Do not cease believing in happiness
When I was a girl, Eleanor drifted into a bustling market fair. A travelling woman with eyes as dark as a moonless night seized her wrist and sang in a lilting tone:
Fair lady, you shall live in a sunlit land where the air smells of sea and vines.
Eleanor laughed in reply:
Nonsense! I shall never leave my hometown.
Life went on as it always does. She married out of deep love, welcomed a daughter named Lucy, and dreamed of a second child. Yet she kept a job, fearing that a long break would dull her skills. Ill work for five or six years, and then perhaps think of a boy, she thought.
Then a work trip arrived that turned her plans upside down. Her neighbour, a nurse, called:
Eleanor, theyve taken George to the hospital! The ambulance came from some unknown address down the lane.
You never know where family secrets will surface.
Her return home felt like a poorly written thriller. That very evening Eleanor raced to the hospital, her heart thudding in her throat. Her husband, pale and with his arm in a sling, avoided her gaze.
From which address did they take you? she asked softly.
Silence spoke louder than any words.
It soon emerged that a solitary woman, a colleague of her husband, had been sharing a friendship for over a year in that flat.
Everyones temperaments differ. Some turn a blind eye, some cause a scene and then, teeth clenched, offer a cheating spouse a bowl of soup. Eleanor, however, was of a different mould. She did not wait for her husbands discharge; someone needed comforting.
She packed the essentials into an old suitcase, took trembling Lucy by the hand, and left their shared flat without a backward glance.
We start our life on a clean page, my love, she said, squeezing the little palm tightly.
Their mother took them in for a while; later Eleanor divorced, split the flat with her exhusband and secured a mortgage. She lived on autopilot, striving to provide for herself and Lucys future.
Years later, worn thin by work and solitude, Eleanor flew to England, staying with her mothers friend Olivia in a welcoming cottage only an hours drive from London. She had been budgeting for a modest holiday, but suddenly bought the tickets, unable to bear the weight any longer. She hoped the English sun would melt the ice in her heart.
Olivia, listening to Eleanors bitter confessionsIll never trust again, Love no longer exists for mecould bear it no more. She quietly phoned a friend who owned a local vineyard:
James, she said, find me Luke, urgently! Tell him I have a bride waiting.
Eleanors thoughts were far from romance. She was already in her nightshirt, reading a book to chase away the gloom. Outside, the night was black as pitch.
A sudden knock at the door broke the silence. A minute later, Olivia burst into the bedroom, radiant:
Eleanor, get up! Your fiancé has arrived!
What nonsense? Eleanor chuckled, yet slipped on her nightshirt and headed to the sitting room.
There he stood, tall, with a touch of grey at his temples and eyes that twinkled. Luke. In his hands he clutched a helmet, and leaned against a weatherworn motorbike propped by the wall. He had ridden twenty miles over winding hills under a starstrewn sky just to meet a stranger.
Olivia said youre a Russian princess? he said in broken English, his accent a melody of its own.
Eleanor, stunned, extended a hand. Luke took it in his large, warm palms and held on. They sank onto the sofa, hands never parting. He barely spoke English; she not a word of Italian. Yet their dialogue of gestures, smiles and glances was so swift and vivid that Olivia, smiling, slipped away, leaving them alone with a budding miracle.
He departed at dawn, mounting his iron steed once more. Later Eleanor learned his life had been a string of misfortunestwo failed marriages, no children, no home. He lived in a cramped flat above his brothers garage and had nearly given up on happiness.
Ten days before his departure they made an agreement. Ill return, she said simply to his proposal. Well live together.
Months back home whirled by in a chaotic spin: a job loss, packing, tense talks with relatives who could not grasp her madness. Her phone buzzed nonstop.
My sunshine, how are you? I miss you. Luke wrote.
Our new window looks onto an olive grove. Your room awaits. He replied.
The sevenyear age gapshe was olderdidnt bother him, nor the twelveyearold Lucy he would have to love.
One afternoon, perched on the terrace of their sunkissed new home, Eleanor rested her arms on Lukes shoulders and asked:
Luke, why did you trust us so quickly? Why werent you frightened?
He turned, and the Tuscan sea seemed to flash in his eyes:
An old vintner once told me Id meet a woman from the east, a soul stormy yet seeking peace, who would bring the luck Ive been tending in my vines but never found. That woman is you, Eleanor.
And? she whispered, tears gathering. Have you found that luck?
Luke gave no answer. He simply pulled her close and kissed her as if it were both the first and the last kiss. Then, with his sunny grin, he said:
She found me herself! I am endlessly happy.
And life settled into a gentle rhythm.
A good job came, they took a mortgage on a cottage overlooking rolling hills. Luke adored stepdaughter Lucy, who now delighted in learning English. He brought Eleanor cinnamonspiced coffee to bed each morning, and evenings were filled with the aroma of pasta he prepared superbly. His love lingered in wildflower bouquets on the table, in tender touches, in the caring glance he offered his wife each sunrise.
Eleanor blossomed. She could never have imagined she would think lasting happiness was a myth. Now she knows: happiness is not a tale. It walks the world, stubbornly seeking its halves, and when it finds them, it binds them with a force that no storm can shatter.