Chapter 34
Chapter Thirty-Four
Matteo
An hour later, I leave Lynn’s house and call Val to make sure the staff is okay without me. She sounds irritated that I’m questioning her again and tells me to leave her alone and take the rest of the day off.
For the first time since I opened Aria, I don’t argue.
The talk with Lynn settled something inside me. Like untying a knot.
As I drive back toward my apartment, I know there’s one more thing I need to do.
I guess this is what they call closure.
I drive out to the edge of town to a place I loathe.
The cemetery.
I wish I could say I’m one of those guys who has a standing date here or a folding chair tucked behind a big oak tree like Rocky Balboa at Adrian’s grave, but the truth is, I hate the reminder and the sadness and the emptiness of visiting this grave.
So many memories I’d rather avoid. So many “lasts” and so many “finals. ”
None of us were ready to say goodbye, but we didn’t get the choice. Our only choice was to grieve.
After talking with Aria’s mom, I see it a little differently now. Grief can only exist as a result of great love. You can’t have one without the other.
For the first time, pulling into this place, I don’t resent it.
I park the car, get out, and start walking. Lynn picked out the headstone because I was too much of a mess to make decisions. When I reach the grave, I brush a few dead leaves from the top of the headstone, letting my hand rest on the cool marble as I stare at her name. Aria Morgan—beloved wife and cherished daughter, fierce friend and lover of delicious food .
A knot ties itself at the base of my throat.
“Hey.” I look around, feeling awkward standing here talking to a piece of stone but also feeling like this is something I need to do. “Sorry I haven’t been around much.” I suck in a breath. “I hate it here.”
With the exception of the sound of a few cars in the distance, the cemetery is quiet.
Silent as the grave, I guess.
“I saw your mom,” I say, feeling a bit awkward, talking out loud. “She’s good. Misses you.” A pause. “We all miss you.”
I shove my hands into my pockets and look around. There are flowers on a few of the headstones, but I see no other signs of visitors. “I should’ve brought flowers,” I say quietly. Absently.
I kick at a pinecone on the ground. “I’ve been having a hard time moving on,” I say. “Your mom thinks I’m punishing myself just for, I don’t know . . . being alive, or something.”
I don’t want to feel any of this again.
How can I stand here, looking at her grave, and not remember every bit of it? The pain of being told she was gone. The pain of putting her in the ground. The pain of going home and realizing she’d never be back in my arms .
But even as I think through those painful memories, others come in right behind them. The joy of dreaming with her. Her goofy smile when I was being too serious. Riding in our car with the windows down—and her with her bare feet on the dash—on warm summer evenings. Trying new recipes. Feeding each other samples of pastries she was perfecting in our kitchen. Dreaming about our restaurant.
So much joy preceded all that pain.
And I erased all of it with a broad brush.
“We had some good times, didn’t we?” My eyes sting with hot tears. I don’t want to say what I’m saying, but I think I need to. Have to.
“Aria, I think . . . I think I have to get back to the land of the living.” I screw my eyes shut, and the tears fall. “But that might mean letting you go.”
I have a hard time getting the words out, but once I do, I close my eyes and think of Aria’s smile. “Man, I miss your smile.”
I open my eyes. “I miss you. And I will always love you, you know that. But . . .” I tap a fist on the top of the gravestone. “I met someone. She’s sort of great. She’s making me remember to love things again, bringing me back to life, I guess?”
I think of Iris, struck by how deep my feelings for her are and how strange it is that those feelings and my deep love for Aria can co-exist.
“You’d like her,” I say. “You’d probably get along really well. She’s funny, and she loves to laugh.” I kick at a rock. “I know you’re gone, and you’ve been gone. But part of me still feels like—” I kneel down and clear away a few more dead leaves. “Like I was always supposed to be yours. Like it’s wrong for me to imagine a life with someone else.”
There’s a chilly breeze, and I inhale the cool late-winter air .
“I guess I just needed to come here and tell you that I’m sorry. I’m sorry I don’t let myself think about you so much anymore. It hurts to imagine where our life would be if this hadn’t happened.” I shake my head. “I get so mad at how unfair this is, and I want to know why. If you’d left an hour earlier, or if I’d come and picked you up or . . .”
I go still.
“It’s stupid to ask questions I know don’t have answers.”
I force myself to feel everything I’m feeling right now. I’ve been hiding from my emotions long enough, and I’m finally starting to realize all the ways it’s been bad for me.
