Mom appears from the right of the vestibule in a fitted, beige tunic dress and small heeled, matching sling-back shoes. Gliding graceful and effortless towards us, with arms open, her hair is pushed from her face and secured with hairpins.
“Hayden, darling,” she swallows me in her motherly welcome. I release Samantha’s hand, and bend to reciprocate the greeting against her petite form. She kisses my cheek.
“Happy Holidays,” I murmur slipping from her embrace. “Mom…” I reach out to my left and re-grasp Samantha’s hand, drawing her to my side. I gaze down into her guileless pale eyes and she rewards me with a shy smile. “I would like you to meet, Miss Samantha Kennedy.” I graze my thumb across her knuckles.
“Samantha…” my mother enunciates her name slowly, caressing each letter of her name with tenderness and fondness. She approaches her with her arms open wide, wearing her heart on her sleeve, as Dana Wentworth has always done…for the correct people. The thinning flesh around her hazel eyes crinkle with her beaming expression. The wrinkles around her mouth deepen, betraying her age as she cocks her head and makes her way towards Samantha with soft, minute steps, her hips swaying delicately.
Samantha drops her hand from mine as she in embraced by my mother, who oozes a protective, maternal deportment. I notice that even Samantha towers over her while wearing her heels.
“It’s lovely to meet you, Mrs Wentworth,” she addresses timidly.
“It is lovely to finally meet you, too, Samantha.” Withdrawing, she holds Samantha at arm’s length, her hands clutching her upper arms. She gazes benevolently into her eyes. “And please, call me, Dana.”
Snaking my left-arm around Samantha’s waist, I pull her into my side. She turns fractionally towards me, her right hand resting on my ass, her left hand splayed across my chest. She lifts her head to look at me, and I hold her gaze with love and passion.
“Thank you for bringing my son back to me, Samantha. He was lost for so long.”
I continue to stare, enrapture at my beloved, as she whips her head around to look at my mother.
“To be candid with you, Mrs Wentworth––Dana, I think we were both lost,” she winces, and then returns my enraptured concentration with aquamarine eyes. She licks her lips at a languid pace, bestowing me with a brief moment to watch her tongue work over her luscious mouth. “But we found each other.”
“I love you, Samantha.” I lift my right hand and trace my thumb over her full, moistened lips.
“I love you, too, Hayden.” She pushes up onto her toes and places a quick, chaste kiss on my mouth.
“Oh, you two…” my mother sniffles, interrupting our brief moment of enamored sentiment. We turn our attention on to the petite, immaculately dressed, fifty-something woman displaying a face-splitting grin. “Have you two got something to tell me?” Her voice is feather-soft and brimming with zest, her interest piqued. Her cheekbones rise as she points with her brow at the ring adorning Samantha’s finger.
“I have asked Samantha to marry me, and…she has accepted.”
Samantha’s head rests against my upper arm, and my mother claps her hands together. She beams with pride and elation. Strolling over to where we still reside by the front door, she shakes her head disbelieving.
“Congratulations to you, both.” She stifles a shriek and encompasses her arms around the both of us, before kissing us on the cheek. “The happiest feeling for a mother is seeing her children happy and settled. Thank you, Samantha. And welcome to the family,” her voice is warm and honeyed.
Relinquishing us, she steps back and grasps my right hand along with Samantha’s left hand. “This is another reason to celebrate.” Her eyes glisten with warm, salty droplets of happiness. “Cassandra––” she bellows. Within a moment, Cassandra appears from the right of the archway. She halts a few steps behind my mother. “We are celebrating. Could you please open the Cristal,” she requests, her focus remaining fixated on us.
“Yes, Ma’am,” the blond nods deferentially, before strolling back through the archway.
As we follow my mother through the foyer to the living area, Samantha’s grip on my hand tightens. The grand piano is situated in the left corner and an elaborately carved, imposing, cream fireplace resides opposite the archway we just emerged from, directly in the center of the room. But what dominates the room are the floor-to-ceiling, arch-shaped windows; one to the left of the fireplace, two on the right, and another on the back wall, behind the outsized, tan, leather sectional couch. The heat of the searing light is intensified as it beams through the surrounding glass. I feel like an ant, burning under the light of a magnifying glass.
