25. Sweet And Simple Pleasures
SWEET AND SIMPLE PLEASURES
Dahlia
Once a week, someone drives up to Vallvidrera to visit Abuelo because he cannot be trusted to take care of himself.
He has a bad habit of firing the help behind our backs and once went through five nurses in six months.
The current nurse, Natalia, is a fellow American expat from New York and a sprightly young thing.
She’s saccharine sweet in a way that’s sincere and impossible to hate but prickly enough to defend herself when Abuelo gives her a hard time about taking his meds.
Seeing as how she’s lasted a whole year it’s safe to say she’s his favorite thus far.
I find him in the garden tending to his lilies.
He won’t forgo a suit even when plowing through the dirt but at least he left his jacket strewn across one of the garden chairs.
With the sleeves of his button down rolled up to his elbows and his suspenders resting snuggly on his shoulders, he kneels on the grass and uses a pair of gardening sheers to cut the stem of a white lily.
A few have gathered in the wicker basket beside him but he’ll need more if he’s making a bouquet.
“Bendición, Abuelo.”
I drop my purse on the garden table and he glances over his shoulder. Upon seeing me he smiles and attempts to get to his feet.
“Hola, tomatina,” I rush to his side and take hold of his arm. To disguise my attempt at helping him, I lean down to kiss his cheek in greeting. He doesn’t seem to notice. “I hadn’t realized…is today your day?”
He marks me with the sign of the cross and I smile at him. “I believe so. Unless there’s another gorgeous redhead in your life I don’t know about.”
He chuckles softly and removes his hat. Forever the gentleman, he refuses to let me pull out my own chair and the two of us sit at my favorite round table with the intricate ceramic tiling.
Natalia arrives just in time with a tray of coffee, sweet bread, and fruit with his medication on a small porcelain plate in the corner. I make sure he takes it first.
“Tell me,” he says as he stirs an exorbitant amount of sugar in his coffee. “How was the honeymoon?”
“It was beautiful. We started in Japan and were there for about ten days. We visited Tokyo, saw Mount Fuji, and then spent a few days in Kyoto before heading to South Korea.” I explain.
“After, we went to Thailand and then Singapore but I think my favorite place was the Philippines. There’s still so much to see but we were beginning to feel a little homesick. ”
“I can imagine. I know Lela missed you terribly.”
I hum in response. “Hmm…my little baby.”
“Her parents as well.”
My hand stills and I abandon my coffee stirring. “I’m sure they did.”
“I suppose last night was as much a surprise to you as it was to me.” He sighs and takes a sip of his drink. “Ay, esa Thumbelina. What are we going to do about her?”
Hesitation leaks into my voice. “Do you disapprove?”
“Of her divorce from my grandson, yes. Of Karina, no. Never.”
When Karina entered the fold and had Allegra, part of me worried at how Abuelo would react.
He’d always been kind but it took him a while to really warm up to me.
Since he met Karina, he’s treated her like he would Lettie or me, accepting her unconditionally.
Karina’s become more reclusive in recent years and so she’s naturally gravitated toward the family grump.
She and Abuelo have their own thing going on and his presence in her life has been a gift.
Especially since Karina no longer speaks to her mom and dad.
She was in desperate need of an older, parental figure to lean on.
“No los entiendo,” he shakes his head. “Ya están casados y tienen una hija—”
“Being married and having a daughter doesn’t change the fact they’re probably incompatible.
” I take a sip of my coffee. “I think this time we’re just going to have to let them make their own decisions.
If they haven’t found a way to make it work in four years then there’s nothing we can do about it. ”
Abuelo isn’t convinced but then again, he never is.
Allegra is our everything. She’s the sun in the universe of our lives and we all revolve around her, catering to the whims of one very sweet, rambunctious three-year-old.
But as much as we love her, it still doesn’t change the fact that she was unplanned.
She was born to two parents who didn’t know each other and had to figure out how to raise a child together.
Never mind the circumstances she was born into with Brent’s death, Karina’s precarious mental state, and the eventual move back to Barcelona.
