Never stop believing in happiness
Once, in the hazy spring of her youth, Eleanor drifted into a bustling fair on the outskirts of Birmingham. A gypsy woman with eyes as dark as a moonless sea seized her wrist and sang softly:
Lovely one, you shall live in a sunlit land where the air smells of seafoam and ripe grapes.
Eleanor laughed, her voice bright as a bell:
Nonsense! Ill never leave my town!
Life slipped on, ordinary and stubborn. She married for love, welcomed a daughter named Poppy, and dreamed of a second child. Before the lull, she returned to work, fearing the rust of idle hands. Five or six years, then maybe Ill think of a boy, she whispered to herself.
Then a single business trip shattered the routine. Her neighbour, a nurse, called breathlessly:
Eleanor, theyve taken Sergey to the hospital! The ambulance came from some unknown address on a different street.
Family secrets, like hidden springs, surface when you least expect them.
The night she rushed to the hospital, her heart thumped against her throat. Her husband, pale, arm in a sling, avoided her gaze.
From which address did they take you? she asked quietly.
Silence answered louder than any words.
It emerged that a solitary woman, a colleague of her husband, had been sharing a flat for over a year. Everyones temperaments differ. Some close their eyes, some launch into scandal, then, teeth clenched, place a bowl of soup before the cheater. Eleanor, however, was of a different mould. She did not wait for her husband to return from the ward; someone needed comfort.
She packed the essentials into an old suitcase, took trembling Poppy by the hand, and fled their shared flat without a backward glance.
Were starting anew, my child, she whispered, squeezing the tiny palm.
For a while, Eleanors mother sheltered them. Then Eleanor divorced, split the square footage with her ex, and took out a mortgage. She lived on autopilot, striving to secure her own future and that of her daughter.
Years later, exhausted by work and solitude, Eleanor boarded a flight to the English countryside, staying at the welcoming cottage of her mothers friend, Olivia, a stones throw from Bath. She had hoarded every penny for a brief holiday, but the weight of her life finally snapped, and she bought a lastminute ticket, hoping the English sun might melt the ice within her.
Olivia listened to Eleanors bitter confessions Ill never learn to trust again, Love feels impossible to me. Overwhelmed, Olivia phoned a friend who owned a local vineyard:
Giovanni, find me Luka. Immediately! Tell him I have a bride waiting.
Eleanors thoughts were far from romance. She was already in her soft robe, a novel in hand, trying to banish melancholy as a dark southern night stretched beyond the windows.
A sudden knock shattered the silence. A minute later, radiant Olivia burst into the bedroom:
Eleanor, get up! Your fiancé has arrived!
What foolishness? Eleanor chuckled, yet she slipped on her robe and drifted into the sitting room.
There he stood: tall, silver at his temples, eyes laughing. Luka, helmet in one hand, a weatherworn motorbike propped against the stone wall behind him. He had wound his way up twenty miles of winding hills under a starspattered sky just to see a stranger.
Olivia said youre a Russian princess? he stammered in broken English, his accent a melody.
Eleanor, stunned, extended a hand. Luka caught her instead with warm, large palms and held on. They settled onto the sofa, hands never parting. He barely spoke English; she uttered not a word of Italian. Yet their dialogue of gestures, smiles, and glances crackled with a fierce, thrilling intimacy, and Olivia, smiling, slipped away, leaving them alone with a budding miracle.
At dawn Luka rode away again on his iron steed. Later Eleanor learned his life had been a string of misfortunes: two failed marriages, no children, no home. He lived in a tiny flat above his brothers garage and had nearly given up on happiness.
Ten days before his departure they sealed an agreement. Ill return, she said simply to his proposal. Well live together.
Months at home whirled by in a frantic vortex: job loss, packing, strained talks with relatives who could not grasp her madness. Her phone buzzed nonstop.
My sunshine, how are you? I miss you. Luka.
Our new window looks out onto an olive grove. Your room awaits. Yours, Luka.
The sevenyear age gap and his future stepdaughter, sevenyearold Poppy, did not rattle him.
One afternoon, perched on the sundrenched terrace of their new cottage, Eleanor wrapped her arms around his shoulders and asked:
Luka, why did you believe in us so quickly? Why werent you scared?
He turned, the entire Tuscan sea reflected in his eyes:
An old vintner once told me I would meet a woman from the east, a soul stormy, a heart seeking peace, who would bring the luck Ive cultivated in my vines but never found. That woman is you, Eleanor.
And? she whispered, tears gathering. Did you find that luck?
Luka said nothing. He drew her close and kissed her as if it were both their first and last kiss. Then, with a sunbright grin, he declared:
She found me herself! Im endlessly happy.
And life truly steadied.
A wonderful job appeared, they secured a mortgage on a cottage overlooking rolling hills. Luka adored his stepdaughter Poppy, who now delighted in learning Italian. Each morning he slipped a cinnamonspiced coffee into Eleanors bed, and evenings filled with the scent of his divine pasta. His love lingered everywherein wildflowers set upon the table, in gentle touches, in the caring look he gave her each sunrise.
Eleanor blossomed. She could no longer believe she had thought joint happiness a myth. Now she knew: happiness is not a legend. It walks the world, stubbornly seeking its halves, and when it finds them, it binds them together so fiercely that no storm can ever frighten them again.
