| |
One Year Later
~<>~
––––––––
MY DEAREST DELANEY,
Although it’s been many years since you were little and we spoke of hopes and dreams and the future over mugs of hot chocolate, I’m certain you’ll remember the magic heartwish ring enclosed here.
When you were a child, I promised one day, when the time was right, it would be yours. It is the most precious possession I own. More valuable than any amount of money. This ring, with its mystic stone, has been passed down through our family for generations. It must be held against the heart when making a sincere heartwish. Place it on your finger. It will remain there until it is time to pass it on. You will know the right time...and who should receive it.
Each owner of the ring may use it only once. Though your mind may be cluttered and uncertain, your heart will know the right wish to make. Always trust your heart, my dear.
You’ve suffered great heartache, but I trust you haven’t lost your faith in the power of love and magic, for it is indeed real. Believe me, Delaney, I know. You must believe that one day your true love, Varik the Bold, will come to you. He will. I guarantee it.
As you’ll see in the enclosed copy of my will, I have divided my estate between you, your sisters and brothers, and your mother, my dear daughter. This box also includes some of my favorite possessions—things I know you will treasure and pass down to your children one day.
It saddens me that the arrival of my letter and package will make you cry. Please do not mourn, for though I am gone from you in body, my spirit lives on. Know that it makes my heart glad to be reunited with my darling husband, Jamie. I promise you, my sweet little Delaney, we shall all meet again one day in the great majestic halls of Valhalla.
Jeg elsker deg, now and forever,
Grandma Bekka
~ ~ ~
Delaney read the letter aloud for the third time, erupting in a new wave of thunderous sobs. Sent from Glassfloat Bay, the letter arrived with a large package a few days before her birthday—the second birthday in a row she’d spend alone and grieving.
“Jeg elsker deg,” she repeated, tracing the words with her finger. “I love you too, Grandma. Now and forever.” She kissed her fingertip, touching it to the paper.
The loving words she’d just read stood in direct contrast to the coldness of Roger’s self-serving exodus letter a year earlier. His words had jolted her with the swiftness and potency of a stomach punch. Delaney heard he and his perky young graduate student were married right after the divorce was final.
As terrible and startling as being blindsided by her cheating rat bastard husband had been, the blow was minor, truly insignificant, compared to losing her beloved grandmother.
Delaney’s hurt and heartache a year ago were greatly soothed by the unanticipated arrival of sweet Grandma Bekka only a week after the phone conversation when she’d learned Roger had dumped her. The aging woman had flown in from Oregon, alone, just for Delaney. Bekka said there was no way she’d let her granddaughter go through such a difficult time without her.
The two weeks they spent together were filled with love, joy and laughter. Delaney gave Bekka her bedroom and Delaney slept on the small sofa bed in the spare bedroom. She’d converted the sterile study, once Roger’s domain, into an inviting writing space for herself.
Living less than twenty minutes from Delaney, Astrid stopped by after work each day so the three of them could share dinner together. Not one to sit idle, Bekka made herself busy each day making delicious meals and scrumptious desserts like her delicious pepperkaker.
Delaney couldn’t remember feeling so spoiled.
Innumerable calories aside, she loved having her small kitchen redolent with tantalizing aromas and abundant laughter, something sorely missing during The Roger Years, as she now thought of her marriage.
Lovingly fingering her grandmother’s handwritten letter, Delaney gave a weepy smile. “You didn’t die because you were old,” she said, “you died because you missed Grandpa Jamie and wanted to join him...in Valhalla.” Delaney had never met her grandfather. And Astrid had never met her father. Jamie Eriksen died before Astrid was born. Bekka remained devoted to him the rest of her life, certain they’d be reunited one day.
One thing that gave Delaney comfort about her grandma’s passing is that it happened while Astrid was in Oregon visiting. It was almost as if Bekka knew, and waited for Astrid, her only child, to be there with her.