I kiss my fingers, then press them to the headstone.
“So, I’m going to live. And I’m going to do my best to be happy.” I stumble a little over the words, wanting them to be true but knowing it’s going to be a while before they are.
Not knowing what else to say, I turn to go. I start to walk, aware that my cheeks are wet, and when I’m almost back at the car, I whisper, “I’ll never forget you.”
I’m about to get in, to drive off and figure out a way to keep my new promise to live my life when, without warning, the sky opens up and it begins to snow. Big, fat flakes that instantly stick to the ground.
With one hand on the door handle, I turn back and look at the headstone, and I have to wonder if Aria would’ve believed in magic.
I drive back to my apartment, wishing I felt lighter having unloaded so much of the burden I’ve been carrying, but mostly I feel heavy from the sadness of letting myself feel things again.
I park in the garage and walk inside The Serendipity. Iris will be at work for a few more hours, but when she gets home, I’ll be waiting. It’s about time I’m the one to sit outside her door and put it all on the line.
While I still need to work through some things, I’m certain of her.
Of us.
I walk up the stairs and through the door to the third floor. I’m only a few steps in when I see something on the floor in front of my apartment.
There’s a rolled-up newspaper on my welcome mat.
I glance at the mat in front of Iris’s apartment—no newspaper.
Curiosity and worry simultaneously land in my stomach.
What is going on?
Why now, after all this time, would the newspaper land back at my door?
I pick up the paper, confused by the change and hoping for some logical explanation.
Yeah , I think, because this newspaper is always so logical.
I walk inside, drop my keys in the bowl on the table near the door, hang up my coat and take the paper into the kitchen. I turn it over and see that this newspaper, like all the others, is addressed to me.
Delivered to me and addressed to me. Just like they were before Iris came into my life.
I open the newspaper and lay it out on the counter, giving it a quick once-over, hoping whatever it is the magic wants from me, it’s obvious from the start. I don’t have the bandwidth to go searching right now.
I scan the first page, reading historical articles about the dorm’s first co-ed dance and engagement announcements for two girls who got engaged to twin brothers right here in this building.
I flip over to the second page—a rundown of a football game, an announcement for a new science center being built on campus and—my eyes zero in on a photo of Iris. My heart stops when I read the headline: Iris Ellington Will Meet Soulmate Tomorrow.
I react as if I were punched, stepping back, trying to unsee what I just read.
I lean in again, and there, clear as day, is the same headline.
Iris Ellington Will Meet Soulmate Tomorrow . Underneath is a photo of Iris, zoomed in on her face, looking over her shoulder at the camera.
She looks stunning.
In a sudden reaction, I grab the paper, ball it up, hard, and throw it across the room.
“ Will Meet, ” it read.
Future tense.
As in, “has not met yet.”
I turn a circle, hands on my head, and storm out of the kitchen and into my living room, pacing back and forth at the realization of this.
The whole idea that Iris was never meant for me is infuriating. All that agonizing, all the wondering, all that trying to do it right and make sure I can be the guy she deserves—all for nothing.
I hear the distant jangle of chimes, like they’re coming from outside.
I walk back into the kitchen and there, on the counter, is a rolled up newspaper.
I storm over to it, snatch it up from the counter, and am about to rip it in half when I feel it vibrate in my hand.
As it does, it flips out of my hand back onto the counter, where it opens and unfolds in a poof of golden shimmer, back to the same article—but this time, it’s a different photo of Iris. In this photo, she’s making a face and pointing down. This time, though, all the other articles disappear—leaving a paragraph underneath the headline that I didn’t read.
A pang of sadness hits me square in the chest. I could say it’s good that it’s her turn, that she deserves happiness, that maybe I’m just not ready to be who she needs, but I’d be lying. I don’t care about any of those things. And the thought of losing her—really losing her—only makes my feelings for her clearer. Like how flipping a coin reveals what you really want.
What I really want is Iris.
An inevitable apprehension seeps in as I read the words under the photo.
It’s been years in the making!
Tomorrow, at the Spring Brook Elementary Art Show, Iris Ellington will at last meet her soulmate! They will connect over a child’s painting of his favorite meal, even though the painting will be quite the mess.
Make sure Iris is near the appetizer table for this serendipitous encounter precisely at 6:05 p.m.
Your presence is required to make this happen.
My presence is required to make this happen.
My mind spins. Iris is going to meet her soulmate tomorrow night at the art show. The one I agreed to cater.
And that soulmate is not me.