The Rosaries (Crossroads Series) (33 page)

Lakeisha
moved her lips to form a yes, but no sound came out. Nurse Stewart touched Natalie’s arm gently. “She shouldn’t talk. Maybe it is best if you go out right now.”

Natalie nodded, her face streaked by tears, and headed toward the door.

“Natalie…”
Lakeisha’s
voice was a tiny whisper, “…Good-bye.”

And in that moment Natalie knew;
Lakeisha
was not coming back, she was leaving with Aunt Catherine; she had only briefly awakened to say goodbye. She turned around and blew her friend a kiss. “Good-bye,
Lakeisha
. Thank you…”

“What in hell…?” The voice of Nurse Stewart was filled with surprise when
Lakeisha’s
vital signs dropped and she expired. Natalie wasn’t surprised at all.

Ryan hung up the phone after receiving the craziest news he heard in a while from Mr. Sanders. He couldn’t believe what happened after he left the gallery, and yet, he was sure Mr. Sanders was not joking. The whole episode brought home something Ryan rarely thought about: Life is short and fragile, and should be lived minute by minute.

As he lay back on his hotel bed and tried to process all the new information, his mind was flooded with thoughts of Ashton and his heart instantly ached. When he first arrived in London, he had come to the conclusion that breaking up with her to pursue his plans to marry Natalie was the right thing to do; somehow, his determination to save the family’s financial future had temporarily blinded him.

It wasn’t Ashton’s fault that she was born in a poor family, and she was no different than he or his family. Ashton was a nice girl and she was going to make a good wife; his parents were going to accept her in time, and if they couldn’t, oh well…then she and Ryan would have to learn how to live without their approval. For the first time in his life, Ryan saw everything clearly, and he felt ashamed that up until now, he had chosen to look at the world through the perception of others.

He took the ring he bought for Natalie out of his shirt pocket, and looked at it in the light of the lamp on the night stand. It was a beauty, but he really could not afford it. He would love to give Ashton something that beautiful – God only knew she deserved it – but maybe he could do
that later on in their marriage. For right now, he was going to take the ring back and buy a smaller one; then he would call Ashton before he boarded the plane and have her meet him at the airport to pick him up.

He didn’t know what would happen to his family’s finances, but he felt that deception wasn’t going to be the way to fix something that was caused by the same cancer. He would come up with an idea; for right now, he needed to head off to the hospital and be a friend to Natalie. Suddenly, Ryan felt very, very relieved.

“What do you mean her sister is here, Phillip?”

Phillip felt an overwhelming urge to look at the ground, but he fought it and stared at Angela’s face instead. “Natalie’s adoption went a little differently than the way I disclosed to you, Angie; her mother had twins, and the doctor sold one of them, unbeknownst to her; the staff gave her a different baby to bury, one the parents had signed over to the hospital for medical research when they found out she was stillborn.”

Angela exhaled and looked deflated for a moment. “Oh my God, Phillip, what have we done?”

“We didn’t know, Angie; we didn’t know.”

“So, Natalie’s real mother is still around.”

“Yes” Phillip replied, his eyes still locked with Angela’s, “She is, and I am sure that Natalie will want to meet her at some point. I have the phone number of the uncle right here. I believe we should all get together and discuss what will happen.”

Angela agreed, “We must. Natalie needs to meet her real parents, and know that we will support her through it all.”

Phillip felt a knot forming in his throat. “I knew you would understand, Angie. And by the way, when I left the hospital, Natalie asked me to give you her love.”

The phone rang; it was Natalie. Phillip listened for a while without interrupting, then said, “I will be right there, Natalie. I am sorry, Honey.”

“What happened?” his wife asked after he hung up, although in her heart she already knew the truth.

“
Lakeisha
passed away. I’m going there to pick up Natalie, and make arrangements to have the remains flown back to the US.”

“No, Phillip,
we
are going. I’m coming with you. Let’s go and show our daughter she can count on us.”

Natalie was sitting alone in the waiting room when Ryan arrived. Her head was leaning against the wall and her eyes were closed. Thinking she was asleep, he sat beside her and crossed his hands over his abdomen without disturbing her, but she immediately opened her eyes, and the sadness he saw in them pierced his heart. All he wanted to do was to take her in his arms and comfort her, as a friend should.

“Thank you for coming, Ryan. She’s gone. She passed away thirty minutes ago.”

Ryan touched her hand lightly. “I’m sorry, Natalie. I don’t know what to say.”

Natalie shook her head, “there’s not much to say, Ryan. She was a friend, and now she has moved on.”

Ryan reached out to hug her, thinking that she would push him away, but she didn’t. She laid her head on his shoulder and cried quietly.

Chapter Twenty-One

Olivia’s flight landed at London Gatwick at 8:35AM. She had hardly slept the night before, and had almost lost all hope of finding a flight that would get her into
London
early in the day.

By the time she arrived at the hotel, she was so worked up that it took Graham ten minutes, before they went up to see her father, to calm her down. In Olivia’s world, efficiency and self-discipline were the names of the game, but right now she felt as if she could burst into tears. Maybe it was because she had just gotten married, and knew how important her husband was to her, that her heart broke for Melody.

She went to check on her father first, then went straight to Melody’s room even before she checked into her own. Melody looked like the ghost of the woman Olivia knew – gaunt and pale, a look of despair haunted her usually bright eyes. Olivia said nothing when her cousin opened the door; she simply hugged her, and Melody melted in her arms, clinging tightly to her neck and bursting into bitter tears.

“Melody…I just don’t know what to say…Dad didn’t really explain a lot; he just said something awful happened to Mario.”

