She’d put more and more distance between herself and her family.
She’d gone to help Christophe with the donkeys today to escape the escalating tension in her own family, but she hadn’t even stayed in that hospital room with him when the whole reason for coming here had been to support him with his own family crisis.
Heidi was sitting quietly beside Fi as she stood there. The dog’s head was at the perfect height to rest her hand on the silky hair and scratch behind her ears. Fi glanced down to find Heidi looking up at her and, when eye contact was made, the dog’s impressive plume of a tail swept the footpath and her flattened ears and narrowed eyes were an obvious canine smile.
It felt like approval. Maybe Fi didn’t need to stand here and grapple with a growing disquiet that she was still running through life like a headless chicken, too afraid to face her demons. Maybe she could take a leaf out of Heidi’s book and simply enjoy the moment.
‘Come on. Let’s see if you want to get your feet wet.’
The beach where dogs were allowed was deserted apart from a small white dog that looked a bit like Pascal at the far end by another rocky breakwater. Heidi didn’t want to brave the waves but she was fascinated by the smells to be found amongst the stones and sticks and shells. Fi bent down at a glint of colour to pick up a piece of pale green sea glass, well-worn and dulled by being tumbled amongst pebbles. She turned it over in her hand to find it was an almost perfect heart shape.
And that felt like a sign of approval as well, so she slipped it into her pocket. She pulled her phone out at the same time. She called her mother’s number but it went to voicemail so Fi left a message.
‘I hope everything’s going okay,’ she said. ‘I’m with Christophe at the moment because his grandmother’s in hospital, but I’ll call you again as soon as I’m back at the cottage. Probably tomorrow, because it might be quite late by the time I get home.’
She expected to feel a pang of guilt, as she ended the call, because she wasn’t close at hand to support her mother, but it didn’t happen.
Fi knew she was where she was supposed to be at this precise moment in her life.
Almost…
It was time she went back to being exactly where she was supposed to be.
With Christophe. And his family.
* * *
Flora Romano’s procedure was finished and she was back in the ward by the time Fi found her way through the maze of corridors, stairwells and signs in a language she couldn’t read. Fortunately a lot of words were close enough to be helpful, likecardiologie.
She was also awake, propped up on her pillows, with Maria sitting on one side of the bed and Christophe on the other. Six dark eyes were fixed on Fi as she entered the room and they were all smiling a moment later. Even Nonna.
Especially Nonna?
She took her hand away from where it was being held by Christophe and held it out. Fi could see it shaking. She could hear the waver in Flora’s voice as well, but her words were clear.
‘Fiona…’ she pronounced it just like Christophe did. ‘Ciao, mia cara…’
‘She’s happy to meet you,’ Christophe translated.
Fi could see that. The eyes under the thick, silver waves of her hair were bright and her smile was deepening the crinkles of her entire face. She looked like a woman who smiled often and always with complete sincerity, and it was impossible not to respond to the invitation. Fi couldn’t remember a grandmother on either side of her family and this, apparently unconditional, welcome from Nonna Flora made her realise that this was something else she’d missed out on in life. She moved close enough to take Flora’s hand and hold it, but that wasn’t what happened. Instead, Flora reached up to pat her cheek as she leaned past Christophe, and when Fi saw what looked like tears of joy in the old woman’s eyes, she leaned down and kissed the soft skin of her cheek.
‘Ciao, Nonna…’ she murmured.
‘Oh…’ Flora sighed. ‘Bellissimo. Perfetto, Christophe.’
‘She likes you,’ Christophe said.
Fi straightened and caught his gaze. She knew that was not an accurate translation but, when her gaze met his, it didn’t matter a jot.
He was looking at her – and smiling – as if shewasas beautiful as Flora clearly thought she was.
As if she was the most beautiful woman in the world.
The only woman in the world he wanted to be with.
And, as if he wanted everyone to know how he felt, he lifted his hand and touched her hair, letting his hand drift down to a soft stroke on her cheek with his fingers that ended with just one of them tracing the line of her jaw. It was an echo of the way his grandmother had welcomed her but so much more intimate, and along with the way he was looking at her it felt absolutely like the caress of a lover.
Fi could feel it in her whole body. A spear of sensation in her belly. A tingle as far as her toes.
