The Legacy - The Legacy Saga

Legacy - Part 24

  I have held the hope in my heart for some time that my son would follow in my footsteps. All of our children are striving to live good lives, and they make me proud. But watching Phillip is truly like viewing my younger self, only he has grown into a better man than me. I cannot ask for more than that.

Adagio St. John's journal

Ninety-five

Ten years later

After checking off everything he needs, Phillip places his neatly folded clothes in the large suitcase, adding the toiletry bag last. Having finished, he looks over his list once more and smiles, musing over how much he has taken after his mother. She makes lists for everything and he finds he has adopted the habit as well because he hates forgetting anything. When he is sure he has everything he needs, he sits on the edge of the bed and stares out his window down into the front courtyard, pondering with irony what he is about to do.

He was fifteen the last time he saw Mali, and sixteen when he received her last letter. That was the year he was told by her mother that she left home and married a guy she knew in school who graduated that year. With that news came a sorrow that crushed his world.

Thanks to a lot of inspired wisdom from countless conversations with his parents, he was able to bury the pain and get past the heartache, but deep down, it never completely went away. Mali's choice to marry someone else caused him a pain unlike anything he'd ever experienced, but he couldn't let her go. He was still young, but he couldn't get her out of his heart.

Then two years ago his mother received a call from Wendy. She told Cisely Mali had been in a car accident the week before. Mali's husband had been driving while intoxicated and crashed into a large tree. Neither of them suffered any major injuries, but a piece of glass from the shattered windshield had sliced into Mali's face, leaving a large scar going down the side of her cheek. Because her face was scarred and she was no longer perfect to her husband, he quickly decided he didn't love her anymore and soon left her for someone else. Mali then moved back in with her mother. A month later Wendy called Cisely and told her Mali's divorce was final.

Closing his eyes, he ponders what Mali had gone through, unable to imagine her pain. He had wanted so much to go to her when he first learned of the accident but decided letters would be better, especially when her emotions were still so raw. If he had gone to her, he wouldn't have been able to leave. He knew he wouldn't. Instead of helping, he might have just made things worse. Besides, he got the impression that she didn't want to see him.

He started writing Mali weekly and was discouraged when there was no response. Nevertheless, he continued to write. Every day for a year, he searched his mail, hoping for a letter from her, but there never was. Yet his letters were never returned. He also emailed her twice a week, but she never answered. He wished he could shut his feelings off.  He had tried to give up the dream he'd kept locked inside since childhood, but his heart couldn't give her up.

Even now with everything that has happened, he knows with every fiber of his being he and Mali are meant to be together. Every desire in his heart is centered on her. and he is driven to make this trip. Just as his mother owns his father's heart, Mali owns his. She claimed it when they were twelve, and he's never desired to have it back.

Sighing, he zips the suitcase shut. He doesn't know what the outcome of this trip will be, he just knows he must to go to her. Everything else is in God's hands. He is moving the suitcase next to his bedroom door when his mother enters.