Page 7 of Say You Will

In the past eleven months, in an attempt to provide my grandmother proof of my rich and meaningful life, I’ve participated in no less than seven new and varied hobbies. They range from fly fishing, which I enjoy, to knitting, which, shockingly, I also enjoy.

“Maybe you’ll find your future wife at the wedding. You’re running out of time. What have you got left? Two months?” Dante asks.

My eye twitches. “One.” If I don’t meet Grandmother’s deadline, she’s planning to give her shares to her sister’s grandson, Lawrence. She chose him for the simple fact that she knows I will go to extreme lengths to prevent him from getting his hands on that company. She knows if she gives them to Gabriel, he’ll hand the reins over to me as soon as the ink is dry on the contract.

“Close your eyes and think of England,” Gabriel says.

I’ve closed my eyes and thought of who was in England one too many times for a joke like that to amuse me. She’s in California now. Franki said she’d come back when she finished school. “There has to be another way.”

I can’t marry someone else. That’s not an option I can even consider. I flinch internally at the idea of chasing Franki down before she’s ready. She’s working toward her PhD and has years left before she comes home, but the clock is ticking.

“I’ve decided to approach the situation as a business merger.” One thing all this time that I’ve spent fishing and knitting and thinking has done is give me the grudging realization that mygrandmother is partially right. I’m numb as hell, but what she doesn’t understand is that I like it that way.

Grandmother’s mistake is assuming that’s something I need, or want, to change. Anyone who’s seen and felt the things I have would be a masochist to volunteer for that kind of pain again. “My situation is too complicated for anything else right now.”

There isn’t time. I’ve let it go too long.

“Find some temporary company, then. Go out once in a while. Find a woman to take home and let the word spread. Maybe it’ll be enough if Grandmother thinks you’re looking.” Gabriel’s voice sounds in my ear.

“That won’t solve my problem.” If it were only the issue of navigating the security risks that sleeping with random women carried, I might consider his suggestion, but touching another woman would be a betrayal. Gabriel would call me insane if I told him that. In order for there to be “another” woman, I’d need to have a woman in the first place, and I don’t. She was never mine.

I once saw the definition of a Welsh word:hiraeth. It’s homesickness for someplace or someone you can never return to. Sometimes, it’s a yearning to return to something that never even existed at all. Understanding resonated inside me immediately upon learning the word. I’ve never found a better way to explain the hole inside me that’s only grown deeper over the last five years.

“Your grandmother isn’t going to accept some fake marriage,” Dante argues.

“It won’t be fake. It will be practical,” I say.

“Unless you ease up on your requirements, you’re not finding anyone at all. You’ll need someone financially motivated, which immediately calls her trustworthiness into question,” Gabriel says.

“I’m someone financially motivated, and I’m trustworthy,” I say sourly. “I’m not changing my requirements. I’ll explain to Grandmother that I’m searching but haven’t found the right person and request an extension.”

“She’ll ask what you’re looking for in a wife and realize you’ve made an impossible list as an excuse,” my brother disagrees.

“It’s not impossible,” I scoff.

Gabriel snorts. “She has to be fluent in German and French, even though you don’t speak those languages; you speak Italian and Russian. You won’t accept anyone who isn’t within an inch either way of five-foot-seven, for no reason whatsoever, except that you held your hand out to a certain height one day, and said, ‘Spencer, find a tape measure, that’s how tall she is.’ And she should be a dog person, even though you don’t have a dog.”

“I like dogs, and it makes perfect sense that I would want my wife to be fluent in languages that I’m not. It’s a practical consideration that reduces the need to hire a translator in any number of circumstances.”

“Yeah, okay,” Gabriel says in patent disbelief.

Dante speaks. “Why does she have to be interested in astronomy and world history? Those interests are too different from each other. If you find someone into astronomy, she’s not going to be into history. We’re not stupid. You did it on purpose.”

I say nothing in response.

“At least the one about being loyal and trustworthy makes sense. You can’t have a wife you’re worried will stab you in your sleep. That’s the real impossibility. No one could live with Henry and not want to kill him.” I can hear the grin in Gabriel’s voice.

I roll my eyes.

Dante snorts. “Don’t forget she has to appreciate when he has time for her, but keep herself busy when he doesn’t. And if he did manage to find someone who meets every one of his othercriteria, he won’t accept her if she doesn’t have brown eyes. To be honest, the last three on the list sound like a golden retriever, not a wife.”

They haven’t listed half of my criteria.

“What is your wife supposed to get out of this?” Gabriel asks.

“The obvious answer is money. I’ll consider making adjustments to my requirements on an as-needed basis. I’m not budging on the height, eye color, languages, or education. Trustworthiness has to stay. As does her liking dogs.”

Gabriel’s shock is clear in his voice. “You’re actually going to do it.”

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