I don't know how I end up in my grandmother's suite of rooms, but I've been walking around my castle like a sad pathetic clown. I'm even more surprised to see my grandmother actually sitting at her desk doing her correspondence.

But I don't think she is surprised at seeing me. Her door is ajar and I make the motions of knocking but before my hand connects, she looks up as though she has been waiting to see me. She gives me a wrinkly smile and her blue eyes intrude like lasers. "What an unexpected pleasure," she says.

I can't remember the last time I asked my grandmother for advice. There have probably been so many occasions when I could have but didn't, and I suddenly find that sad. I take a seat across the desk from her and notice she keeps her own smaller throne in an alcove overlooking the gardens. She had been queen until my father took the throne. When my father died, she became Queen again, until I came of age.

I am suddenly all adrift about where to begin. "A lot of things have been changing around here."

She crinkles her eyes and sets her fountain pen aside. She smoothes over her papers and then gives me a very direct look. "That's quite true, they are. Are you unhappy?"

"I wouldn't say that, it's just . . . Everything is different." I woke up in my room only to find it wasn't my room. I was wrapped in gold sheets, not green. There was a canopy above my head and next to me was my soon to be sister-in-law. I know I can't tell my grandmother any of this. I search through my mind to find anything that I can say to describe my utter confusion and disorientation. "I don't know if my reaction makes any sense." I run my fingers through my hair, shaking my head at myself. Who am I kidding? None of the things in my head make any damn sense right now.

She regards me over her reading glasses carefully. "No, I think I do understand. You feel like the palace has been overrun by the girls, and it's been a long time since there has been anyone of the, ah, female persuasion living under this roof along with us. We've been in isolation far too long, my dear."

Surprisingly she's not far from the truth. "It has been a long time. Sometimes it seems like it was only yesterday that mother left Rupert and me. Then, our father passed away so soon afterward and we were in your care. It's been a decade, how can it feel like it just happened the other day?"

Grandmother's voice softens and speaks slowly. "Time has a funny way of speeding up situations that feel endless, and stretching out other situations that only last a few moments."

I recollect the moment Cyndi was standing next to me seated at my desk in the library. Her full lips and full curves all on display wearing only a bikini. I wanted to drag her down and make love to her on my desk. I blink to clear the thought.

Grandmother thinks this conversation is about my mother and my father. "I still wake up angry at her," I admit. Somehow the usual wall I keep up between my feelings and my behavior, and even my sense of self, is crumbling. "Not sure whether I'm angrier that she left me or that I never got to ask her why."

Grandmother sighs and reaches her hands across the desk. "Petros, you need to let that anger from the past go. At first, it was well deserved and even served to keep you strong during those early years. But your anger is a handicap now. You must let it go before it becomes the only thing your heart is able to hold."

I pull back my hands and frown at her. I had bared my soul and my grandmother isn't patting me on the back and saying, "There, there."

She watches my reaction and continues, "The secret to letting go is to forgive. You forgive her for not being able to be a good mother. You forgive yourself for holding onto this anger to avoid feeling pain. Allow yourself to feel empty for a time. It will be a big shift to let your heart forgive and open up."

"She never told us why. She didn't love us enough."

"Somehow, I get the feeling you are unable to see and deal with the present because of the past. Have you opened your heart to someone who now feels far away?"

There she was. My elderly grandmother seated in silhouette. Lit from behind, her errant wisps of hair shine like a coronet of fire. The other features that I could clearly make out are her bright blue penetrating eyes. She could see right through me. When had she not? Perhaps that is why I come to seek her advice so seldom.

My throat is tight, and I fight against feelings that I've repressed all these years.

"I can see that you are in pain. You won't believe me when I tell you that this pain is a good thing."

My thoughts slip naturally to Cyndi. The way her lovely brown eyes light up when she reads, the beautiful curves of her mouth as she dishes her thoughts on anything, unedited, unafraid to speak her truth. How she moaned my name just last night...

"You are a good man with a great heart for his kingdom who, fortunately, so happens to be its King."

A King who can't manage one of his subjects. Come to think of it, Cyndi isn't my subject. She is wholly outside of my kingdom. Literally. It is her sister who is to become one of our very own. The thought that I bed down my sister-in-law makes my confusion all the more confounding.

The doors to the Dowager's suites burst open, and in comes eight year old, Char, dragging her pink rabbit by the ears. Her face is frightened, her wide set eyes brim with tears.

"Oh sweet darling, what's wrong?" My grandmother beckons her with open arms.

"I can't find Cyndi," she sniffles, hiding her face against my grandmother's shoulder when she spies me looking at her.

"I think I might know where she is," I say. This news turns her head and her eyes give me a tentative assessment. Her mouth is twisted as she waits for me to explain.

"I could take you to her?"

I can see that she doesn't trust me, so I point down to her pink rabbit. "I like your rabbit. Does it have a name?"

Charlotte looks at me as though she is going through the alternatives to actually speaking with me. Finally she says, "She's a girl and her name is Pinky."

I laugh at her obvious name and point to the female rabbit. "Would you mind letting Pinky know that I like her name?" I don't quite know what's gotten into me, but suddenly it is my sole mission to make Charlotte feel better.

Charlotte sits up. "You can tell her that yourself."

Clearing my throat I take one of the rabbit's little pink paws in my hand. "Pinky, your name is quite lovely. Now would you mind telling Charlotte that I would be happy to help her find Cyndi, and if she comes with me, I also know where we can find some of Bastian's secret stash of cookies? As long as she can keep it a secret."

Charlotte says, "I'm fine with keeping a secret. It's Pinky you have to worry about. Also, I will go with you but I have to warn you. If you aren't nice to either of us, Cyndi says she is going to beat you up."

Grandmother and I laugh. I kneel down so that I look at Charlotte eye to eye. "Between you and me, I know well how Cyndi could beat me up. But I would never dream of being mean to either you or Pinky. You are far too sweet and I want you to be my friend."

I still see some hesitation in her big brown eyes but she wiggles out of grandmother's arms and takes my hand in hers. "Lead the way. I want to find Cyndi first but Pinky wants a cookie."

I could do worse than listen to grandmother's advice. With Charlotte's hand in mine, for the first time today my mood lifts. Baby steps. Being open. Beginning with forgiveness and kindness.