“Your father told the truth, Olivia. I always thought Mario was my knight in shining armor, and my love for him blinded me from seeing that even a white knight has some dark shadows. I didn’t know, Olivia…I didn’t know that his heart belonged to someone else, but I felt that something was wrong. I should have trusted my intuition, and maybe this mess would not have happened.”

Olivia marched into the room and sat on the bed beside Melody. “Listen to me, Melody
Bennet
,” she said staring directly into Melody’s eyes, “You can’t prevent everything. Look at me, I’m a control freak, and weird stuff still happens in my life. What I am getting at is that you can’t always know how something will unfold. You can only hope for the best.”

Melody laughed bitterly but didn’t say anything. Right now, she certainly didn’t feel in control of anything, and sadly, she had no hope left.

“What are you going to do now, Melody?”

“Well, I suppose that I will need to go through the motions for the time being. I will go back to
North Carolina
and stay at the farm; I will take care of Mario’s burial and make sure his remaining family is notified of his death; and, most importantly, I will work on establishing a relationship with my sister.”

“Sister?”

“Oh, Paul didn’t tell you?”

Olivia arched her eyebrows, silently letting Melody know her father said nothing about a sister.

“I am a twin, Olivia. I didn’t even learn that until I was an adult and my grandmother left me a letter informing me of it. I was told that my twin was stillborn, but it appears that she was in fact stolen by the doctor who delivered her; he made it a little side business of his to sell babies to affluent childless couples, letting them believe that the mothers didn’t want their offspring. He told the mothers the children were stillborn.”

“Oh my God! That’s terrible, Melody! But how did you come to meet her?”

Melody laughed, “You know crazy things always happen to me, right?”

Olivia grinned, “Yeah…you’re the poster child for someone who’s a magnet for calamities.”

“My grandmother left me a rosary, which is supposed to be a key element, along with other items, to trigger an ancient prophecy.
Grandmama
told me in her letter that the rosary was associated with the cult of the twins. What she didn’t explain was that there are two rosaries, and twins are supposed to be their keepers. When my sister – her name is Natalie – and I came together into the same room, and we accidentally touched, I felt heat coming out of the rosary I was wearing around my neck. I can’t help but think that maybe the rosaries came out of their dormant state to save us both from sure death.”

Olivia whistled. “That’s pure sci-fi, Melody. You know I am kind of new at this stuff.”

That made Melody laugh, and God, it felt so good!

“Yeah, I know; I don’t think many would even believe what happened. Paul was there, but he is a veteran when it comes to weird things by now, and Tom, the gallery owner, is probably still in a deep state of shock.”

“So, tell me…what does your sister look like?” Olivia enquired, curiosity eating at her beneath the skin.

“Oh, Olivia, you are not going to believe it when you see her; she is me with a wig.”

Olivia laughed. “For real? I can’t wait to meet her.”

“I have her phone number here; I was just thinking of calling her right before you arrived. Maybe we can all have dinner together; after all, she is your cousin too.”

That one last sentence hit Olivia directly in the stomach. “Oh dear God, I hadn’t even thought of it that way! That’s so awesome!”

“That’s settled then. I will call her in a minute and we’ll see about getting together tonight or tomorrow. Hey, you want to know another freaky thing? All our lives, my sister and I have lived only a hundred and fifty miles apart from each other; that little tidbit still blows my mind. If we didn’t come here for your wedding I would still be married to a player and I would never have met her – I lost a cheating husband and gained a sister; God always fills a void.”

“I have a few things to explain, Natalie.” Ryan told her as he took her hands into his while they sat at a booth in the hospital cafeteria.

“If you are talking about relationships, I’m not really up to having that conversation, Ryan. I thought about what you said, and I really don’t think I am ready for a serious relationship. I need to learn how to love myself, first, before I can make someone else happy.”

Ryan exhaled loudly. “I could kiss you right now, Natalie. You just made life much easier for me without knowing it.” He said, a wide smile quickly spreading on his handsome face.

“What are you talking about, Ryan?”

Ryan shifted uneasily, his cheerful attitude instantly gone. “I have lied to you, Natalie.” He said and pulled his hands up in a defensive gesture.

“I know you have, Ryan.”

He looked at Natalie raising his eyebrow. “Pardon me?”

“I know you are in deep financial trouble, due to your father’s gambling habit.”

Ryan’s face flushed to a deep crimson, the vein in his neck beating furiously. “How long have you
known
?”

Natalie smiled, “Since
Lakeisha
told me you were deceiving me. I thought it was an insane idea at first, but I dug around a bit, and found out about your family’s hardship.”

Ryan exhaled loudly. “Oh my God, I am so embarrassed right now…” he said slightly stuttering, his face blood red. “It wasn’t all about that, Natalie; I really liked you.”

Natalie smiled. “And I really liked you, too, Ryan, but I don’t love you; I never have. I only tried to convince myself I did because I was lonely.”

He wanted to tell her about Ashton, but quickly changed his mind – no reason to add insult to injury. “Are you really mad at me, Natalie?”

Natalie thought for a moment…”No, Ryan, I’m not mad. I guess I respect you in my own strange way, for willing to sacrifice yourself for your family.”

Ryan looked down at his hands, clamped over the table. “Wow, now I feel even worse. You are a wonderful girl, Natalie, and you deserve to meet someone who can truly love you and cherish the amazing person that you are.”

Natalie smiled, “He will come. For right now, how much money do you need to get out of debt?”

Ryan looked up from his hands, a confused look steadily settling on his face. “Why do you need to know?”