Page 210 of Phantom Mine

It washes away two years of heartache and pain, banishing bad memories and ushering in the promise of a new beginning.

A fitting end.

A fresh start.

And just like that, I don’t hate the rain anymore.

Second Epilogue

Matteo

Six years later

Time seems to slow the second I touch down in London. After taking a boat and two planes to make it home from the remote Italian village nestled by a lake where I was, it’s this final thirty minute drive from the airport that feels interminable.

Every second extends into five until it feels like I’ve been in the car for two hours. My knee jerks nervously and I place a palm on it to steady it.

It’s not anticipation.

It’s excitement.

I’ve been away resolving an internal squabble between the branches and haven’t seen my wife in almost a week.

Six days and thirty seven minutes to be exact.

I’ve always kept track of the time we spent apart, starting with the eighteen months we were separated when we first met.

Twelve thousand, six hundred and seventy two hours.

Seven hundred and sixty thousand, three hundred and twenty minutes.

Forty five million, six hundred and nineteen, two hundred seconds.

Only once since have we been away from each other for more than a couple of days. About four years ago, her brother flew back to Colombia with his wife and newborn son to introduce him to their father. Since Valentina hadn’t been home in a while, she decided to join them for three weeks.

My relationship with her brother wasn’t in the greatest of places at the time. An argument over shipping routes had devolved into mutual assassination attempts.

Both of them failed, which irks.

Things had been…tense at family gatherings since so the decision was made (by her) that I’d stay back (against my will).

Those three weeks were so miserable I only technically made it two and a half. I barged in on the seventeenth day and made myself right at home. So long as I was holding Valentina’s hand, Thiago was welcome to shoot me to his little heart’s content.

In the four years since, this latest business trip is the longest we’ve been apart. It’s ending exactly the way the first one did, with me not being able to make it the distance.

Yesterday, I decided to cut the trip short for no other reason except that the serious discomfort I’d experienced in the first days away from her had morphed into actual pain as we hit day five.

I was coming home a day early to surprise her, so when I say that every minute of this drive has been agonizingly slow, I mean that it’s beenagonizinglyslow.

I bang my fist against the partition, encouraging the driver to go even faster. It’s the second time I’ve asked and he’s still going the speed limit.

It’s definitely ill-advised for someone in my position to be as codependent with his wife as I am. Most men would play it stoic, and either not get attached or never reveal it if they do.

I couldn’t hide it if I tried.

I’m absolutely, ridiculously, unashamedly in love with my wife. Disgusting, I know, but nothing feels better than coming home to her and I’m proud to admit it.

I would shout it from the rooftops and I have on a few drunken nights out.

---