Maybe in another world, Karina and Diego could’ve worked. I’m just not sure about this one.
Abuelo decides to change the subject. “And the business?”
“Regina and I went over some proposals the other day. There’s a property in Turkey she thinks we should add to the portfolio. Would you like to take a look?”
He lifts a hand and shakes his head. “No, no. I trust you. You’ve done very well with this new division.”
“The Enterprise specializes in luxury goods. We already ship them all over the world, it only makes sense to dip our toes into luxury property as well. The project is still in its very early stages,” I explain.
“But there’s so much potential in it. Acquiring and restoring architectural gems all over the world is no easy feat. ”
“Is there an end goal in mind?” He asks. “There’s no profit to be made if they’re bought and remain empty. No matter how beautiful they may be.”
“That’s the part I’ve been struggling with. Should they be turned into museums? Cultural centers?”
“Luxury homes?” He suggests but I’m already shaking my head.
“I hate the idea of putting all that work into restoring a property just to hand it over to someone else so it can become private.” I reply. “It doesn’t seem fair. I’d rather it be turned into something useful. A theater or a university. Or even a hotel—at least then people could enjoy it.”
“And the company will make a profit.”
“Is everything about profit?” I muse aloud. “Can nothing be for sweet and simple pleasures?”
Abuelo lifts a brow as he drinks his coffee. “I’m afraid old habits die hard.”
His voice lingers at the end as though he means to say more. I wait in silence for him to continue his train of thought.
“I…” He folds his hands in front of him and looks out unto the garden. “I don’t say it often but I’m very proud of you—of the work you’ve done.”
Unsure of how to react, I merely smile at the compliment though I’m not sure where it came from.
“After all these years it’s still very difficult to come to terms with this…this concept of having something for the sweet and simple pleasure of it. I’m a weathered old man and yet inside me lingers a little boy who fears being without.”
Abuelo has rarely, if ever, spoken of his childhood. At least with me. I sit straighter in my seat intent on listening as he shares a part of himself he keeps closely guarded.
“I am glad. That you and Alejandro will be able to enjoy life without having to fight to live it.”
His unexpected moment of vulnerability emboldens me to ask. “You know, I always wondered.”
He looks up from his folded hands to meet my gaze.
“Narvaez Enterprises made you a titan. You sat at the helm of a massive, powerful enterprise and yet your mentality, the way you see the world, is still so small. All your attention is focused on this one city when you have the rest of the world at your fingertips.”
“Because it wasn’t always this way.”
“But it is now. Has been for decades.” I say.
“Alejandro’s never even touched the corporate side of the Enterprise until now.
Don’t you find it strange? He’s set to inherit a company he doesn’t fully understand because he’s spent the majority of his adult life pouring all his energy into keeping control over a city you don’t even need.. ”
Abuelo remains pensive, his eyes revealing nothing. They’re bright and blue, not quite Diego’s, and not quite Allegra’s. Yet you can still tell they get their blue from him.
“Did my grandson ever tell you why I chose Barcelona?” he asks.
“Vaguely, many years ago.”
“My great-grandfather was born in 1862, the son of a baker and a seamstress. His name was Ildefons Narvaez Rovira but everyone called him Rovi.” He smiles fondly.
“When he was twenty years old, he bought a third-class ticket on board a Spanish steamship that would take him to Cádiz and later Puerto Rico.
From Puerto Rico, he sailed to Cartagena where he traveled wherever the work took him.
He spent five years wandering aimlessly through Colombia in search of a fortune he would never find.
He did, however, encounter my great-grandmother on a coffee plantation.
They married and he decided to stay but he always dreamed of coming back home.
“I never cared to hear stories about his golden childhood in Spain. To me it was a far-off place; a fantasy from my ailing Abuelo Rovi’s imagination.
I loved my life and had had a golden childhood of my own.
I was one of seven children, you know. The middle brother.
By the time I was thirteen, half my family was dead and I was responsible for a brother in a wheelchair and another brother and sister who were too young to write their own names.
So I fled to Barcelona where my father’s youngest sister was and where I knew my siblings and I would be safe. ”
“How did your parents die?”