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‘Mama?’ she whispered. Sancia didn’t hear her. ‘Dad?’ Louder this time. ‘What are you doing?’
Sancia and Ernest broke apart, and Rosa regretted her question. It was pretty obvious what they were doing.
Kissing.
Her parents.
After ten years apart. Estranged. Not speaking. Now suddenly they were...
Kissing. Passionately.
‘Rosa!’ Sancia patted her hair as she smiled at her daughter. ‘Um, we have some news!’
‘So I can see.’ Rosa crossed her arms over her chest. Was everyone else finding their happy ever after on this island? Or, more likely, was this sudden reconciliation going to end in disaster—just as Jude and hers had?
Sancia’s brow furrowed. ‘Are you okay, querida? Did something happen?’
‘I just caught my parents making out. Other than that...’ She didn’t want anyone to know about Jude. Not yet.
Not when his words still hurt so much.
Her father pulled a face. ‘Making out? Really, Rosa. Is it so wrong for two people in love to express their affection for each other?’
‘When they’re my parents...’ Rosa shook her head. ‘Never mind. Just...what’s going on? What’s your news?’ In love? Had she really heard those words from her buttoned-up father’s mouth?
‘Your father is moving here to the island!’ Sancia practically vibrated with excitement.
Rosa blinked. And she’d thought Anna’s decision to stay on La Isla Marina was the about-turn of the century.
‘Here? You’re staying here?’ she asked her father.
Ernest put his arm around Sancia and nodded. ‘I think it’s about time. Don’t you?’
Time? Was that all it took? If she waited another decade would she be able to make things work with Jude? Somehow, she doubted he’d be willing to wait that long.
‘But...how can you just give up everything you’ve worked for in Oxford? All your old dreams?’ His career at the university, his professional reputation—they’d been all that mattered to him, when she was growing up. Everything in their lives had been arranged around them. And now he was just throwing them away? It didn’t make any sense.
‘Your mother needs support here on the island. And Anna will be here, too, so I’d be alone in Oxford.’
So that was it. Of course. ‘You mean, your nursemaid is moving here so you better had, too?’
‘No.’ Ernest’s voice was sharp. ‘I’m moving here for many reasons. Not least, my health and well-being. Rosa, you’ve told me often enough over the years that I need to take responsibility for my health. I’d think you’d be glad I’m finally retiring to do that.’
‘I am,’ Rosa said, quickly. ‘I just...’
Sancia pulled away to put an arm around Rosa’s shoulders. ‘What is it, querida?’
Rosa looked at her mother. ‘Ten years ago you got fed up of living the life Dad wanted all the time, and you left to come here. To find your own dreams again. Right?’
‘I suppose,’ Sancia said. ‘I was tired of always coming second to his work and not being able to follow my heart. But most of all, I just missed my home, and my parents needed me more than he did.’ Her smile turned sad. ‘Even more than you girls did, in some ways. Your father and I were arguing more and more, and it was making me so unhappy... I knew it had to be affecting you and Anna, too. I didn’t want you to grow up in an unhappy home, and I didn’t want to regret staying when I should have gone...but, Rosa, leaving you girls behind, only seeing you in the holidays, that was the hardest choice I ever had to make. You know that, don’t you?’
‘I do,’ Rosa said as Sancia hugged her close. Her mother had always made it clear that her leaving was nothing to do with the girls—even if it had taken Rosa a while to believe it when she was younger.
Perhaps that was why she’d never asked her mother outright for all the reasons she’d left. She’d listened to what Sancia said, tried to believe it, and always just assumed it was because she was tired of life in Oxford.
But now she needed firm answers. She needed to understand. ‘Dad, what if the same thing happens to you?’
‘What do you mean?’ Ernest asked.
‘What if, living here, you get, well, bored? You’re giving up everything that has always mattered to you. I don’t want you to end up resenting Mama for that in a few months, or years. When you realise you’re tied to her dreams and obligated to stay.’
