Page 12 of Etched In Stone
My heart swelled with love for her. A part of me still didn’t believe she was real. Devils weren’t worthy of angels, yet here she was.
The mouthwatering scent of jerk chicken sizzling on a nearby grill mixed tantalizingly with the sweet fragrance of ripe mangoes and papayas. Lively beats of steel drum music filled the air as locals and tourists chattered and bartered animatedly. The rhythm was infectious—bright percussion laced with the smooth undertone of a bass guitar, punctuated by the occasional trill of a flute. It rose and fell like the tide, sensual and playful. The island’s music wasn’t just background noise—it was life itself, weaving its pulse into the very culture of this place.
Krystina paused before a stall where an older woman sat surrounded by handmade jewelry. The vendor, her skin the color of rich coffee and lined with the wisdom of decades, looked up from her work with a smile that transformed her entire face.
“Good morning, beautiful lady,” she said in heavily accented English. “You looking for something special for your honeymoon, yes?”
Krystina blushed, her hand instinctively going to the rings on her left hand. “How did you know?”
The woman laughed, a sound like wind chimes. “Child, love like yours, it shines so bright even a blind man could see it. You both glow like you swallowed sunshine.”
“See anything you like?” I asked as Krystina examined a collection of delicate seashell jewelry, each piece handmade with painstaking attention to detail.
“So many beautiful things,” she mused. Turning to me with a coy smile, she added, “Present company included.”
I smirked and wound an arm around her waist, tugging her flush against me despite the public setting. The playful banter we’d shared since starting our honeymoon was unlike our usual dynamic, yet it felt completely natural. Marriage had given us a new kind of freedom, a sense of security that allowed me to explore different facets of our relationship that had once been foreign.
“Likewise, angel.” Then I leaned down to whisper so only she could hear, “I plan to show you how much I admire your beauty later.”
Krystina trembled slightly, her eyes darkening with desire as she murmured, “I think you already did that last night. And the night before, and the night before that.”
“And I’ll do it again tonight.”
“You have good taste, sister,” the jewelry vendor said approvingly, interrupting our private moment. “Your man, he looks at you like you are made of starlight.”
“What would you recommend?” I asked the woman, genuinely curious about her perspective. “Perhaps something that captures the culture of Jamaica?”
Her eyes lit up as she reached beneath her table, emerging with a small wooden box that looked very old.
“This one,” she said, lifting out a bracelet made of what appeared to be sea glass and tiny shells, connected by fine silver wire. “It is made from glass the ocean gave back to us, and shells from the deepest waters. It carries the blessing of the sea goddess, protection for love that crosses many waters.”
Krystina smiled softly, and I could see the piece had spoken to her in some way.
“It’s perfect,” she whispered.
As I paid for the bracelet—paying far more than the asking price because the woman’s craftsmanship deserved it—I found myself thinking about the symbolism she’d mentioned.
Love that crosses many waters.
Krystina and I had certainly weathered our share of storms.
As we continued through the market, Krystina’s enthusiasm proved infectious. She stopped to admire hand-painted masks, asked vendors about their techniques, and even convinced me to try a piece of sugarcane that a farmer pressed into our hands.
“When I was little,” Krystina said as we paused near a fountain where local children were playing. “I dreamt about places like this. Somewhere warm and colorful and alive, where people smiled for no reason except that they were happy to be alive.”
“And now here you are,” I murmured, watching her profile as she observed the splashing children with a wistful expression.
“Yeah, here I am,” she said with a slight shrug. “Before Frank, my mother and I had so little when I was younger. Daydreaming about tropical paradises had always seemed like just that—a dream.”
“Well,” I said, pulling her closer, “now you don’t have to dream about it. We can go anywhere you want, see anything that calls to you.”
She turned to look at me fully, and I saw something deep and complicated in her brown eyes.
“That’s still hard for me to believe sometimes. That this is real, that I’m allowed to have this much happiness.”
“You’re not just allowed to have it,” I said firmly. “You deserve it. You deserve everything good this world has to offer.”
A group of local musicians had gathered near the fountain, their impromptu concert drawing a small crowd. The music was hypnotic, complex rhythms layered over melodies that seemed to tell stories of heartbreak and hope, loss and redemption. Without thinking, I found myself swaying slightly to the beat.