Delaney’s mom and grandma called her while enjoying scones and cocoa at Griffin’s Café. She enjoyed listening to Astrid wax poetic about Glassfloat Bay, and to Bekka’s continued urgings for them both to move out there. It sounded like a perfect final visit for mother and daughter to share—which is exactly how Astrid said she felt about it.
The package from the executor of Rebekka Eriksen’s estate arrived addressed to Ms. Delaney Malone, which made Delaney smile. She was happy she’d followed her grandmother’s suggestion to drop the Kullerton name during the divorce and return to her maiden name. Best decision ever.
The executor’s document advised Delaney that she, her siblings and their mother had inherited Bekka’s house in the coastal town of Glassfloat Bay, Oregon, as well as Bekka’s log home in Lillehammer, Norway.
Tucked in the box were two softball-sized glass balls, one in turquoise and the other cobalt blue. The attached note explained the clear, hollow balls were glass fishing floats from Norway that Bekka discovered while strolling along the coastline. Most of her collection was from Japan’s deep sea fishing industry. Some still had fishnet secured around them. The number of floats found in the area gave the town of Glassfloat Bay its name.
“These are just a few of the special treasures you’ll find in your new Oregon home,” another handwritten note from Bekka explained.
Delaney lifted a small box from the package, opening it to find the heartwish ring. She absently traced the band’s metal scrollwork as she studied it. The sturdy jewelry was slightly more masculine than feminine in design. In the center sat a lustrous, dark-hued opalescent stone. How she’d adored that ring as a little girl. Bekka told her she’d love to let Delaney try it on but the ring wouldn’t budge from her finger until it was time for Delaney to own it.
“I’ll never forget, Grandma,” she whispered. “I’ll always remember you and your grand, romantic accounts of love and fairytale-like happily-ever-afters.”
Delaney recalled listening to her grandmother with rapt attention. The woman was a born storyteller, enjoying the way Delaney gobbled up legends of enchantment and tales of strong, handsome Vikings. Delaney loved when Bekka held up her fingers, wiggling them so the stone shone as she spoke of Norse folklore. Family legend said the magical heartwish ring had been given to the matriarch of a Viking king by Odin, the most powerful of Norse gods.
The stone’s asymmetrical shape made it appear as if it had once been a larger stone that had broken in half. Though still visible and slightly rough to the touch, the stone’s uneven edge had smoothed with time.
Spellbound as her grandmother turned her hand to and fro, Delaney listened to Bekka’s conspirator’s whisper, “Odin broke the enchanted stone in half, dividing it between two deserving families. There is just one other heartwish stone ring in existence, Delaney...the matching half to this one.”
As she held the ring now, Delaney’s smile was wistful. “Oh how I loved hearing your fanciful tales, Grandma. Little did I know they were make-believe.” She couldn’t help the ruminating sigh that escaped. “My dear, whimsical grandma, you may have been naïve enough to believe in myths, magic rings, Norse gods and the rest of that paranormal gibberish, but I know better.”
A single fat tear coursed down her cheek.
“I know firsthand that life is hard and fairytales, just like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, are meant for wide-eyed children.”
Brushing away the tear, she turned her attention to an envelope in the package. It held a long braided lock of hair along with her grandma’s photograph. Delaney fondly recalled the ever-present plaited coil of white-blonde hair affixed to the top of Bekka’s head. As a child she’d wished she could have flaxen locks like her mother and grandmother instead of her stark black hair.
While Delaney had the tall, large-boned, full-bodied physique of her mother’s Scandinavian side of the family, she got the black hair and midnight-blue eyes from her father’s side. The Black Irish, her dad called it. Both sides shared the pale, easily sunburned skin.
Her fingertip lightly outlined her grandmother’s features. The photograph so perfectly captured Bekka’s kind, pale blue eyes...eyes that seemed to hold the secrets and wisdom of the ages. Bekka would instruct Delaney to look deep into her eyes, promising that if she gazed hard enough, she would see her true love.
Focusing all her concentration on Bekka’s eyes, Delaney would squint, convinced she saw a Viking.