“I heard the word, celebrate, Dana. Celebrating what, exactly?” Richard rakes his silver hair back before nestling his hands into his black, pinstriped pants. He rests against the arm of Dad’s black, leather recliner besides the sectional.
“Samantha, I would like you to meet Richard, my father’s younger brother. Uncle Richard, this Samantha…” I glance down at her, the sun’s rays distinguishing the light mahogany and fiery red tones of her hair, like a waterfall of molten rose-gold. “…my fiancée,” I grin.
With his brow raised, Richard stands. He strolls towards us, meeting us on the extensive, red and golden Oriental rug. With old–fashioned morals, just like his brother, Richard gallantly sweeps Samantha’s left hand into his possession and presses a kiss on the back of her hand. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Samantha.”
“The pleasure is mine, Richard,” she replies sweetly as he relinquishes his grip on her fingertips.
Returning from the kitchen, my mother joins us in the center of the room with Cassandra in tow carrying a silver platter. Seven crystal flutes filled with champagne, and one with orange juice is perched on top.
As we each take a glass, I detect Samantha frowning, concentrating on the remaining three flutes on the platter. I love watching her in these deep moments of thought, she looks adorable. I arch my brow, silently asking if she is okay.
She leans into me. “Who are the other three, for?”
“My grandmother, grandfather, and Berkeley, Richard’s daughter,” I whisper and her face hardens for a brief moment. I can’t help my involuntary assumption that she is inwardly scolding me. Narrowing my eyes, I offer an apologetic smile, pull her under my arm, and kiss the top of her head.
“Ah, there’s my boy,” a throaty voice resonates from the foyer. Uncoiling my arm from Samantha, I turn around to face the source of the voice. Beaming, the elderly, salt and pepper-haired man swallows me in an embrace and pats my back.
“Happy Holidays, Gramps,” I greet him while briefly returning his affection. After releasing me from his frail arms, he takes up position next to Samantha.
“And there is my little cherub.”
Embarrassment is fleeting as my cheeks are pinched like one would do to a child, before being squeezed by the elderly, slight woman with silver hair combed back, which displays a yellow lightning streak beginning at her hairline, a lasting result of one too many cigarette’s being held between her teeth.
“Hi, Grams,” I place a kiss on the side of her wrinkled cheek.
“Penny, you’re embarrassing the poor boy.”
“Eugene, I am his Grams, it is my job to embarrass our grandson,” she counters her husband swiftly and effortlessly before loosening her grip.
Gramps turns his attention towards Samantha. “I’m sorry about this, my dear,” he apologizes in a hushed tone, surely to not cause any friction with his wife.
“It’s okay…” Samantha softly says and gazes up at me with an adorable smirk kissing her lips, her eyes narrowed. “…I think it’s sweet.”
I roll my eyes, purse my lips and faintly shake my head at her. She responds with a quick wrinkling of the bridge of her nose.
“You must be, Samantha. Oh, Eugene, isn’t she gorgeous?”
Samantha smiles sweetly, and momentarily hangs her head as the tidal wave of embarrassment sweeps its way from me, to her. I snigger inwardly.
“I’m Penny. My daughter has said a lot of wonderful things about you.”
Eyes flared in curiosity, I glance up at my mother who stands against the sectional sofa with a champagne flute in her hand. The gray dusting of her temples shines like polished silver as the light chars through the windows and reflects from each strand.
I sense every eye in the room turn to rest upon her. She shakes her head and holds her left hand palm upward. “I merely told them what Hayden had told me…and how much of an effect this darling young woman has had on my son,” she speaks like butter wouldn’t melt.
“Well, it’s very nice to meet you both.”
“You, too, my dear,” both Grams and Gramps answer in unison as they caress Samantha’s upper arm.
Holding hands, they step forward and collect a flute from the silver platter, leaving only the orange juice on the Walnut coffee table and hug their daughter.
The sound of heels clicking hollowly across the wooden flooring, followed by a shrill voice informs me of Berkeley’s arrival. “I know, right, my daddy is like the total coolest. Can you even imagine the looks I’m going to get when I drive to school in a Porsche? I mean, O.M.G.”
“And that would be my cousin,” I whisper conspiratorially down to Samantha.