She’d never seen the smile on her father’s face before, Rosa realised. It was softer, kinder, more indulgent than any smile he’d given her before.
Professor Gray held a hand out to Sancia, who took it with a smile of her own. Rosa watched, confused.
‘You’re forgetting my most important reason to stay here, Rosa,’ her father said. ‘I’m in love with your mother.’
Love. The word caught her in the throat. Did it always have to come down to that?
‘What if that isn’t enough?’ she asked, and the concern on Sancia’s face returned.
‘Rosa, did something happen with Jude?’ she asked.
‘I just need to know,’ Rosa said desperately, her arms wrapped tight around her middle. ‘What if love isn’t enough?’
‘Then nothing is,’ Sancia said, simply.
‘When it’s true love, staying isn’t an obligation. It’s a privilege.’ Professor Gray pressed a kiss to his ex-wife’s head. ‘I’m giving up my old dreams for new ones. Better ones.’
‘We got it wrong last time,’ Sancia said. ‘Both of us. We thought there were more important things than love.’
‘Aren’t there?’ Rosa felt as if the bottom were falling out of her heart.
‘There are things that matter as much,’ Professor Gray allowed. ‘And there are circumstances that can overwhelm it, if you’re not careful.’
‘So if it’s love, you have to give up everything?’ Because that didn’t sound like love to her.
‘No, querida.’ Sancia moved forward, guiding Rosa with an arm around her shoulder to one of the low, cushioned benches that were scattered around the reception area. ‘Love is about accepting the other person as they are, and loving them in spite of your differences.’
‘Or because of them,’ her father added, sitting down beside her. ‘Your mother and I...we’re very different people. But those differences don’t lessen our love any.’
‘And in some ways they even make us stronger,’ Sancia added. ‘As long as we accept them and respect them.’
‘You mean he has to love me for who I am?’ Because in that case, there really was no hope for Jude and her.
Sancia laughed, lightly. ‘That’s the easy part, querieda. Who could not love you?’
Rosa star
ed at her mother in amazement. ‘You have to love me. You’re my parents. But I know I’m not easy to love. I know it’s in spite of all my flaws and not because of them. I’m no Anna.’
‘We never wanted you to be Anna,’ Sancia said, surprised. ‘We just wanted you to be happy.’
Beside her, Rosa’s father was nodding his agreement. Rosa looked at him in confusion. ‘But... I never could follow the schedule or plan ahead. I couldn’t settle to anything, especially not studying.’
‘And none of that meant we loved you any less,’ Ernest said. ‘Or that we were any the less proud of you than we are of Anna.’
Rosa blinked, tears burning behind her eyes again.
‘Oh, Rosa.’ Sancia hugged her tightly. ‘How could you think you are difficult to love? You’re so full of life and spirit.’
‘Just like your mother. That’s one of the many reasons I fell in love with her,’ Ernest put in. ‘And you’ve taken that spirit out into the world, forging your own, brilliant path. Your sister collects all your photos and articles and saves them for me, you know. I have them all catalogued in my office.’ He said it so casually, as if it were obvious. An inevitability. But the knowledge lifted Rosa’s heart, even in the middle of her misery.
‘We’re very proud of you, querida,’ Sancia said. ‘And we love you very much. And if Jude doesn’t, then he’s a fool.’
Rosa shook her head. ‘He’s not. Last time... I left him. I broke his heart.’
‘I wonder where you learnt to do that,’ Ernest murmured, but he was smiling fondly at Sancia as he said it.
‘Then he’s a coward, if he won’t take the risk of loving you again.’ Sancia looked outraged on Rosa’s behalf.
‘I don’t blame him,’ Rosa admitted. ‘I’m not sure I would. I’m asking him to give up everything.’
‘Love does take some compromise, Rosa,’ her father said, gently. ‘But the rewards should always be greater than whatever you have to give up.’
‘In the end, love is the only thing that lasts,’ Sancia said, smiling at her husband as she stood, holding her hand out to him. ‘And it’s worth ten times of everything else.’
