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The more worrying point was that he found he was slightly disappointed that she wasn’t looking for some kind of excuse, though.
* * *
As Jake leaned against the wall, the cool of the concrete seeping through to his shoulder, and watched Brady trailing happily around the garden with Flávia’s nieces, Julianna and Marcie, it wasn’t all that hard to admit that Flávia had been right.
Watching Brady relax, and gain acceptance with his peers, did somehow help him to feel more relaxed. Less pressured. And all the trio were doing was wandering around the garden, their heads pressed tightly together.
Brady would listen avidly as they taught him the Portuguese names of different plants and insects, then he would teach the girls the Latin names where he knew them. Otherwise, all three children would huddle around the phone he had lent them as they looked up the missing, vital information.
Emotions tumbled through him, almost too fast to separate them, but for the first time he was beginning to think he could see a way to connect with his nephew. At long last. He sighed to himself. It was a complicated business, looking after a child. The struggles he’d had with Brady these past ten months had given him a new appreciation for all his sister had contended with, all these years as a single mother. And it augmented his sense of guilt that he should have reached out to her more over the past few years.
Was it self-deceptive to think if he had done that, Helen might still be alive today?
Possibly. But it didn’t stop the thought from lurking there, in the back of his head.
‘He looks happy.’
Jake turned at the sound of Maria’s voice. Her voice was so similar to Flávia’s, with basically identical intonations and emphases, and yet even from a distance he k
new instantly who was talking in any given conversation. As though his whole being was programmed to tune into Flávia and no one else.
Already.
Which might have sounded alarm bells if he hadn’t pretended to ignore it.
‘Yes, he does.’ Jake turned back to watch his nephew. ‘Thanks again for inviting us here. I know Patricia does her best to entertain him, but it’s not the same.’
With a soft smile, Maria leaned on the concrete pillar opposite his and took a sip of wine.
‘I don’t doubt it. And, as for the invitation, that was all Livvy,’ she confessed, and he loved the affection in the nickname Maria had for her sister.
The woman paused as though thinking twice about something, then seemed to decide to say it, anyway.
‘I think Brady reminds her of herself.’
Jake frowned.
‘She said something like that before, but I didn’t understand it.’
He didn’t realise he was waiting, almost on edge, hoping for more than this unexpected scrap of information relating to Flávia, until Maria shrugged almost dismissively.
‘It’s hard to describe. It isn’t anything I could put my finger on, just the little things. The things that make her stand out from the average person now were the things which made it hard for her to make friends in school. I suspect you know what I mean, though.’
It didn’t even begin to answer all the questions he realised he had about Flávia. But he told himself that was no bad thing. He shouldn’t care, anyway. That one night had been...extraordinary. To match the unique Flávia. But it had to remain a one-off. It couldn’t happen again.
For Brady’s sake, he wouldn’t allow it.
Just for Brady? a voice needled. But Jake ignored it.
‘That said,’ Maria continued, ‘I don’t see him having any trouble with my girls.’
‘No, they’re getting along really well,’ he acknowledged, surprised. ‘I think coming here has been the best move I could have made for Brady.’
‘I take it you didn’t want to?’ Maria asked. ‘Livvy strong-armed you?’
‘Maybe a little.’ Although a part of him had been only too happy to let her. ‘Turns out she was right, though.’
‘Yeah, she has a maddening ability to do that.’ The quiet laugh filled the air around them. So like Flávia’s, and yet it didn’t crawl inside him the way her laughter did. As though it was filling him from the inside out.
