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EPILOGUE
Ten years later, Gallinvach, summer
‘MUM, LOOKWHAT I caught! Take a picture, quick!’
Darius’s voice rang out across the small lake at the back of Sofie’s family home. He was on the back of a small fishing boat, wearing a T-shirt, shorts and a life jacket, and was proudly holding up a decent-sized fish.
Nine years old and named after Achilles’s beloved brother, he was already up to Sofie’s shoulder, clearly taking after his father, who was standing by his side and grinning proudly.
Emotion welled in Sofie’s chest when she saw their daughter Ellie, two years younger than Darius, jumping up and down with excitement on the other side of her father.
Sofie did as she was bid, and snapped a shot with her phone, very aware of the significance of this photo and the healing that it depicted in so many ways.
Sofie called out, ‘That’s amazing! Now put him back before he dies!’
Darius carefully unhooked the fish and threw it back into the water. Sofie sat back down in the wooden chair under the shade of an umbrella in the garden where it sloped down to the lake.
She checked to see that their three-year-old, Cyrus, was still sleeping, spreadeagled on the rug beside her, exhausted after a game of chase earlier. Long dark lashes fanned across his chubby cheeks. Sofie gently stroked a finger across his face, not taking this moment for granted for a second.
She turned back to the lake to watch as Achilles steered the boat back in. The shadows were lengthening, the glorious summer’s day coming to a close. Her family home, for so long a place of loneliness and palpable grief, was now full of the kind of sound and energy that her parents had craved so desperately to counteract their own lonely childhoods.
Sofie wished they could be here to witness her family. She no longer blamed herself for their sadness. She should have been enough for them, and the fact that she hadn’t been wasn’t her fault.
Sofie knew that even if she and Achilles hadn’t had children they would have been happy with each other. Not lacking for anything. But they had been blessed, and she gave thanks every day that Achilles had overcome the trauma of his past and his fear of loving again to embrace a future that had terrified him for so long.
They spent every summer here in Gallinvach, with Achilles ensuring that he could work remotely if required. And for the rest of the year they based themselves between Athens and London. It was a lifestyle that Sofie had adapted to with far more ease than she ever would have imagined, navigating the social whirl of Achilles’s life by seeking out and making some genuine friends among their peers.
They’d renovated the house on the island and extended it, adding a more modern touch. Sofie had overseen the redecoration of the interior, bringing in an understated elegance, hauling it firmly into the twenty-first century.
Achilles tied the boat off at the jetty and lifted Ellie onto the wooden platform. Darius jumped from the boat as agile as a little goat and came and gave Sofie a quick hug and kiss before saying, ‘Can I take your phone to show Jamie the picture?’
Sofie handed him her phone and Darius was gone, speeding up the garden to his neighbouring friend. Cyrus was stirring on the rug and Ellie sat down beside him, giving him a hug.
Then Achilles was stepping out of the boat and striding up the small jetty. As handsome as he’d been the first day Sofie had laid eyes on him. Even with a few grey hairs in his temples that she loved to tease him about.
He stopped where Sofie was sitting and put out a hand. She leaned forward and took it and let him pull her up, letting out a small oof as she did so, and looking down ruefully at her massive bump.
Achilles pulled her close and kissed her. Even after all these years, and in her current state, she felt the urge to deepen the kiss. Both of them were helpless against the familiar pull of desire.
‘Mama, Cyrus has a dirty nappy.’
Sofie pulled back from Achilles’s embrace reluctantly and chuckled at Ellie’s scrunched-up face. Nothing like a dirty nappy to kill a mood.
But before she could reach for her now very much awake and cheekily grinning three-year-old, Achilles beat her to it and scooped him up into his arms, making Cyrus squeal with joy.
