CHAPTER 19
________
EVA
When we got back from our night in the hotel, things seemed different. Nick and I no longer looked at each other as though we were sharing a secret, and although I caught him staring at me once or twice, whenever he found me looking back at him, his eyes flicked away. I wondered whether he regretted our night together. I couldn’t really blame him. I was wondering whether it had been the right thing to do, too.
Even since we’d met up again after so long, there had been a passionate spark between us that neither of us could deny. The night we had in the hotel was simply the two of us giving in to each other and the attraction that was undoubtedly there.
As for what would happen next… well, I guess we both had to accept that it was what it was, and nothing more. It had felt a little like there was unfinished business between us, and now we’d sort of finished things. Worked them out. Closure.
I made up my mind to stop thinking about Nick and concentrate on the real reason I was there: Maria. We were already a month into being in Santorini, and while she was recovering well, I hadn’t given her the time I should have. The time she deserved. After all, she was paying me to be there. Or at least, someone was. I needed to make sure she was my sole focus. Nick and I had worked through our issues. I could move on with my life and so could he.
I started to get up every morning at seven. I’d help Maria get up, too, and I’d check her incision site carefully. It had been healing perfectly. Then, I’d make her breakfast, and while she ate and read the paper, I’d massage her legs, especially the back of her right knee and her thigh. The stronger her legs were, the quicker they’d help the knee to heal.
After breakfast, we’d walk down a few of the steps to the beach. We never went all the way down, of course, but it had been a good way for Maria to track her progress. On day one, she’d managed five steps. On day two, nine, and so on.
So, by the end of the week, she was walking down twenty steps, and back up again. She was determined to get there. Occasionally, she tried to talk to me about Nick, but I managed to avoid the subject.
“He’s been on his own a long time,” she said, as she slowly lowered herself down from one bright white step to another. “Never found the right girl. I look at him, and I wonder whether there’s someone from long ago that he’s still thinking about.”
“And keep that bad leg coming down first,” I said, ignoring her. “Remember, good up to heaven, bad down to hell.”
“And Lily, she deserves to have a mother in her life,” Maria continued, as determined to keep me on the subject as I was getting her off it. “That girl has such a spark in her. She’s a good girl.”
She was right about that. Lily was a great kid. Her sharp wit and ability to see things was incredible, and sometimes I forgot she was only eight years old. When Maria had eventually had enough exercise, she’d send me down to the beach with the little girl, where we’d both lay out our towels on the black sand and each read our books. Lily liked to read stories about true crime; they were grisly tales she sometimes relayed back to me, but she didn’t bat an eyelid.
Nobody knew this, but I was rapidly making my way through Nick’s books. I was becoming hooked on Fabian Ackroyd, the damaged detective and Gulf War veteran who struggled with PTSD and channeled his pain into solving crime. I followed him through the dark streets of Chicago to the jungles of Colombia to find a missing woman at the heart of a drug smuggling ring. Then I went with him to Moscow, where he infiltrated the Kremlin to discover what really happened to a Russian Orthodox priest who went missing from a church in New York.
Nick Stavrou was a skilled writer who kept me glued to the page; or in this case, to the screen. I made a plan to tell anyone who’d ask me what I was reading, that it was only a steamy romance novel. I hate romance novels. True love never works out the way it does in books, or at least it never has for me. I was much more at home with a gripping murder mystery. With Lily by my side reading about true crime stories, the two of us made a rather macabre pair.
Whenever I got too hot, I took a dip in the cool waters of the ocean. I was getting used to the bracing feeling of the cold water and the way it always felt warmer when I immersed my shoulders too, as Maria had promised in the very beginning. Once done, I’d then come out and only shake off the droplets, leaving my body to dry in the warmth of the sun. For the first time in my life, I was getting a decent tan although I was still applying suntan lotion, on myself and Lily too. I was grateful that I didn’t look like a lobster the way I usually did when on vacation. I was actually getting a rather lovely glow.
On Friday evening, I learned that Nick was leaving. I was shocked. We were sitting at the dinner table, and Maria and Lily both looked as though they already knew about it.
“It’s only for a few days,” he said. “I’m going tomorrow and coming back on Tuesday. I’ll be in Athens to do some book signings and appearances, and then I’ll be back.”
