AROUND THE HEART IN 80 DAYS

Three

Past the door, past the reception desk, past the lobby, past the anonymous individuals trotting this way and that, into the elevator she went, a vibrating finger pressing the top floor button down to the very limit the button could go.

She tapped the long strap of her bag so impatiently and pressed the back of her palm to her mouth.

Edrei would NEVER be the end of her. Never!

The elevator dinged, it's doors sliding in opposing directions. She didn't bother to greet the people that had been waiting for her on the third floor, just squeezed through them and made a beeline for the 'Vice President' panel, engraved deeply in a bronze plaque shooting out an inch from the near-to-top position against an ivory door.
She ignored the open office space that had the sales department, looking up to see who had interrupted.

Copper Rivet Winery deserved better.

"Good day, Mrs. Patton. And how is the newly wed-" Edrei's secretary began.

"Hey, Deuce." Rebecca set her lower arm on the glassy desktop, her brows turning downward to reach the inner corners of her eyes. "Is my brother in?"

"Yes, he just-" she didn't complete the statement as Rebecca marched pointedly to the door.

Without knocking, Rebecca turned the knob and pushed inward.

Edrei looked away from the huge scenic window overlooking the green fields that led to the vineyard so far off, and to his sister, phone in hand, up to his ear. "Becca?" He mouthed.

"Put the phone down, Edrei. Now!"

He cast a low gaze upon her. Then whispered a little into the device, then did as she'd said.

"Tell me. Tell me what dad is telling me isn't true." His sister quickly switched to French, as they subconsciously did when they were around each other as well as family.

His gaze shifted downward, then he walked around his table and sank down into his chair. "Aren't you meant to be on your honeymoon?"

"Bull! Tell me, Edrei! What you told papa isn't what you plan on doing."

She could see from her perspective, that his finger ran the metallic framelength of a portable image set on his desk, held up by a support, in that base-wide triangular angle.
She felt like lighting both of them on fire.

"Our father says lots of things," he told her, bluntly.

"God!" She held her forehead. Anyone with eyes, physical and spiritual, could see the turmoil bubbling through her head.
How could a man be so childish?!
"The Germany thing. You want to move... ?"

What irritated her the most was how he didn't regard the fact that anyone was standing in front of him. Like the moment he saw the frame, he got lost. Again and again AND again!

He wasn't answering her. Good Lord.

She walked closer to the desk tentatively. Her inner desire struggled to snatch that frame (and maybe the other 200 he had stashed in odd places) and burn it beyond recognition, whereas her more mature self remembered to honour the dead and that Mariana was actually a great friend of hers.

Two years ago.

"Look at yourself Edrei. You're becoming a shadow of the shadow of yourself." Rebecca got to his table, where he was still freaking lost, and made a show of placing both fisted knuckles on the table top then leaning in. "You are not going to Germany. I will not allow it."

Her words must have punched his jaw like an uppercut, because his head flung upward to her immediately. "What?"

He looked so innocent. Like he wasn't a disturbed person at all going to Europe to spend the rest of his days because he couldn't get over his late German sweetheart. "I mean it, Edrei."