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The taste of Manchego andmembrillodried on Javier’s tongue and he reached for his water. He nodded and looked up to find her watching him. He smiled at her and speared a piece of aubergine, filling his mouth to prevent a retort.
No. That hadn’t been what his mother had ever done for him when he’d been unwell. She’d either refused to accept any sign of illness, or had drowned him in lavish, overwhelming and completely disproportionate concern—aimed at garnering attention for herself rather than her son. The idea of something as simple as making his favourite foods was strange and somewhat painful to consider. It made him feel awkwardly envious and resentful, as if he were on the outside looking in on hownormalpeople lived.
‘What did your mother make you?’ he asked around the dry sand in his throat.
His wife held his gaze. ‘Corned beef hash.’
He nearly choked on the mouthful until he saw the humour star-lighting her eyes. He swallowed around his smile and, more out of habit than curiosity, asked, ‘How is she?’
She knew what he’d done, changing the conversation to distract her. But she’d felt such a sense ofpainfollowing the careless comment she’d made about making him his favourite foods it shocked her. In the past, Javier had been so adept at hiding his feelings but this time she felt his confusion, his loss, as if it had been her own. Yet, despite this, Javier looked at her expectantly.
Her mother. Emily felt the familiar tension across her shoulders and looked away from the table, out over the gorge to the sprinkle of early stars dusting the dusk sky. She had gathered herself by the time she looked back to Javier.
‘She’s much the same. She and Steven are still in Morden and...’ she shrugged, not quite sure what else to add ‘...they’re good,’ she concluded. Javier’s hawklike gaze focused in on the pause like a sign of weakness. The last time she had seen them had been just over six months ago. Before Christmas, because her stepfather liked their annual ‘cruise at Christmas’.
The memory scratched at a wound that was only slightly dulled by time and Emily felt foolish for nursing the hurt. She had been sixteen when she had incorrectly assumed she was to join them on their Christmas holiday. She’d never forgotten the look in her mother’s eyes as she’d silently begged Emily not to make a fuss, not to say anything. So she hadn’t. She’d stayed behind because she was old enough, and had spent the entire festive period alone. And the following year there hadn’t been any question of her joining them.
Each year was a fresh hurt over an old ache and she would feel foolish and guilty, because she knew that her mother was happy. She loved Steven, of that there was no doubt. So how could Emily resent her mother finding happiness after all that she’d been through? It had been just her and her mother for the first eleven years of her life and, while her mother had made it magical and wondrous, even as a child Emily hadn’t been blind to the hardship and the exhaustion and the financial worry that her mother had tried to hide. So Emily’s conscience poked and prodded, reminding her that her mother deserved to be happy.
She felt fingers wrap around hers where it held the stem of the wine glass and jerked at the unexpected contact, sloshing the wine over the edge, and let out a startled laugh. ‘Sorry,’ she said, reaching for a tea towel to mop up the spill.
‘Things are not better between you?’ Javier asked, concern clear in his gaze.
‘They’re fine,’ she said again, the bland words dull on her tongue.
‘So they haven’t let you redecorate? I thought you would have painted over every inch of beige in that house.’
The tease pulled a smile from her, which faded at the memory of how her mother and stepfather had behaved when she and Javier visited to let them know they were married.
‘I’m sorry. I’mstillsorry,’ she clarified, ‘at their behaviour during that visit.’ She shook her head, even now wondering if that had somehow been the beginning of the end of their fantastical romance. ‘Steven has the emotional intelligence of an amoeba and the social skills of a toad.’
‘But it is such a delightful combination,mi cielo,’ Javier said, the sarcasm playful and the endearment intimate. ‘And, of course, you have met my mother. There is no competition,’ he said, the sweep of his free hand clearing any further debate.
Mi cielo.
It whispered into the night, reminding her of a thousand sighs and kisses and touches, warming her body beneath the cool breeze. She pulled her hand from beneath his andstillthe feeling of heat brushed across the back of her neck.
‘So, the doctor told me that the last thing you really remember was Gabi’s sixteenth birthday?’
The turn in the conversation was sudden and jarring. There was a hint of wariness in the question that hadn’t been there since she’d opened the door to him. He resented the intrusion of that unease. For just a moment, he had felt the connection he’d shared with Emily flare to life once again, deeper than just the sense of attraction that was a dull throb across his body. His wifehurtand he wanted to take that away. But she wouldn’t let him.
The thought took him back to the last months they had shared under this roof. The way she had retreated further and further from him and, no matter how hard he’d worked, tried to provide for her, he’d known—felt—time running out. It had been as if she were slipping through his fingers like sand and nothing he’d done had been able to stop it. For just a second, his lungs seized with the same kind of helpless anguish he’d experienced in those last few months of their marriage. That sense of inadequacy that cut right through to his deepest vulnerability.
Alto.
She was looking at him expectantly, and he shook off the thought. She wanted to know what he remembered, and he would have to beverycareful about how he answered.
‘Yes. The doctor advised me not to ask questions, or force the memories of what has happened since then.’
In fact, Javier’s doctor had been just as suspicious as Emily seemed to be, though unwilling to specifically call him on it. His advice had been full of hypotheticals.‘Ifyou can’t remember...’ ‘If you feel that...’All coming on the heels of a warning.
‘I have met your mother, so perhaps I understand a little. But your wife is a different matter, Mr Casas. She looks like she’d fight fire with fire.’
It had been a timely warning and one that he reminded himself to heed.
‘Is it as if the party was only yesterday for you?’
‘Not quite,’ he hedged. ‘More as if that’s the last thing I can remember. It’s clear that time has passed. We look older, and there are some things I know,’ he said, making it as ambiguous as possible. ‘Yet things don’t fit together coherently.’
