You Are My Destiny novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Old Man's Terms

The grandfather doubts the new wife and gives Kira a kitchen, a room for her daughter and thirty days of silence.

The library smelled of leather and cold ash, and the old man in the wingback chair did not get up.

Augustin Stannard was seventy-six and thin as a coat hanger, with white hair and a black cane across his knees.

His eyes were pale blue and missed nothing.

"Sit," he said.

I stayed standing in my white jacket with my hands clasped behind me.

"I'd rather not."

"Then stand. Come closer to the lamp."

I took three steps.

He looked at my left eye for a long time without a flicker of pity.

"Cornea scarring," he said. "Healed badly. The surgeon who took it was a friend of mine."

"I don't know what you mean."

"The Chicago eye bank sent me a letter seven years ago, miss."

"The donor, a young woman, kept a clouded left eye."

"She left the hospital before anyone could thank her."

He tapped the cane once on the carpet.

"The woman my grandson brought home has two flawless eyes and a ring from a gift shop."

"Maybe she had them repaired."

"Maybe the moon is cheese."

I almost smiled, and then I saw he was not joking.

"Why am I here, Mr. Stannard?"

"Because I am an old man who made one terrible mistake, and I would like to see whether it is going to be made again."

He gestured at the chair a second time.

I sat on the edge of it.

"My grandson lost his sight in a car at twenty-two," Augustin said.

"I was told he'd been a passenger, thrown against the dash."

"I was told he would not see again."

"So you stopped the bills."

His mouth thinned.

"I sent him to the lake cabin, where the family had a caretaker and nothing to lose."

"You left a blind man in a house with a broken stove."

"I did."

He said it flat.

"I did not know a girl brought him groceries and sang off key."

"I sang fine."

"He told me that too," Augustin said. "Last week, in this room. He said, 'Grandfather, she sang fine.'"

My throat closed.

I looked at the dark windows so he would not see my face.

"This is my will," Augustin went on.

"The company goes to Phillip only if his wife stands beside him at the board meeting on the thirtieth day."

"If she does not, it goes to my other grandson."

"Dewitt."

"You know the name."

"I read the news on the bus."

"Dewitt will take it apart in a year and sell it in pieces."

He leaned forward on the cane.

"Phillip swore before the cameras that he will stay with whichever woman wears the ring."

"He says he owes her that."

"He will not listen to me."

"He should listen to you."

"He should do many things."

He stared at me, and the blue eyes were no longer cold.

"Tell me the truth, miss. Are you his wife?"

A day earlier I would have said no and left the house.

Now I thought of Junie asleep on a crate in a pantry with pears in her fist.

I thought about the way Phillip had looked at me in the kitchen and seen nothing.

"If I were," I said slowly, "I would want to know first what kind of man he is."

"He's a good one."

"You haven't earned the right to say so."

The old man took it and nodded.

"And I would not want anyone to say a word to him until I decided."

"Why?"

"Because he owes me his eyes," I said. "And I'm not going to be repaid."

For a second Augustin Stannard did not move.

"My household is short a cook," he said. "The kitchen is yours for thirty days, with a room off it for a niece."

"You know about her."

"I know there is a child in my pantry eating my pears."

"Her name is Junie."

"I know that as well. She told the butler a long speech about horses."

He rose, with the cane taking his weight, and offered me his hand.

It was dry and light and shook a little.

"I can protect you from Dewitt for thirty days. I cannot protect you from my grandson."

"I don't need protection from him."

"Then you've never seen him angry."

I shook his hand and left the library.

Junie was asleep in the small room off the kitchen.

Her bed was bigger than any she had ever had, and the horse lay on her pillow.

I stood over her for a long time.

She slept with one hand curled by her ear, just as he had in the cabin.

I did not go to bed.

At half past eleven I found fish bones and onions in the pantry.

I made broth for the old man because I could not sit still.

The kitchen was empty, lit by one hanging lamp over the stove.

I keep the lamps on at night.

I don't like to say why.

I stirred the pot, and my mother's old song came up from somewhere under my ribs, the one she had hummed in the dark.

I didn't notice I was humming.

"Who's that?"

The voice came from the doorway and went through me.

I turned with the spoon in my hand.

Phillip Stannard stood there in a gray shirt with the sleeves pushed up and his hair mussed.

"Who's humming?" he asked.

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