“What does he look like? Is it Erik the Red?” Grandma Bekka asked. “Or perhaps his son, Leif Eriksson? Maybe Harald Hardrada, or Olaf Tryggvason?”
“He’s tall and handsome, Grandma, with long, golden hair, lots of muscles and a sword and shield.”
Smiling, Bekka squeezed her granddaughter’s hands. “It sounds like Varik the Bold,” she offered, evoking the name from one of her stirring Viking tales. “The one who looks like Thor.”
“Varik.” Delaney gave an affirmative nod. “He’s my favorite. The Viking who feared no man or beast.”
“Now take another look in my eyes. Concentrate. Think of nothing but Varik, your Viking.”
Delaney focused with as much intensity as she could muster, fidgeting with impatience until the image of Varik the Bold appeared.
Bekka covered her ring with Delaney’s small hand. The stone glowed as it grew warm—clearly an impossibility drummed up by Delaney’s childish imaginings. “Memorize every detail,” Grandma Bekka instructed, “his face, his eyes, his hair, his smile, his bold warrior’s body.”
As if gazing at a photograph, Delaney concentrated, committing everything about Varik the Bold to memory.
“Keep his picture in your mind and heart always. Think of him often, dream of him at night. He will come to claim you as his own one day.”
“Will he, Grandma? Really?”
A reassuring smile lit Bekka’s eyes. “Ja, ja...he will for sure. I know it.”
It was the grandest, most romantic dream a little girl could savor. Gullible little Delaney Malone had convinced herself that she’d spied her true love in her grandmother’s eyes. Bekka’s suggestions were powerful because Delaney dreamed of her Viking often while growing up. As an adult, the dreams took on a more sensual nature. While she loved dreaming of Varik the Bold, it was frustrating because the dreams always fizzled out before they reached an ending.
It didn’t matter though—the handsome Viking was nothing but a figment of her overactive imagination anyway.
Perhaps if she’d envisioned someone more realistic than a strapping golden-haired hunk wrapped in reindeer hides, wearing a horned helmet and brandishing a sword and shield, she might have had better success realizing her dreams.
Perhaps if she’d pictured a brainy, lackluster guy in baggy slacks, his thinning hair gathered in a ponytail, carrying a leather briefcase, and pushing slipping spectacles up the bridge of his nose...
Oh wait...that was Roger...who turned out to be more of a nightmare than a dreamboat.
Delaney imagined there must be a happy medium between the two diverse image choices, but it was irrelevant because she’d given up any expectation of finding the right man.
Real life intruded on Delaney’s childish hopes when she met Roger Kullerton in the grocery store’s produce section, where he stood wearing khakis instead of reindeer hides, contemplating the selection of curly kale versus dinosaur kale. He’d asked Delaney’s opinion and her clueless expression must have struck him as amusing because Roger laughed. As she came to learn later, it wasn’t a sound she’d hear often.
After a brief engagement, she married the bland, stuffy educator with the lifeless brown eyes and nary a muscle on his less than six-foot frame. There was a logical reason she’d married a no-nonsense man so contrary to her childhood Viking vision—she’d finally accepted reality.
Delaney was close to twenty when she begrudgingly admitted to herself that Varik the Bold would never show up on her doorstep. As a big-boned woman who stood nearly six feet tall, she was lucky to have any man knocking at her door, much less a gorgeous Viking. During school and later, not many guys were interested in going out with a girl who dwarfed them.
Roger was the only man who’d been interested enough in a slightly chunky Norwegian-Irish Amazon to propose marriage. When he did, she didn’t have to think twice, figuring it would be her only chance to be married and have a family of her own.
“Roger seems like perfect husband material, honey,” Astrid had told her. “You don’t want a man who’s too handsome or charming. He’ll be a good provider and he’ll be far too busy with academics to ever think about straying.”
Ha!
But Delaney knew what her mother meant. When they were little, Delaney and her brother Gard overheard their parents arguing late one night. Mom had discovered their dad, a charming, handsome Irishman, had cheated on her and she was devastated. As far as they could tell, their parents had patched things up before their father, Sean, died rescuing kids during the school fire. Delaney and Gard made a pact never to let on to their mom, their siblings, or anyone else about what they’d heard. All these years later they’d kept that promise...and would forever.