I love Berkeley, I have to, she is family after all, but damn is she grueling work and high maintenance. She exudes confidence, the type that emanates from a lifetime of overindulgence; I cannot quell the niggling, foreshadowing feeling in my gut, which tells me that Samantha and Berkeley’s differing personalities will clash at some point.
The seventeen year old adolescent pushes her long, platinum hair over her shoulders and it tumbles down to her waist, and flutters her false lashes that complement the rest of the falseness of her heavily made-up, round face.
“Okay, babe, I have to go, I’ll call you tonight. Loves ya…” and she begins air kissing down the speaker of the cell-phone before ending the call and slipping it into her designer purse.
Pressing her hands on my shoulders, she air kisses my cheek. “Cousin,” she pulls back and peeks down at Samantha’s hand locked in mine.
“Berkeley, I’d like you to meet Samantha.”
Pursing her Barbie pink lips, she arches her brow. Eventually, she holds out her hand like a Noblewoman would to a gentleman. Her overly-long false nails pointing down to the wooden flooring.
I watch Samantha as her eyes blaze with incredulity. She sheaths her teeth with her lips; I can only guess it’s to suppress her body’s need of cathartic laughter. She takes hold of the proffered fingertips and shakes Berkeley’s hand with palpable awkwardness. I hear the air hissing between her teeth as she sucks in a deep breath. She finally speaks.
“It’s nice to meet you, Berkeley.”
“Hmm…like wise.”
As their hands fall apart, we all gather around the two-tier, walnut coffee table in the middle of the rug. My grandparent’s and Berkeley stand to the left of Samantha, with their backs facing the fireplace. Richard is at my right, and my mother and Cassandra opposite us, in front of the sectional couch.
“The past thirteen months has been Hell,” Mom begins her speech. “We lost a generous, loving, warm-hearted, sincere man. And I lost my only son…more than what he was already.” I cock my head, and offer an acknowledging nod. “But if you lose hope, then you lose everything. I never lost hope that my son would find what he needed, that he would be reminded of the greater things in life.” Her beam dominates the room, more-so than the windows. I snort at my silent comparison.
She nods her head once affectedly at me, urging me to continue, repudiating the spotlight.
“Well, what can I say? Sometimes you have to allow yourself to be swallowed by the darkness of the abyss before things can become better. If you give up on life, on faith…love,” I rub my thumb over the back of Samantha’s hand and offer a warm smile as I gaze down on her fidgeting form. “Then you merely just exist…life is meant to be lived. When something is offered to you, snatch it with both hands, because you are the one that decides if a person enters your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime––and last night, I snatched it with both hands. For those who don’t yet know, I asked Samantha if she would do me the honor in becoming my wife…”
I watch on as Samantha regards me with a profound love that I will never bore of seeing reflected in her eyes––a love that looks so simple, yet is as weighted as the world and all the people in it.
“And with a single word passing her lips, she has made me the happiest man alive.”
“To Hayden and Samantha,” my mother beams, raising her glass, and we all follow her lead, “the future Mr. and Mrs Wentworth.”
With my eyes still remaining enraptured on the beauty beside me, I smile pensively, and mouth, “I love you,” before brushing the tip of my nose down the length of hers. She lifts her head back a fraction and allows our lips to join while being consumed by renditions of congratulations and well wishes for our future.
I snake my arms around Samantha’s waist as she stands at the side of the grand piano, gazing absentminded out of the arch window at the scenic view below.
“I love you, my future, Mrs Wentworth,” I whisper in her ear before playfully taking her lobe between my teeth.
Giggling, she pulls her head away and twists in my arms. Holding the flute in her left hand, she pushes her right hand through my hair; her nails lightly scrape across my scalp in a fashion that makes my body internally shudder with harmless pleasure.
“I love you, too, Mr. Wentworth,” she grins before pushing herself up onto her tip-toes and sealing her mouth over mine.
Our moment is soon terminated by the hollow sound of approaching heeled shoes.
“What can I do for you, Berkeley?” I drone and let my arms slip free from Samantha’s waist.
“So, you two are really getting married?” Pointing her finger, she draws an invisible line between Samantha and me.
“Yes, cousin, we are. The sooner the better as far as I’m concerned.”
Alongside her hooded, sapphire eyes, the adolescent upturns her lip in what I can only fathom as contempt. “Well, whatever, just as long as you get her to sign a prenup.” She spins on her heel and returns to her father.