He glanced at Lily, and then at me. “I asked Lily to come with me, but she says she’d like to stay here, with you.”
I was touched. “Well, if you’re happy for her to stay with me, I’d love for the two of us to hang out for a little while,” I said, and Lily nodded and grinned.
“His book tours are so dull,” she tried to whisper, but not a word was lost on any of us around the table, and we all laughed. As I went back to eating dinner, though, I felt sad that he was leaving. Sure, I’d made up my mind to stop my thoughts from dwelling on him, but I didn’t want for him to leave altogether. And I knew he was only going to be away for a little while like he said, but what if he met someone else? What if some beautiful Greek woman snapped him up while he was in Athens? I didn’t want to think about it.
He was in the study all night after dinner, and he left in the early hours of the following morning. I didn’t hear him go. By the time I woke up, the whole house felt empty. Anna had gone with him and would be taking another flight out to her home island for a few days, too. It was a good time for her to go and see her family for a little while, and I was sure that she’d appreciate the break. No matter how much she seemed to love her work, she never took time to stop. The house was always immaculate, the food delicious, and every whim of Maria’s was attended to.
I sat outside with coffee and some toast, as Maria was taking her morning shower. Lily came out to find me, still dressed in a long t-shirt she’d worn for bed. Her long, dark hair was messy, and she was rubbing her eyes.
“If you go and get a brush I’ll straighten your hair for you,” I said. “When I was little I learned a great way to get the knots out of mine.”
She nodded and walked dreamily back through the kitchen and up to her room. When she came back, she sat at my feet, and I carefully untangled the knots of her hair. By the time I was finished, it was sleek and straight, and I hadn’t hurt her at all. By now, Lily had woken up, too, with the help of a piece of my toast and a glass of juice I went to fetch for her
“How did you do that?” she asked, stroking her hair. “Whenever I do it, it hurts. Dad tries to do it, too, but he has to stop because it makes him cringe.”
“The trick is to brush it very slowly, and only do a little bit at a time,” I said. “Find the knots and work through them, no matter how long it takes. Dragging the brush through and hoping for the best will only ever just pull the hair from your scalp. This way you keep it smooth and also keep the hair on your head, too.”
“Where did you learn that?” she asked.
“I learned it a long time ago when I was about your age,” I said.
“Did your mom teach you?”
“No. My mom had very fine, blonde hair. Nothing like mine. No, it was my sister who taught me.”
“Your sister?”
“Yes. Well, she was my half-sister. I didn’t see her very often. She lived in Ireland when I was growing up, so I only saw her on vacations. And then she came over to America when I was about nine, and she lived with us for a little while. She was fifteen years older than me.”
“Where is she now?”
I was relieved to hear Maria coming into the kitchen; the tapping of her walking-frame on the marble floor making her entrance known. It meant I could leap up and help, cutting short a conversation I didn’t want to have. I knew Lily was only being innocently inquisitive, but I’d managed very well over the last few weeks to push all sad thoughts away, and I didn’t want them coming up again.
That night, I cooked my specialty: mushroom risotto. I was pleased to find a bottle of truffle oil in the cupboard, and even though Maria was skeptical at first, she soon wore an expression of satisfaction on her face, and I wanted to punch the air. It’s no mean feat to follow a class act like Anna in the kitchen and come out victorious on the other side.
In the evening, Lily and I often went back down to the beach while Maria watched television. We got into the routine of swimming in the dark. Lily was like a fish, disappearing under the waves and nearly giving me a heart attack as I looked around frantically, convinced she hadn’t resurfaced until I heard a giggle. Then I’d frantically swim after her, trying to grab her, and she’d squeal and laugh and beg me not to tickle her.
Having grown up with an older dad and being a surprise kid myself, I’d been sad never to have had a younger sibling. With Lily, I found I loved running around with her, acting the clown and enjoying being around a little girl. Not that she was always a little kid, though. Sometimes she sounded very grown up, indeed.
By Monday night, though, I felt sad. As though something was missing. And as I lay in bed, it felt empty. I’d slept alone for so long that I was perfectly used to it. But after my night with Nick, I realized that going to bed without him each night felt strange. When he was home, and I knew he was just down the hall, I felt myself yearning to go down the hallway and knock quietly on his door. And now, when he’d been away for days, I knew I was missing him.
But there was only one more night alone, and then he’d finally be home again.