CHAPTER 14
________
NICK
The forbidden fruit was sweeter than it had ever been. Now that I’d had a taste, I wanted another. To have had to stop what we were doing in the library was literally painful. I was rock hard and desperate to claim her again.
Of course, I was thrilled to hear that Lily had arrived, but it took a few seconds of distracting thoughts and a quick splash of cold water on my face before I could go downstairs and greet my daughter.
It felt good to tell Eva the story of how Lily came to be mine. I honestly believe I did what anybody else would have done in the same situation, and yet I’m still proud of how far my daughter and I have come on the journey we’ve taken together. I can’t believe how fast time’s flown. She’s already been mine for nearly five and a half years.
Seeing her with Eva that evening was strange. Several times, I would look over at the two of them, watching them get on so well, and I’d think about how they looked so alike that, as I’d told Eva, Lily really could have been her daughter. They both had very dark hair, although Eva’s was darker. Their eyes were the same piercing shade of blue, as blue as the sea on a cold winter morning. And yet they had a strange way of becoming warmer as they both laughed, so that their eyes then became orbs of sparkling blue, like the sea on a still summer evening.
Watching them together, I wondered whether I’d been wrong to leave Lily without a mother for so long. It hadn’t been a conscious decision; I had never once set out to deny her a mother figure after Jane passed away, but Lily’s coming to me coincided with my career taking off, and Fabian became more of a fixture in my life than any woman could.
The dates I went on during that period, amounted to nothing. While there may have been a physical attraction to some of those women, mentally I found something was missing. I realized it was my fault. I wanted the same spark I’d had with Eva that summer, but I could never find it.
Life had a strange way of working out, though, and I was beginning to dare to hope that this was a second chance. Not just a second chance at love, but a second chance at love with the only woman I’d ever truly fallen for. She was here, in front of me again, and my feelings for her were growing to be just as strong as they’d been back then.
In fact, I’d go as far as to say that they were becoming even stronger, because the seven years apart had forced us both to grow up. We’d both been through trials, through pain. I could certainly see the pain in Eva’s eyes, even though she wouldn’t tell me what had caused it. And yet still, the feelings we had for each other were there, and they were slowly growing stronger.
Lily was already a healthy color thanks to several weeks outdoors at camp, but when we went down to the beach the following day, I insisted she wear sunscreen.
She scowled. “I hate it,” she said. “It’s gross. You don’t wear sun cream.”
“We go through this every time,” I sighed. “Your skin is different from mine. I’m Greek.”
“What am I?” Lily asked. She’d always known the story surrounding her coming to live with me. I’d never hidden from her the fact that she was adopted. I’d even managed to get hold of a photograph of Jane from when she was very young, a beautiful nineteen-year-old at college, sitting on a stone wall surrounded by lush green grass that made me think of England. Jane kept it in a box, along with a lock of Lily’s hair and a pacifier. After her death, I’d taken it from the squalid den she’d sadly called her home for several years. Now, Lily had the picture in a frame by her bed.
But Jane had never talked about her past. So, I was unable to give Lily an answer about where she’d come from. Or an answer to her question now; about why her skin was so fair, and why she needed to cover herself up with SPF fifty sunscreen, whereas I never needed a drop.
It was Eva who came to the rescue that day. She dug into her large purse and brought out a bottle. “I use this,” she said. “Your skin’s like mine, Lily. I burn so easily. And I hate wearing suntan lotion, too. I used to go to the beach looking like a milk bottle in the morning, and by the evening I’d turned into a strawberry milkshake.”
Lily laughed at the thought. Eva handed her the bottle. “That is, until I found this brand. It’s not greasy at all, and two seconds after you put it on, it dries, and you forget you’re wearing it. And smell it. It’s like a coconut smoothie.”
She flipped open the cap and Lily, dubious at first, took a sniff. Her face lit up at the scent, and she allowed Eva to apply the mousse-like cream over her arms, legs, and back. Then, she bounded off to the water’s edge to play to her hearts content.
“Thanks,” I said, as Eva stood beside me and we watched Lily in the surf. “She doesn’t know it’s for her own good, but she burns so easily, especially in the Greek sun. For some reason, it’s different back home.”
“Believe me, I feel her pain,” Eva said. “I’ve spent my life having to apply sunscreen even in the fall.”
