Page 204 of The Seven Rings
As they passed the servants’ door, it swung open, and the bell below rang, rang, rang.
Cleo simply shut the door and kept going. “She does that one a lot when you’re working and I’m going up or down.”
“I liked that Maddy just shrugged it all off. She goes on the invitation list for the holiday party.”
“Absolutely. You know she’s going to check out your work, talk to some of your village clients. And she’s going to get back to you about redoing her website.”
“I’m not going to say a hundred percent, but I give it a ninety-five.”
As they reached the third floor, doors swung open, slammed shut.
“Does she do that a lot, too?”
“Off and on. Mostly it’s just banging around. Like that,” Cleo added when the slams and thuds issued from the Gold Room. “Plus, I don’t think she likes it when we’re up here together.”
“Then I’ll have to come up more often.”
They stepped into the studio, where the turret windows opened to sea and sky.
“Look, rain’s coming. You can actually see it, like a wall sliding over the water. I get too caught up in work, and don’t look out the library windows often enough. But I hear the ocean, and wonder how I ever worked without that sound.”
She turned to the easel. “You still have it covered.”
“I wasn’t sure if you’d bring Maddy up. Whenever I worked on it, I told Clover it was a surprise, and asked her not to look.”
Clover joined in with Soundgarden’s “She Likes Surprises.”
“Good, because here it is.”
Cleo took a breath, held it—a sign, Sonya knew, that meant an important moment.
She removed the cover.
“Oh my God. Oh, Cleo. Oh my God.”
Because her heart had leaped into it, Sonya crossed her hands over her throat.
“It’s—it’s—I need a minute.”
The seven brides stood, shoulder to shoulder in their bridal white, on the lush green lawn. Flowers spread like a carpet at their feet. Behind them, the manor rose majestically into a deep and dreamy blue sky with wispy hints of soft white clouds.
Astrid, her body angled slightly to the right, held Catherine’s hand. Catherine, lips curved, had a hand on Marianne’s arm while Marianne’s hand lay on Agatha’s wrist.
They formed a unit, all connected. Agatha’s hand on Lisbeth’s shoulder, Lisbeth’s hand in Clover’s, Clover’s and Johanna’s arms linked.
The light illuminated their faces, and those faces held joy; they held life.
The wedding dresses seemed to shimmer. Seven rings sparkled.
“Cleo. Cleopatra. I’m groping for words, and I can’t find any worthy of this. It’s beyond beautiful. It’s magical. It’s glorious.”
Tears clogged her throat, then she turned, wrapped around her friend, and pressed her face to Cleo’s shoulder.
“I couldn’t finish until we had Catherine’s portrait. So I could see her, the details. I wanted to give them this moment of beauty and strength and solidarity.”
“You’re such a treasure to me. That you’d think of this. That you’d do this.”
Clover said thank you through the Beatles and “In My Life.”
