‘Gayle, you kept us safe,’ said Addie. ‘You brought up two girls who were strangers, really.’
‘Yes, well, I didn’t do a very good job of it.’
Addie smiled. ‘I think you did a better job than you give yourself credit for.’
‘I agree,’ said Susanna with a smile so kind it made Gayle want to weep for all the years they’d missed.
Louisa stepped closer to the bed. ‘Gayle, you’re a wonderful person. I’m glad there’s nothing sinister wrong with you because I quite like being a part of this complicated, messy family.’ Her comment made them all laugh. ‘I mean it! I’ve never had it before.’
Gayle leaned back against her pillows. ‘Imagine if I hadn’t missed that wording off the invites.’
‘We might never have come,’ said Addie. ‘But I’m glad we did.’
‘Me too,’ Susanna agreed. ‘But that will do for drama for a while.’
Oh, sod it, Gayle thought. If Susanna wouldn’t make the move, she would. She reached out and put her hand over Susanna’s much warmer one. ‘That will definitely do for drama.’
Susanna’s eyes were filled with tears when she looked up.
Gayle needed to talk to Addie as well, but right now it was Susanna’s turn. Without taking her eyes from her eldest niece, she said to Addie and Louisa, ‘Would you two please give us a moment?’
‘We’ll go for a wander and give you some time,’ she heard Addie say.
Once Addie and Louisa had gone, Gayle patted the bed. Susanna moved from the chair to the mattress.
‘Didn’t think this was allowed,’ said Susanna.
‘Leap off if the nurses come,’ Gayle suggested. Susanna had popped her bottom down this same way when she first arrived and was promptly told by a porter that she shouldn’t be sitting on the bed. But right now, Gayle wanted her as close as possible.
‘I wasn’t ever very nice to you,’ said Susanna without hesitation. She said it as though she’d known what to say since she was fourteen, but had only just given herself permission to come out with it.
‘Susanna, I never thought that. You were a teenage girl. You were hard work, but teenagers generally are, even I know that with my limited experience of parenting.’
‘I wish I’d been able to see how hard you were working for us rather than the fact that you were gone out of the house so often. You know, it was Mateo who helped me see that. He told me that being there was one way to care for a family, but so was earning a living.’
Gayle felt awkward when she delivered an apology she should’ve given Susanna a long time ago. ‘I’m sorry I split the pair of you up. That wasn’t my intention. I wanted you to get a bit of distance from each other, enough so that you could pass your exams and get into university, but I never asked him to end it completely. I just wanted him to think very carefully about your needs and your life. It totally backfired when he got a job elsewhere and left. I was so annoyed at myself that I hadn’t been able to convey to him my concerns without making him feel like he had to walk away for good.’
‘I hated you a little bit for it.’
‘A little bit?’
‘All right, quite a lot.’
‘I was worried that you’d rebel and not bother trying at school, just to spite me.’
‘I thought about it briefly,’ Susanna admitted. ‘But then I knuckled down with my schoolwork because I knew that was the only way I’d get to go to university. Without Mateo, I wanted to stay on the island even less.’
‘University and a return to the mainland had been your goal for so long. I didn’t want to see you miss your chance. I just wish I hadn’t got in between you and Mateo.’
‘We can’t rewrite the past.’
‘I wish we could sometimes.’
Susanna smiled. ‘Me too.’
‘You know, before you girls came to the island I used to go to the café much earlier every day.’
‘Really?’