“Just so you know, though,” I winked, “strawberry’s my favorite flavor of milkshake.”
She grinned and looked at me, and I gazed at her. I thought back to the night before, and how we’d come so close to the point of no return. I couldn’t help but lick my lips at the thought, and Eva gave a heaving sigh that made her breasts rise and fall. Now wasn’t the time to be thinking about that. It would have to wait until later.
By Friday, we’d fallen into a routine of going to the beach in the morning, and by two in the afternoon, climbing the stairs up to the house to have lunch. After that, we’d collapse on a sofa or a bed, full from Anna’s delicious cooking. Some days, I’d do a little writing, or I’d take the car into town while I knew it was quiet, to buy whatever we needed. By the evening, we would all be together again, eating fresh watermelon or apples and playing cards until it was time for bed.
Maria loved having Lily back for the summer. She’d found it difficult to be so far away from Lily. Despite only having gone to live with Maria when I was sixteen, she felt very much like a mom to me, and she was certainly Lily’s grandmother in all our minds, although she was technically her great-aunt. While I never called Maria Mom, I still saw her as a mother figure to me in many ways.
I asked her several years ago why she’d never had children of her own. The pain in her heart became etched on her face at that moment, like a sponge that was slowly absorbing a capsule of ink that had exploded inside it. She told me that she and her husband had tried for many years, only for them to go to the doctor and learn that all their efforts would always be fruitless because my uncle was completely sterile.
“It was a great shame for him,” she told me, softly. “Nobody was to know. We decided to tell everyone that it was because of his work.”
My uncle had been a big name in the shipping business, and it wasn’t a completely unfathomable story to tell: he was, after all, away from home a lot and, while Maria would have been the most wonderful mother regardless, I knew that many other couples would have made a conscious decision to put their careers first. For a proud Greek woman, though, the pain was colossal.
“These days, there would be things we could do,” she said. “Different treatments, you know? Ways of making it happen somehow. But for your uncle, it was a curse neither of us ever recovered from. I believe that’s what killed him so young.”
I’d held on more tightly to Lily that night after learning the sad truth of Maria’s earlier life. Children are precious. I ensured that even though Lily and I lived in another state, we would always be in contact with Maria. Daily, we’d video call her, and if there were ever a time we couldn’t, then I’d make sure to at least give her a quick phone call, even if it meant doing it from the car. She was the best adoptive mother, and the most wonderful grandmother one could wish for.
She was also a caring and unselfish aunt, and for Sofia’s bachelorette party on Friday, after the spa treatments, she’d arranged for the girls to go for cocktails at an exclusive new bar in town. She wasn’t a fan of the place herself, though.
“In my day, a girl spent the night before her wedding in her bedroom, listening to wise words from her mother about her wifely duties,” she lamented. “These days, girls are far too wild. But what can I do? I am an old woman, and they are young and free.”
Eva was invited to all of the festivities, and that evening, she came home from the spa with a beautiful glow about her.
“How was it?” Maria asked.
“Wonderful,” she breathed. “I was so relaxed all day. And the girls were lovely. You have a great family.”
Maria beamed, of course, and Eva left to go upstairs to get ready for the evening out. At ten, we heard the honk of the cab outside. She breezed into the kitchen before she left, just as I was trying to explain to Lily that no, she couldn’t put vanilla extract onto a spoon and drink it neat.
“Why not?” she asked me. “I like vanilla. It’s my favorite flavor. That’s why I like cream soda. And birthday cake.”
“This bottle of vanilla extract is thirty-five percent alcohol,” I told her. “That’s nearly as strong as gin. Or whiskey. And I’m not about to let you get drunk on vanilla.”
“You’re mean. Drunk on vanilla sounds so good.”
“I’m worried about you,” I said, and then I looked up and did a double take. Eva was in the kitchen, opening the refrigerator and taking out a bottle of cold water. I was stunned into silence. She was wearing tight white pants and a black corset top with matching high-heels. Her bra must have been strapless because her shoulders were bare. Her skin was as white and flawless as alabaster. If my daughter hadn’t been sitting in the kitchen, Eva would have been up against that wall in a heartbeat, and I’d have torn the corset from her body. But, as it was, there was nothing I could do. Eva took her water, wished us a good night and left.
“Daddy, close your mouth,” Lily said. “You’ll catch flies like that.”