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Amy spluttered, laughing. ‘I haven’t the faintest idea what that means.’
‘Neither do I! It was something my mother used to say when I was a child.’
Still holding on tightly to each other’s hands, they settled back in their deckchairs, sunglasses on, and basked in the sun.
After a while, her mum spoke again. ‘I think what my mother was trying to say is that, whatever life throws at you, there are always choices and options other than the obvious ones. When your father first brought you home the obvious solution for me would have been to throw him out, and you with him. That would have been me making lemonade. But when I looked at you all I saw was an innocent, helpless newborn baby—a sister to the child I already had and a sister to the child I carried in my belly. So I chose to get myself an orange instead. I kept you—you were my orange. And I have never regretted it. My only regret is that I never carried you in my womb like I did your brothers.’
She took her sunglasses off and smiled the warm, motherly smile Amy loved so much.
‘This man who’s broken your heart...is he a good man?’
‘He’s the best,’ she whispered.
‘Is he worth the pain?’
She jerked a nod.
‘Then you have to decide whether you’re going to make lemonade or find an orange. Are you going to wallow in your pain or turn it into something constructive?’
‘I wouldn’t know where to start.’
‘You start by accepting the pain for what it is but refusing to let it define you.’
Amy closed her eyes. If anyone knew how to cope with pain it was her mum. She’d handled a mountain of it and had never let it define her.
Compared to her mum she had nothing to complain about. Her mum had been innocent. She, Amy, had brought her misery upon herself.
* * *
Helios stood at the door to his grandfather’s apartments and braced himself for the medicinal odour that would attack his senses when he stepped over the threshold.
Inside, all was quiet.
Stepping through to what had once been the King’s bedroom and now resembled a hospital ward, he found his grandfather sleeping in his adjustable medical bed, with an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth.
At his side sat Helios’s brothers. A nurse read unobtrusively in the corner.
‘Any change?’ he asked quietly. He’d only left the room for an hour, but the speed of his grandfather’s deterioration over the past couple of days had been frightening. They all knew it wouldn’t be long now.
Talos shook his head.
Taking his place on the other side of the bed from his brothers, Helios rolled his shoulders. Every part of his body felt stiff.
Theseus was holding their grandfather’s right hand. Leaning forward, Helios took the left one, assuming the same position his grandfather had taken when his Queen had lain in an identical bed in the adjoining room, the life leaching out of her.
After a few long, long minutes their grandfather’s eyes fluttered open. ‘Water...’ he croaked.
With Helios and Theseus working together from separate sides of the bed to raise him, Talos brought a glass to his mouth and placed the straw between his lips.
When he’d settled back the King looked at his three grandsons, his stare lingering on each of them in turn, emotion ringing the rapidly dulling eyes.
The pauses between each of his inhalations grew. Then the corners of his lips twitched as if in a smile and his eyes closed for the last time.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
AMY SAW THE announcement on the morning news.
‘A statement from the palace said, “His Majesty King Astraeus the Fourth of Agon passed away peacefully in his sleep last night. His three grandsons were at his side.”’
There then followed some speculation by the presenters and royal correspondents about what this meant for the island nation.
Without warning a picture of Helios and Catalina flashed onto the screen. It was an unofficial shot taken at the Gala. And then there was an off-screen voice saying, ‘It is believed the heir to the throne will marry the Princess before taking the crown.’
Amy switched off the television, grabbed a pillow and cuddled into it, her head pounding.
Helios’s grandfather, the King, had died.
She’d known it was coming, but still it hit her like a blow. She’d created his exhibition. During those happy months of curating that tribute to his life and the ancestors closest to him she’d felt as if she’d got to know him. Somehow she’d fooled herself into believing he was immortal. He had been a proud, dutiful man and she’d been privileged to meet him.
And then she thought of his eldest grandson, who had revered him.
Her phone lay on the floor beside her and she stared at it, wishing with all her heart that she could call Helios.