Sofie watched her husband carry their son into the house to despatch the nappy and gave a sigh of contentment. She and Ellie followed behind them. Ellie took her hand and Sofie looked down. Her daughter had inherited Sofie’s blue eyes, and with her dark hair and olive-toned skin, she was going to be a beauty. She’d never feel that she had to hide in the shadows or that she wasn’t seen. Sofie felt absurdly emotional at that thought and blamed pregnancy hormones.
‘Mama?’
‘Yes, love...’ Sofie swallowed the emotion.
‘Boys are smelly, aren’t they?’
Sofie laughed. ‘They can be...a little. But so can girls.’ She stopped and bent down in front of her daughter. ‘But do you know what? Some day you might find that they can smell quite nice.’
Ellie scrunched up her nose again and pulled away. ‘Ew, no way!’
She ran back up to the house and Sofie followed behind, smiling to herself. Ellie would feel differently soon. Well, actually, maybe not so soon. With the most over-protective father in the world, it might be some time before Ellie and her little sister, who would be born any day now in the local hospital, would come to appreciate how nice boys could smell.
Sofie felt a sudden contraction around her abdomen and stopped in her tracks to suck in a breath. Achilles appeared at the back door with Cyrus in his arms and saw her. He was on the alert immediately and came over.
‘Was that what I think it was?’
Sofie straightened up. The contraction had passed. She said, ‘It might be, but it might be nothing.’ Just then she felt a gushing warmth between her legs and looked down stupidly. She’d had three children, but her breaking waters confounded her for a second.
Achilles sprang into action. He helped Sofie into the house and sat her in a chair. He made a phone call that had her old friend Claire arriving with her husband in tow, ready to spring into childminding action.
Sofie felt totally calm. ‘Guys, I really appreciate this, but it could be ages before—’ Her words were stopped by another sudden powerful contraction.
Claire snorted. ‘I don’t think so. After three bairns, this one is coming in a hurry. She’ll be out before you know it. Your case is by the door—call when you have news.’
Sofie was all but carried out to their car, in spite of her protestations. Achilles got them to the hospital in record time and then it was all a blur as, true to Claire’s pronouncement, this one came quickly.
Phoebe Lykaios, named after Achilles’s mother, was born just after midnight. Exhausted but ecstatic, Sofie looked at Achilles—very crumpled now in his shorts and T-shirt—as he walked back and forth, holding his swaddled daughter in his arms.
And then suddenly, in spite of her fog of exhaustion, Sofie noticed something and gasped.
Achilles looked at her. ‘What is it? Are you okay?’
Sofie started laughing, but had to stop when it hurt her tender insides. She nodded, and managed to choke out, ‘Don’t you recognise this room?’
The following day, when the other children were allowed in to see their new baby sister, Sofie said to them, ‘Do you want to hear a story?’
The two eldest huddled around the end of the bed and Cyrus climbed into her arms, putting his thumb in his mouth. Sofie shared a complicit look with Achilles and said, ‘You know the fairy tale Sleeping Beauty?’
Ellie sighed. ‘I love that story.’
Darius made a face. ‘That’s a soppy story.’
Cyrus sucked his thumb, just happy to be back with his mother.
The baby made a small mewling sound but then stopped.
‘Well,’ said Sofie, undaunted, ‘that’s how I met your daddy—in this very room. He was asleep for a long time, and I kissed him awake.’
Ellie frowned. ‘But isn’t the Prince meant to kiss the Princess awake?’
Achilles took Phoebe out of the cot and came and sat beside Sofie on the bed, cradling their newborn. He said, ‘In this instance the Princess woke the Prince and saved him.’
Darius said grudgingly, ‘That’s actually kind of cool.’
Achilles leaned over and kissed Sofie. They shared a look full of love and so much more.
Sofie said with a smile, ‘And then the Prince rescued her right back.’
Ellie clapped her hands. ‘And they all lived happily ever after!’
Sofie laughed again, her heart so full it almost hurt.
‘Yes,’ she said, looking at her beloved family and then at Achilles. ‘Yes, they did.’
