier prompted, reaching for the newspaper and flicking to the finance section.
“I should be. I’ve got class until eleven and then I need to speak to my lecturer about an assessment.”
Pride glowed in Xavier’s expression. From the moment Ellie had told him about her aspirations to finish her degree, he’d known he would help her find a way to do just that. But the hard work and study was all her.
“Have José bring you to my office and we’ll go from there.”
She hid a smile behind her tea cup. Her husband spoke in orders, but she wouldn’t have him any other way.
He was her perfect other half – her destiny.
Only towards the end of their lunch, Xavier was struck by a rare headache. He ignored it at first, but by the end, it speared through his brain like a drill, and then another, so that – worried and concerned, Ellie paid the bill and had José bring the car to the restaurant to take Xavier straight home.
It was the third such instance she’d witnessed, and she knew what to do. She helped him into bed and prepared a glass of water and some aspirin on the bedside table, and then she left him to sleep, checking on him every hour, making sure he hadn’t been ill.
But hours and hours later, after Joshua had returned from school, eaten dinner and been dispatched to Bedfordshire for the evening’s repose, Ellie went to check on Xavier and found him sitting up, propped against the pillows, a bemused expression on his face.
Concerned, Ellie closed the distance and pressed a hand to his forehead, but he caught it and squeezed her fingers in his. “You love strawberry ice cream,” he said thickly. “You think it is a food group, all on its own.”
She stared at him and then, as the significance of what he was saying came back to her, tears cloyed at her throat. She lifted a hand to her mouth and nodded. “Yes.”
“I went to see Les Miserables, and you were wearing your hair in a bun and I fell in love with you as soon as you looked at me. I called you Ellie and you slept with your head on my chest and when I left the hotel that day, Ellie, it was to fly to my parents and tell them about Arabella so that I could propose to you. Because I met the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with and nothing on earth could keep me from her…”
Ellie fell into the bed beside him, holding him tight, kissing him, whispering to him in Spanish, the phrases he’d taught her to express her love in his native tongue, and he kissed her back as the very last piece of their puzzle slid firmly into place.
“I remember you,” he groaned into her mouth. “All of you.”
She sobbed, because it was too utterly perfect.
Four months later, just after Joshua’s Christmas concert at school, the family of three was heading to their favourite Italian restaurant for dinner when Ellie’s waters broke and an intense contraction set upon her.
Already driving with his trademark confidence, Xavier sped up, cutting through the streets of London and finding his way to the hospital in record time.
“Have you called Arabella?” Ellie asked, as she gripped her stomach.
Xavier supported her with one arm and his other hand clutched Joshua’s.
“I texted when your waters broke. She’s on her way.”
Arabella, far from being a figure Ellie envied, had become one of her closest friends. It was hard to hate a woman who’d long ago stopped loving your husband, but who’d cared for him enough to marry him, just to stop him from hurting. And Arabella adored Joshua, and had taken on the post of honorary Aunt to him.
They arrived at the hospital in record time – heaven help anyone that got in their way! Xavier found a wheelchair and seated Ellie in it, despite her insistence that she was fine to walk. But as the elevator took her upwards, she had to admit she was grateful for the support. She’d heard that second babies could be born much faster than firsts and it felt like this one was rushing out of her.
“We need a doctor!” She called.
“Ellie! Xave!” Arabella was already in the maternity ward, and at the sight of them, she ran quickly through the hallway. “Are you okay?” She directed the question at Ellie but it was Joshua who answered.
“I’m great. I was a Wise Man.”
Arabella giggled. “I know. I’m sorry I missed it.”
“We’re fine. We just need to find a doctor,” Ellie said.
“This way!” Arabella gestured towards a central nursing station. And as they approached it, Ellie did a double take. The nurse’s hair was pink now, but it was unmistakably, unforgettably, the same nurse who’d helped her all those years ago, when Xavier had been injured.
“It’s you!” The nurse exclaimed. “And you!” Her eyes lifted to Xavier and then slid to Arabella and she blushed. “It’s the whole gang.”
Neither Arabella nor Xavier remembered the nurse and just then Ellie had a severe contraction that meant a walk down memory lane had to wait.
“This way,” the nurse said, her smile wide as she guided the trio of adults down the corridor, Joshua following obliviously in their wake. An enormous birthing suite awaited them, and a doctor was quickly called.
“I’ll take Josh home,” Arabella said, leaning down and pressing a kiss to Ellie’s forehead. “Good luck, mama. Call me as soon as you can.” She winked at Xavier then scooped Josh up. “Well, little man? Ice cream time?”
“No, Bella,” Xavier and Ellie called in unison but Bella pretended not to hear, winking exaggeratedly at her young friend instead.
And Ellie had bigger fish to fry.
The delivery was, indeed, fast, with their daughter arriving into the world in record time – before a doctor had even had a chance to arrive. Their nurse and a midwife oversaw everything.
“I expected a boy,” Ellie said with a smile, staring at their perfect child. “I had only boy names picked.”
“I have the perfect name for a daughter,” he said softly, stroking the little one’s thick black hair.
“Yes?”
“Elita,” he said, smiling at Ellie. “It means Chosen One. And she is - chosen by fate and destiny to join our little family.”
Ellie sighed. “It’s perfect.”
And then, the nurse returned, bringing with her a tray of food and a pot of tea. “Would you like me to take a photo?” The nurse offered, gesturing towards the three of them.
Ellie nodded, and held Xavier’s hand as the nurse snapped their first photo with their little girl. And then, tears in her eyes, she reached for the nurse’s hand. “Now one with you.”
The nurse grinned and nodded, calling for another staff member to take the picture.
“Thank you,” Ellie said earnestly.
“I’m just glad to see how well things worked out for you,” the nurse said.
“You and me both!” And when they were alone, Ellie explained, finally, the story to Xavier. He listened, enthralled, for he hadn’t known until that moment all the details of that day. His wife’s pain and perseverance, the love that had brought her to him. But then, another fragment of memories unlocked in his mind.
“I dreamed of your voice,” he said. “When I woke, I was sure that a mermaid had come from the sea to tell me to get well. I presumed it was an hallucination but now I know: it was you.”
Ellie sighed, her soul bursting with pleasure.
Three days later, they took their baby home, and three became four. Two years later, four became six, with the addition of twin girls, and finally, the Salbatore family was complete, and so bursting with love that no house on earth could easily contain them. Just as well then that they had several, and travelled between them as the fancy took them – living, loving and reveling in the life they’d made together.
And, like all star-destined beings, they lived exquisitely, deliriously happily ever after…
THE END