The only one who cautioned Delaney against marrying the dreary English professor was Grandma Bekka. “Wait,” she urged, “have patience. Your Viking will come for you.”
“But I’m almost twenty-five,” Delaney argued then. “If I don’t get married soon I’ll end up an old maid, all alone.”
“My darling granddaughter, you’re still so young. Just a baby,” Bekka had said, chuckling while finger-combing Delaney’s hair.
“Not according to the romance novels I’ve read,” Delaney argued. “The heroines are between eighteen and twenty. And they’re all itty-bitty things, not Amazons like me.”
“Nonsense. You, my dear, are a beautiful young woman with plenty of time, years before you need to worry about being an old maid. Decades.” Bekka chuckled again. “Don’t be so eager to tie yourself to a man just for the sake of being married.”
But no matter how hard her grandmother tried, she couldn’t convince Delaney to wait.
Delaney sighed now at the bittersweet memory. If only she’d listened to her grandmother’s sage advice.
About to stash the box from Bekka in the closet, she hesitated. It was almost as if she heard, or was it felt, the heartwish ring calling to her. That, of course, was beyond ridiculous. Pure wishful thinking. The lure of recapturing the innocence of her childhood.
And yet...
After all, her beloved grandmother had made a special effort to send her magic ring to her granddaughter, complete with a loving letter written in her own arthritic hand. Not wearing the ring would be like a slap in the face to Grandma Bekka, and Delaney couldn’t do that.
She took the ring out of the box, holding the gleaming, weighty piece of jewelry in the palm of her hand. The ring’s detailed craftsmanship was amazing and the stone was just as mesmerizing as she remembered.
Since Bekka loved extolling the virtues of magic to everyone she knew, Delaney wouldn’t be too surprised if this ring was one of several the old woman kept tucked away in a drawer. She’d probably left instructions for her executor to dole out heartwish rings to all her relatives and friends, complete with her mystical tale of supernatural powers and one-time use. Delaney smiled. Everyone in Glassfloat Bay probably wore one of her grandmother’s magic rings.
She slipped the ring on her finger. It fit perfectly, which was interesting because Bekka’s fingers were at least a size larger than Delaney’s.
~<>~
––––––––
Delaney drove to work on her birthday in the midst of a fierce February blizzard that subsided only after she’d been blanketed in white while trudging across the parking lot to the office. Her hat, scarf, gloves and boots provided little protection against Chicago’s near gale-force winds. By the time she got inside the building, she was caked with ice crystals and chilled to the bone.
While married to Roger she’d insisted on working, against his wishes. He was old school in his thinking that a woman’s place was in the home, plus he feared his colleagues might think he wasn’t a good provider.
They’d be right. He wasn’t. Roger was a damn cheapskate.
She used her income to pay for her clothing, phone, internet access, cable TV, books, magazine subscriptions, and anything else that didn’t come under his list of absolute necessities. She also treated herself to the pricey coffee she preferred, and to occasional real food instead of subsisting on Roger’s rigid health nut diet twenty-four seven.
Since the divorce she was responsible for the townhouse’s mortgage payment, which ate up the major portion of her earnings.
Happily, after Paul learned of Delaney’s predicament, he promoted her from receptionist to executive secretary, which brought a substantial raise. While on pregnancy leave, his former secretary decided to quit and be a stay-at-home mom. The extra money Delaney made from her weekly column added enough to keep her living in the townhouse and affording the monthly bills.
One thing she loved about her new position was having her own office. This morning she sat at her desk, gazing out the window as she sipped her favorite coffee while enjoying her birthday breakfast, one of Laila’s almond cherry scones from Griffin’s Café in Glassfloat Bay. The package from Oregon had arrived at the office early this morning. It was a breakfast fit to make Roger gasp in horror, which is one of the reasons she enjoyed it so much.
