Griffin went back to his bedroom and picked up the phone. He called the clinic, and Enya, his favorite receptionist, answered.
“Dr. Murray’s office,” Enya said in her cheery, sparkling voice.
“It’sGriffin Gallagher. I’ve decided to take the surgical treatment. I don’t want to lose a single precious moment of my life, ever again.”
“That’s wonderful,” Enya said. “Let me pen you in for an appointment. Will your sister be able to take care of you afterward?”
“I’m sure she will,” Griffin said. “Can you please do me a favor and call her?”
He recited the number from Clare’sphone which no longer worked on the one he’d kept. She’d obviously transferred it to a new phone. All that was left on hers were the pictures and notes she took, but he wouldn’t look at any of it because the Clare he knew was more than words and images. She was sensuous, musical, and one hundred percent entrancing. She plucked every one of his heartstrings, and she strummed every breath of his spirit.
After making the appointment, he penned the last scene in his memoir. Their last kiss on top of the round tower. He’d been admiring her, memorizing her from the tip of her tiara crown, through every strand of her rivers of hair, the milky-white of her smooth skin, and every dot of freckle across her nose. He’d colored in the clear greenness of her eyes and tasted the sweet pink lips. Hisgaze had slipped to her bosom and the precious rock lying on her cleavage.
The six-points of the crystalline structure winked in his mind’s eye. His mind revolted, not believing she wore the fake. Something was wrong. Impossible.
He slapped the side of his head, hating that he was still susceptible to false memories. But each time he calmed his mind, he counted six sides to the crystalon her breast.
When and how had she switched the stones?
Had she? Or was he deluding himself?
He wanted her to have the real Heart of Brigid. He distinctly saw the ending, when the brown-haired, hazel-eyed Eamon Donnelly had corralled Clare and taken her down the staircase.
Feelings flooded his heart, and he wrote the parting glance. She’d looked back, not guiltily,not with pity. Her eyebrows arched up in the center of her forehead, and her expression was one of disappointment and finality.
He’d hurt her, but she would never have walked off with his treasure—as he’d assumed all along.
Griffin finished writing down his thoughts and went looking for his grandfather.
He found the old man sitting in the gazebo watching butterflies emergefrom their chrysalises. It was June already and closing in on the summer solstice.
“How’s that memoir of yours going?” Grandpa asked. “Are you almost done?”
“I am,” he said. “All I need to do is confirm one last piece.”
“What is it?”
“The Heart of Brigid,” Griffin said. “She doesn’t have it, does she?”
Grandpa stuck his hand into his vest. He pulled out a shinychain and held the stone up for Griffin to see.
A gleaming diamond in the rough shone purplish red, setting Griffin’s heart on fire with its glow of love.
That evening, he finished his memoir. He put the pages in an insured courier envelope and paid for it to be hand delivered to one Clare Hart, Dublin, Ireland.
