Page 103 of The Island Villa

She hesitated, and then joined them in the hug.

“She’s going to be okay.” Andrew gave her an awkward pat. “She’s going to be okay, sweetheart.”

“Yes.”

The doctor smiled. “You can see her. That might reassure you. Although just one of you at a time. If you come with me, I’ll take you to her.”

Andrew pulled away from Adeline. “Do you mind?”

“Of course, you should go first.” She gave him a little push. “Give her our love. Cassie and I will wait here.”

Watching her father hurry down the corridor, Adeline saw what she should have seen right away.

“He loves her,” she murmured, and Cassie nodded.

“Yes.”

“I don’t understand it. But maybe love isn’t something we can always understand.”

“I definitely don’t understand it.” Cassie’s voice was small and she wrapped her arms around herself. “I think I might be in love with Oliver. In fact, I know I’m in love with Oliver.”

Adeline turned to look at her sister. “Your friend? The guy you share a house with?”

Cassie turned pink and gave an apologetic shake of her head. “I shouldn’t even be mentioning it. It’s not important. Sorry.”

“Are you kidding? I’m grateful for the distraction. And any happy story is welcome right now.”

“It’s not a happy story.” Cassie stared ahead, watching as Andrew disappeared into the room where her mother was.

“It isn’t?”

“He’s in love with Suzy.”

Adeline sighed.

Love was so relentlessly complicated.

She thought about what Cassie had told her so far. “Are you sure about that?”

“Yes. And the most annoying thing is that I picked her out for him. We were going through his dating app after a glass of wine. Suzy has great teeth, and hair like silk so there’s not much competing with that.”

Adeline wondered if her sister had looked in the mirror lately.

“But you and Oliver are good friends.”

“Best friends. I can talk to him about anything and he talks to me about anything and everything.”

“Maybe you should tell him how you feel, so that there’s no misunderstanding. I don’t want you to be staying with me when you’re ninety and be forever regretting the fact that you never told him how you felt. I don’t want you feeling sad about the seventy years you could have had together.”

Cassie laughed. “You do realize if I’m ninety, then that makes you a hundred.”

Adeline rubbed her bare arms, wishing she’d brought a sweater with her. “I intend to age well, and part of aging well is to look back on a full life well-lived. We tend to regret the things we don’t say every bit as much as we regret the things we do say. If you love him, tell him.”

“You’re sounding like the daughter of a romance novelist, rather than a sensible psychologist.”

Adeline thought about her message to Stefanos. “I’m not sounding like myself, that’s for sure. I’ve decided that love isn’t one of my areas of expertise. From now on, I’ll be shunting those questions to someone else. You seem to know a lot about love. Maybe you can handle them.”

“I don’t know anything about love either. I’m clueless,” Cassie said. “But if I’m supposed to throw caution to the wind and tell Oliver I love him, then you should definitely have sex with Stefanos.”

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