The box also included several whimsical hand knit and crocheted animals created by Delaney’s sister, Reen, to add to her collection. Café owner Annalise Griffin had written a lovely letter and tucked it into a large Valentine’s Day card which was signed by many of the townspeople.
“Bekka told me how much you miss your sister’s scones,” Annalise wrote, “so Laila baked a birthday batch just for you. She said to tell you these are new. They’re lower in calories, fat and sugar than her original ones and she wants your feedback on the new recipe. Personally, I can’t tell the difference and think they’re scrumptious!”
“Mmmm...” Delaney’s eyes fluttered shut as she took another bite. “She’s right.”
Annalise told Delaney of their sadness at losing Bekka, and offered some favorite memories of their times together. They hoped Delaney would visit soon, and maybe even decide to move into Bekka’s vacant house.
Delaney held the letter close to her heart and cried. They were happy tears because, as difficult as it was losing her grandmother, Delaney felt certain the years Grandma Bekka lived in Oregon had been happy ones.
Her office window presented Delaney with a clear, sunny day after she’d braved the morning blizzard. Moments before she left work, the heavens opened again. Scraping ice and snow from her car’s windshield, she muttered a string of curses when the plastic ice scraper snapped in half.
“As soon as I save enough money for a cross country move,” she promised herself, grunting as she used a portion of the broken scraper to clear away enough ice so she could see well enough to drive, “I’m moving to Glassfloat Bay.” The scraper remnant broke into an even smaller piece, which had Delaney swearing like a sailor. “God, I’m sick to death of this winter weather!”
Finally behind the wheel, she reached for the glove compartment, eager to sink her teeth into a chocolate truffle, knowing the sensation of rich velvet creaminess melting on her tongue would soothe her ice-savaged psyche.
“Mmm...birthday chocolate...” She salivated with expectation as she reached inside, only to suffer icy terror at the realization the cupboard was bare. She’d forgotten to replenish her emergency stash after eating the last piece of chocolate.
“No. No! Nooooooo!”
Leaning forward, banging the heel of her hand against the steering wheel, she felt the heartwish ring’s band dig into her finger.
“Lot of good you’ve done me, you cheap chunk of costume jewelry.” Removing her glove, she blew on her frozen fingers before trying once again to yank the ring off, but the darn thing wouldn’t budge since she’d first placed it on her finger.
The melancholy of birthday chocolate deprivation eased when she thought about her other emergency chocolate reserve tucked in her nightstand drawer. She smiled...no, grinned, confident she could hang on to her sanity until she got home and ripped into her chocolate stockpile.
After crawling through bumper to bumper traffic, snarled by throngs of rush hour drivers, Delaney finally pulled into her driveway. She smiled when she heard her best buddy, Thursday, whimpering as she closed the garage door and entered the house through the kitchen. At least her faithful dog would be with her for her Valentine birthday.
Her ex-husband found the dog on a Thursday, the day of the week named after the Norse god, Thor, son of Odin. With all the imagination and creativity of a thumbtack, he named the dog Ruff. Delaney changed the dog’s name the day after Roger walked out.
He’d demanded custody of Ruff when they divorced, which was fine with Delaney, saying he’d return for the dog once he was settled. That was twelve months ago. She and Thursday hadn’t seen Roger since.
And then a funny thing happened.
Delaney and the monster dog got to know each other. They got to be friends. Really bonded.
“Do you know why I love you so much, Thursday?” she’d asked him. “Because you listen to me when I need to talk. You watch my favorite movies without making fun of them and don’t glare at me like I’m a moron when I cry at the happy parts. You eat whatever I’ve prepared without grumbling. You don’t leave clothes strewn all over the house for me to pick up. You don’t insist I drink muddy shakes with brewer’s yeast, desiccated liver, and beet tops. You don’t shudder when I make a grammar faux pas. And you don’t love me any less because I wear a double-digit size.”
Then she’d massage the back of his ears, getting a juicy face lick in return.
Yes, she’d even come to tolerate dog spit.
