Page 115 of The Island Villa

“You think?” Adeline glanced at her. “Comedy, I hope, not tragedy.”

“Let’s hope so. We’ll know more in a minute, I’m sure. We have good seats. Did you bring popcorn?”

“I try not to eat between meals.”

“I didn’t know I was in love with you,” Cassie was saying, “because I didn’t know what I was looking for. I thought love would be like an elephant. I thought I’d know it if I saw it. But it turns out it wasn’t like that at all.”

“Love can be like an elephant,” Catherine said, “when it crushes you.”

“Keep your voice down,” Adeline said. “If this was a book, it would end right here. Before the tough stuff comes.”

Catherine watched as Oliver and Cassie kissed again, murmuring words against each other’s lips, catching up on all the things they hadn’t said and should have done. “They’ll weather it,” she said. “Whatever comes their way, they’ll weather it. Look at them.”

“I’m looking.” Adeline shifted slightly. “I’m also burning. The sun is too hot to be standing here like this. We should go back to the villa before the audience gets sunstroke.”

In the end, it was Andrew who took charge of the situation. He stepped forward, introduced himself to Oliver and suggested he join them up at the villa where they had ample room for another guest. Adeline joined them, kissing Oliver on the cheek and hugging her sister.

Catherine followed a little way behind, watching her family laughing and enjoying the moment.

She’d hoped that everything might turn out well, but she hadn’t anticipated quite such a good outcome.

And finally, after all these years, the truth was out in the open. The important parts anyway.

Even if she’d wanted to tell the whole truth, she couldn’t. It wouldn’t have been fair because the story didn’t just involve her, and who knew how Cassie might have reacted had she known the detail of what really happened.

Catherine hadn’t lost her shoes running away from Rob. It was Maria who had put the shoes there. Afterward, obviously. She was the housekeeper. She wasn’t in the habit of walking round the house, littering it with shoes. She’d thought it wouldn’t hurt to give the police something to focus on. Catherine hadn’t been thinking at all. She hadn’t been capable of it. She’d sat, numb, at the top of the stairs, still clinging to the rail that had stopped her from plunging down the stairs with him.

That was where Maria had found her. How long had she been sitting there? Had Rob been breathing when he’d hit the bottom? She didn’t know that either.

The whole thing had been a blur of horror and she couldn’t even say for certain what had happened. She’d pushed him, she knew that, but she hadn’t intended him to fall. She certainly hadn’t intended to hurt him, even though he hurt her constantly. She’d been defending herself, that was all. Trying to stop him throwing her down the stairs. She’d been thinking of little Cassie, waking to find her mother dead. Cassie, with Rob as her only parent.

The idea of it had given her superhuman strength and resolve. Somehow she’d managed to hook her leg around the bannister and at the same time give him a hard shove. He must have been drunker than she’d thought because he was a big man and a single push from a woman her size, even a woman fighting for her life, wouldn’t normally have caused him to shift balance, let alone lose it altogether. Whatever it was, that shove and the drink were finally the end of Robert Elliot Dunn.

He’d fallen heavily, smacking into the wall, cracking bones on the hard tile stairs as he bounced and rolled to the bottom where he finally smashed into her Italian tiles.

She didn’t know how long she’d been sitting like that when Maria found her. Fortunately, her friend had made a habit of checking on Catherine after one of Rob’s drinking sessions.

It was Maria who had peeled her cold, numb fingers away from the rail. Maria who had crouched over Rob’s broken body, checking for a pulse. Maria who had dealt with the local police. Not that there had been much of an investigation. People had seen Rob drinking heavily that night. It was quite obvious what had happened. An unfortunate accident.

Catherine hadn’t told them anything different. For two days, she hadn’t been able to talk at all. Shock, they’d said in the hospital. Understandable. Such a lovely couple. Such a happy couple. The poor child. Now without a father.

It turned Catherine cold to think what could have happened. If she hadn’t grabbed the railing, if he hadn’t been quite as drunk, she would have been the one lying at the bottom of the stairs, and then what would have happened to Cassie?

She didn’t feel guilty about not giving Cassie all the details. How would that help?

This particular secret would stay between her and Maria, held safe by their deep unwavering friendship.

And Catherine realized right then that wanting to change the past was a waste of energy. It didn’t really matter what had happened before. What mattered was where they were now.

There was Cassie with her whole life ahead of her, poised on the cusp of something exciting, and Adeline who would hopefully find the courage to take some risks with her heart. And Andrew, kind and dependable, always there for her as she would be for him. She could regret the years they’d wasted, or she could celebrate the years that were still to come.

Andrew turned and held out his hand and she walked toward him, and her waiting family.

If she were writing this, she’d type The End right now (her two favorite words), but it wasn’t really the end of course.

It was the beginning.

Epilogue

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