Page 66 of The Island Villa

“She’s surviving. It’s been hard for her. My parents had been together for more than thirty years, side by side through everything. Losing him has rocked her whole life. It’s a big adjustment.” He paused. “Catherine has been a wonderful support. Their bond is extraordinary. She’s been there for my mother throughout the whole thing. She was the one who called me when my father was taken to hospital. She kept me updated right through my journey home from Canada and stayed with my mother the whole time until I arrived.”

“I didn’t know that.”

She thought back to the message her mother had sent.

Kostas died suddenly this weekend.

She’d felt a stab of sadness because she had fond memories of Kostas, and had thought then about Stefanos and wondered how her old friend was doing. But she hadn’t reached out. It had been twenty years. She’d told herself that her words were unlikely to bring comfort, but she’d been lying to herself. The truth was that thinking about Stefanos took her back to that time.

Now she wished she’d contacted him personally instead of sending a message of condolence via her mother.

Stefanos was watching her. “Why don’t we sit for a while?” He gestured to the bench at the end of the jetty where her mother sometimes sat with a notebook and wrote her books undisturbed.

She’d thought she wanted to be on her own, but now she discovered that she didn’t and she walked to the end of the jetty and settled herself on the bench.

Stefanos grabbed a bottle of water from the boat and joined her. “Did you know that Catherine cancelled a book tour so that she could stay close to my mother? She refused to leave her side.”

That didn’t sound like her mother. Catherine Swift never let anything get in the way of her work. When it came to anything to do with her writing, she was a machine.

Memories dug into her, sharp and uncomfortable.

How many times had she begged her as a child? Don’t go away. Please stay. And her mother had replied, This is my job, honey, and I have responsibilities. We wouldn’t want to let people down, would we?

When Adeline had been sick with chicken pox the week before a tour of the US, her mother had stayed away from her in case she caught it before her trip. It had been left to her father to comfort her in her itchy misery. And then Cassie had arrived and her mother hadn’t left her alone. She’d said that it was impossible to tour when she had a baby and Adeline had wondered why it had been so easy for her mother to leave her, and yet impossible for her to leave her little sister.

What was she lacking?

It was only after Cassie’s father had died that she’d started touring again, apparently happy to leave Cassie in the care of Maria. That had seemed a little strange to Adeline, but by then she’d long since given up trying to understand adults.

And now Stefanos was telling her that her mother had cancelled a tour for Maria. He had to have that wrong.

“You mean she cancelled a signing.”

“No. The whole book tour,” he said. “She only allowed it to be rearranged when she had my assurance that I was back for good and wouldn’t be leaving. Her loyalty to my mother is extraordinary. Their friendship is inspiring.”

His warmth and gratitude jarred with her current feelings toward her mother.

Her mother was there for everyone else, it seemed. She picked Cassie up from the airport, she supported Maria—

She shouldn’t be feeling hurt or envious. She was past the stage of needing comfort and attention from her mother. If anything it was good to know her mother was capable of offering comfort.

“I’m glad she helped. And I really am sorry you lost your father. He was a lovely man.” She’d been envious of Stefanos’s stable family life, and the close, loving relationship between his parents. “So you came home and stayed, instead of going back to Canada.”

The air was slightly cooler right here by the sea, and she glanced down and saw a shoal of tiny fish dart through the clear blue water.

She felt calmer, although whether that was due to the tranquilizing effect of cloudless blue skies and an endless shimmering ocean or being with Stefanos she wasn’t sure.

She’d always found him easy company.

“There was so much to deal with.” He stretched out his legs. “When I wasn’t handling paperwork and checking on my mother, I was sorting out the boats. I fixed them up, planning to sell them, but then I took one of them out on the water and that was it.”

“That was what?” She felt the sun burning her cheek and altered the angle of her hat.

“The moment I decided I wasn’t going to sell anything. I wanted to run the business. No one was more surprised than me.” He glanced across the water. “Growing up, I couldn’t wait to leave this place. I kept thinking of all the things out there that I was missing. I was hungry for anything and everything that wasn’t what I had.”

“It’s human nature to want to explore.”

“Maybe. And I don’t regret leaving, because it’s only by trying different things that you find out what’s important to you and what you really want. But people change, don’t they? Life happens and you have experiences—good and bad—and discover that the things that matter most don’t really matter at all, or the place you’re spending time isn’t where you want to be. You start to appreciate things you didn’t appreciate before.” He gave her an apologetic smile. “And that was far too much information to load onto someone I haven’t seen for two decades. I’m not sure why I told you all that.”

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