“I swear,” Delaney said now as she entered the kitchen, lovingly and enthusiastically greeted by Thursday, “if I’d known at twenty-five what I know now, I would have opted for a dog instead of a husband.”
Squatting on her heels, she mussed his fur and gave him a hug. Thursday was her sweetie pie, her loving, adorable, attentive pal. “I missed you today, Thursday, did you miss me?” He gave her a big sloppy lick in reply.
Stepping through the kitchen and into the living room, Delaney’s heart stuttered. Her eyeballs popped out of her head, dangling on springs as she viewed the catastrophe before her. She zeroed in on the remnants of the bag of Oreos that trailed from the living room to her bedroom. And then she saw the Snickers, Hershey’s, and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups wrappers. It was every bit of chocolate from her nightstand drawer.
Clutching her hand to her chest, she surveyed the room and screeched, “Thursday!”
A quick scan of the floor revealed he’d christened the shag carpeting with dog vomit. Dark, crisp, scattered patches of mustard yellow with black cookie crumbs and chunks of regurgitated chocolate embedded in the midst of it all. It was a gruesome reminder of what the monster dog had done to her a year ago when he’d pilfered her birthday breakfast.
The idiot dog, who was probably on a sugar high, had toppled the silver aluminum Christmas tree, leaving her treasured family heirloom ornaments resting in splotches of dog puke. Granted, the artificial tree and its multi-color rotating light wheel shouldn’t still be up in the middle of February, but she’d been deprived of any holiday trappings all during The Roger Years.
This was the first tree she’d had in ten years and Delaney hated to box it away just yet. Each day she contemplated taking it down but decided she wanted to look at it a little while longer. It made her smile. She found the tarnished vintage aluminum treasure at the curbside on a garbage pickup day last spring. It reminded her of the one Grandma Bekka had when Delaney was little, so she dragged it home. Some of the branches were bent and the tree leaned slightly to one side but once she’d cleaned it up and made some repairs it was almost good as new.
After hearing Delaney’s anguished cry and glimpsing her crazed expression, Thursday hastily skulked off, tail between his legs, to some hidden corner.
“Yeah, you’d better hide, you fiend, because at this very moment I’m planning your grisly demise.”
As if navigating through a minefield, Delaney gingerly sidestepped the barf and padded into the bedroom. Her shoulders slumped and she groaned. Not only had Thursday vomited on the granny square afghan she’d recently crocheted, but he’d deposited a nasty clump of poop on the carpet. And there wasn’t a single uneaten cookie or piece of chocolate left anywhere in sight.
“Damn it, Thursday! Damn it, damn it, damn it!”
How in the world he’d managed to open the drawer of her nightstand was beyond her. And how he could so selfishly devour her precious stash without leaving anything for her made her see red. Like a cat with nine lives, once again her dumbass dog had miraculously managed to avoid death by chocolate. She supposed she should be relieved that he barfed it all out, but at the moment...
As Delaney stood slump-shouldered in the midst of the mess, grieving the loss of her chocolate and bemoaning the fact that she’d be stuck on her hands and knees with her face mere inches from dog puke for hours as she scrubbed, there was a knock at the front door.
“Hell,” she grumbled. “Now what?”
She wasn’t going to answer...but what if it was some kid selling chocolate bars for scouts or a school event? They were always coming to her door hawking their oversized bars of chocolate, laced with her choice of plain, crisped rice or nuts. She usually turned them away. As every chocolate connoisseur knows, resorting to cheap, waxy fundraiser chocolate meant you’d hit rock bottom. Delaney had never stooped that low.
There was more knocking, then the doorbell rang. Desperately in need of chocolate, she dragged her frazzled nerves across the room. Reasoning that stooping to a new low was justifiable under the circumstances, Delaney opened the door.
Uttering a gasp of astonishment, she clapped her hand to her chest, the metal band around her finger suddenly growing warm.
Standing across her threshold was a living, breathing golden-haired, half-naked hunk of a man in full Viking regalia.
And she was pretty damn sure he wasn’t selling fundraiser chocolate.