Epilogue
Sasha had a truly wonderful time in Los Angeles, meeting Lionel’s family and getting to know more about him. Lionel’s beach house in Malibu was almost exactly as she had imagined it would be. Spare on furnishings with dark wood on the floors, and surprisingly, very pleasantly surprising to her, had lots of art on the walls and in the nooks and corners. The bed was a California king size. She smiled to herself when she saw it. She smiled to herself when she slipped between the sheets of it. She smiled with deep satisfaction when she watched him asleep on it.
Later the same evening they landed, she had dinner with the family at a restaurant not far from the hospital, and then she was taken to the hospital to meet Mario. He looked very much like Lionel, and they both resembled Pierpaolo. Lorenzo, looked more like his mother. Pierpaolo and Giannina, Lionel’s mum, were wonderful. Lionel had been right. Pierpaolo immediately took a liking to her and Giannina kept trying to order more food for her. By the time dessert came around, she had been fully ground down and was utterly unable to resist Giannina’s insistence on a mound of rich dark chocolate covering over a pile of profiteroles. She ate the whole thing as Giannina watched encouragingly.
She and Antonella did fly back across to Providenciales together, chatting all the way there, including through their change of airplane in Miami. Lionel had driven her to LAX and Francesca had taken Antonella there. Both of his sisters had stood right next to Lionel and Sasha as they were hugging and telling each other goodbye, neither of them thinking for even a moment, that it might be really nice to allow them even a second of privacy. Lionel seemed not even to be aware that they were present.
Peggy was at the Providenciales airport to meet her, with the keys to her new place in Provo, and very welcome notice of shipments from Shanghai and Italy that had already arrived in Miami for SasSha’s in Provo. Peggy had very kindly packed up her things on the boat, transported them to the new place, a beach house not very far away, and handed back the boat to the agents. They got to work almost the minute they got into the car. Antonella was picked up by Hotel staff, so she and Sasha hugged good-bye and agreed to meet for lunch in a couple of days or so, once they had both settled back in and caught up with their work and other stuff.
SasSha’s in Provo opened about six weeks later than had been originally planned, and the opening party was a blast. All the merchandise that had been purchased on the emergency return trip to Shangai arrived on time, customs was refreshingly helpful and everything fell into place very nicely. People flew in from New York for the opening, and Sasha even managed to convince her own mom to make the trip.
Of course, Lionel came to Providenciales for the opening of SasSha’s in Provo. He was there before the day, and he remained for a few days after the event. He seemed so very proud of her the entire time. She noticed him observing her during the evening, and from time to time he would wink at her or nod to her across the room.
They talked all the time; several times every day and he had come to the island about three weeks after the trip to Shanghai. Each time, she was pleased to see that he was still wearing the bracelet she had given him the night before they left Shanghai. When they video-chatted, she sometimes noticed that he was wearing it, and while he was in Provo he wore only that one.
She thought it was the perfect memento of the happy times they had and their mutual promise to always return to Shanghai, to never forsake the love they had found.