Fifty-Seven

“HONESTLY, I can understand if the poor child panics at this point,” Papa said after how quiet the kitchen had become after Arianna, then her mother and Tommy, left them to follow her. “Your mother can fucking overwhelm anyone, and she’s just a girl.”
Eric was on his feet and he would have run to her, too, if he didn’t remember the panic and confusion in her eyes, the fear marring her whole face, and the pain that was in her voice when she said she didn’t know if things were alright.
And then she fucking said—begged—that she needed to be alone.
So he didn’t know if he should follow her.
Instead, he closed his eyes and lowered his head.
“Am I doing the right thing?” he asked the two men quietly. “Or am I pushing her too much? Rushing her relentlessly?”
“There is no such thing as rushing to a man when he wants a woman,” his father replied. And Eric turned to him, thinking he was still making light of the mood, but he was seriously looking up at him from where he sat across the table from him. “Ask Castro here. It’s good to see that his own rush twenty-five years ago produced a beautiful family and a strong marriage up to this present time.” He was grinning in admiration at his most trusted worker in the hacienda, and probably his closest friend as well. “He got himself a lovely woman outside and on the inside. Me?” He shook his head and raised his mug to finish off his coffee and did not expound anymore.
He didn’t need to.
“What exactly are you telling me, Papa?” he asked, frowning.
“I’m saying that a marriage can happen when conditions are auspicious enough. But what happens next is work, and how you two would work well with each other is going to determine how your marriage will become. If you want her enough to give her your name and the protection of our family, go ahead, son. I like her. I see in her strength one can’t easily find these days, with the added bonus of her beauty. If you have seen Sienna when she was younger…”
“Pa!” he exclaimed, looking in the direction mother and son went to, worried she could hear his father talking about her like that.
He laughed softly. “Goodness. Every man in this hacienda wanted Sienna, but Tommy’s father was the best of them all. He loved her… that man. And he’s such a good man I don’t believe Sienna would ever remarry after him. If you’d seen them then… why would you want something else if it can’t be like that?” He shrugged his wide shoulders. “It’s an observation, and yes I was a little jealous of how men who worked for me and who have simple lives have happier families than mine.” This time, his father was looking straight at him, and there was guilt in his look.
“I’m not blaming you for anything fucked-up my mother has done, Papa. Don’t look like I do.” He was turning towards the living room now.
“He’s going for it, Señor,” Chairman Castro told his father, his voice cheerful.
Hearing that and his father’s equally cheerful laughter in reply were incentives enough for Eric to continue walking.
He reached the stairs and he climbed up—and found Tommy and his mother whispering their argument about whether to knock on the door or not and let Arianna be.
He took a deep breath and spoke to both of them.
“I’d like to stay by her door and talk to her through it, or wait until she will talk to me,” he said, basically asking for their permission. “I know…” He lowered his head, because he still felt bad for being one of the reasons she wanted to be alone. And before that, he was the reason she got bullied and hurt. It was something, he discovered, that scared him, in ways he wasn’t ready to delve into right now.
He just wanted to be with her, even if it was just outside her door.
He was meant to be with her, in any way possible and as physically near to her as possible, if he had a way with it. If at the moment, it meant being behind a door, he would take it. It was much better than being in different provinces.
“Do you really want to marry her, Kuya Eric?” Tommy asked in a quiet voice.
“You should know the answer to that, Tommy,” he replied. “You know I’ve been gearing to that since the day I found out she lives here,” he continued, his feeling a little awed, because it was the truth. “I wasn’t leaving anything to chance.”
Mama Sienna winced because she understood what he meant more than her innocent son, who was actually frowning at that moment trying to decipher what he’d said. “She is a precious child and has always been strong-willed, in a different way than this one,” Mama Sienna said, laying her hand on top of her younger child. “But she loves too much, too deep. If you can understand that… if you can be patient about it—”
“Mama Sienna…” He took her hands and held them in his own. “You don’t have to ask this. I feel bad that you even have to. If your daughter isn’t ready to marry me, I will wait patiently until she is. It’s just… it will not stop me from planning to love her in as many ways as I can, including probably almost staying here in your house every day. I’ll probably bring breakfast and take over your coffee counter, and you will have to learn to cook more meals—”
“Oh, wow…” Tommy was snickering. “You both will be kissing all over the place and all that eww that will drive me and Mama to move to the house next door.”
“Tommy!”
“They better get married, Mama,” Tommy was saying. “I, too, will wait for Ate Yna to make up her mind. But someone has to take her away from here. People know, and the most she would worry about is how we will be affected by gossip, when we don’t really care that much—right, Ma? My only care about it is that he—Kuya Eric—bear responsibility for what they did after that night.” Tommy seemed to realize he had something to do with that night, too, and he suddenly closed his mouth.
With a look on her face that said they were going to talk about that later, she turned to Eric. “What is it that you wanted to accomplish by camping outside her door?”
“First, Mama, I miss my girlfriend terribly. And second, I don’t want her to think ever again that she is alone. I want her to know I’m just here for her. That she can just call,
and I’ll go through that locked door to get to her side.”
Eric felt his jaw tensing at the memory of what happened to her that day, that if he had been here it never would have gone on. Brad wouldn’t even think to do something stupid with him here.
Yet, for all his money and influence, and the fact that his family owned this place, secured by their guards and all… the love of his life still got hurt.
And it was done by people everyone expected would try to hurt her if they ever found out about her.
He didn’t know how big the impact a night inside jail would be on the two most malignant women he ever had the misfortune to get tied with in his life, but he wasn’t going to take any chances.
But the woman behind that door was going to marry him. She could impose anything she wanted for the marriage, and he didn’t care. They were going to get married so he could completely protect her.
He disappeared for a moment, thinking this, until his eyes focused on Tommy, who was looking very hard at him.
Upon being discovered, his face was flushed with color, then he scratched the back of his head.
“What is it, Tommy?”
“The door is not locked, you can come in.”
He blinked. “I was using metaphor,” he explained.
He nodded. Then he shook his head. “I don’t ever want to fall in love, dude,” he said somberly.
Then he held his mother’s hand and pulled her to the stairs.
“Come, Mama. I know you want to nag and rant at me. Let’s do it. I just want to be your kid now and forever.”
“Oh, Tommy!” Mama Sienna said, her face split into laughter and despair.
His eyes followed them as they both turned away, then he added softly. “You two are the third.”
They stopped and looked back at him, confused and curious.
“You, Tommy, and you, Mama Sienna, are the third reason. I wanted to be married to this family. I’ve never met such strong, resilient people who love their family members to death, and I wanted to become a member of it, too. If you’ll two let me.”
Mama Sienna had to place her fingers to her lips to keep them from trembling as her eyes filled with tears, and Tommy was scratching the back of his head to death as he tried not to cry, therefore spreading a red tinge all over his young, handsome face again.
And then, the kid just launched himself at him and hugged him tightly, and he had to laugh in delighted surprise as his arms went around him and his heart filled with love for the clever brother of his fiancée.
“I think he is telling you that you don’t have to marry my daughter to become a member of this family. You already are, hijo,” Mama Sienna said.
He reached out to her and gently pulled her to him to kiss her on her forehead before he took her hand and brought it to his own forehead for the old custom of supplication for a blessing from an elder.
Because that door was still closed, and he felt he would need it for the coming hour.