Prologue

August 1880 Chicago. Young Esther Dumont marries wealthy Adam Beckett after making a wish when she was a child. But the wish turns out to be more of a curse. First chapter is a flashback.

Prologue

It was never a wish of mine to become Mrs. Adam Beckett. The wish eluded me once again after our first encounter. Never would I pray to God to grant this wish upon my most loathed enemy. This wish, this wish that I so achingly longed for, you see, was for love.

But not like this. Not like this....

 

My parents perished nine years ago on my birthday. October 8, 1871. I can still smell the smoke at night and hear my mothers silent cries as my father placed me in to her arms and begged her to run. For my life, my mother's and the life she harbored inside of her, bore far greater significance than his.

 

I do not know when, but my mother had stopped and spoke with a man I recognized but did not know. She placed me in the man's arms with a gentleness I have yet to experience to this day. She spoke in a fevered rush and I could hardly see her face with the tears and sweat clouding my eyes. The man held me so tight I could hardly breathe and I finally took note of all the screaming and people running in my direction, away from the fire. But my mother took my face in her trembling hands and smiled.

She wiped my tears from my eyes and I finally saw her. Her soft auburn hair framing her hazel eyes with tight curls and her peach skin stained black from the smoke. But her eyes, her eyes were brighter than the flames raging behind her.

 

“Diana!” The man shouted and I jumped in his arms. Our saving grace would be to run to the lake. But, it would be only my uncle and I at the waters edge. My mother kissed my forehead and every inch of my shaking face. Then she leaned in to me, brushed her cheek against mine and whispered words in my ear I shall never, could never, erase from my life.

 

“Love is everything.” She looked at me and although I was terrified, freezing and felt my heart break for the first time..and knew I would never see my parents ever again...I understood why.

 

“Diana, we must leave!” Diana only smiled at the man who I later learned was my father’s half-brother Edward. She began to walk away and I remember a small whimper falling from my lips but held it. Then, she turned and looked at Edward with tears in her eyes. She held her belly, which had only just begun to shape with life, and then spoke the last words I’d ever hear my mother say.

 

“I cannot leave him.” My mother ran into the burning city then. As my uncle ran, I knew what my father did for his family and what my mother did for him. They both sacrificed themselves for me, for each other. Her final words are only rivaled by the words of my father.

 

“Oliver please, please!” My father's blond hair never matched his brown eyes but seeing him across my mother...he was almost as beautiful as she was. He kissed my mother then and I only watched. I didn’t realize it then, not in its entirety, but I was witnessing something I spent the rest of my life hoping to find. Love.

 

“Take Esther. Edward will keep you.” My mother only shook her head, too engulfed with sobs to debate my fathers’ order. It was in that moment, with the fire our only light, that I saw my father cry. He was helpless and knew there would be no possible way for all of us to make it to my uncle. His fate was sealed for he was a soldier and general Sheridan was in the crowd. That's when I knew neither men could not turn his back on the people. “I will not have you die with me.” He looked at my mother with such a gaze and I knew in that instance, why i felt my mother's heart stop. He did want her with him, but not like this. He looked at me then and kissed me on the forehead with a broken smile that was seared into my eyes.

 

My father would not allow my mother and me to die at his side and my mother would not have him die alone because love is everything. Though my mother left me to be raised by my uncle and grandmother, I never held any ill will toward her. I never, even then, saw her actions as abandonment or betrayal. I was raised with good health, good education and good love and she knew that I would be. She knew I would be happy and that no harm would come to me. Yet, nine years later I find myself jealous of my parents. I find myself filling with envy because my mother was granted a fate that allowed her to run to the love of her life and I… I simply have not.

 

No. That is a lie. I have the love of my life. I see him everyday and I live in his home and eat by his side. But, what good is it to be in the company of the man you would give your life for, when he would not?

 

This is not what I spent the whole of my life searching for. This is not what I spent my days waiting for. And if I had known that my longing would manifest into mourning, I would have prayed that I had run after my parents that night and perished with them. Perhaps then, then I would have never set foot on my grandmother’s land. I would have never wandered off into the garden and never….never would I have stared down into that well and wished for the love of my life.

 

 

 

Anorin Arssinous 2010