Gayle chuckled. ‘I wouldn’t have been surprised if you’d had a calendar, crossing off the days like you were in prison.’
Susanna’s smile soon gave way to a seriousness again. ‘I was happy here sometimes, you know.’
‘When you were with Mateo?’
‘Not just then. I loved it when Addie and I explored the island, went out on our bikes, all that fresh air and freedom here compared to what we’d had in Oxford.’
‘You always seemed quite happy when you came into the café. Even on the days you protested because you wanted to be with friends rather than babysitting, you’d slowly ease into it, and you looked content enough. I’d watch you so many times. I never let you catch me doing it, though, you’d have scowled over at me.’
Susanna grinned. ‘You know, I think you’re right.’
‘So, how is this new world of yours on the mainland? Married, with a posh job and, I expect, a lovely lifestyle?’
Susanna briefly got up when a nurse came to check on the patient opposite, but as soon as she disappeared Susanna perched her bottom on Gayle’s bed once more. ‘To be honest it’s not all a bed of roses.’
Susanna spent the next twenty minutes telling her all about Alex, the good and the bad, the worry, the concern about her marriage.
‘Do you still love him?’ Gayle asked when she’d finished.
‘I do. I really do. But I’ve never felt more lonely in my life.’
She reached for Susanna’s hand. ‘I hope you and Alex work it out.’
‘So do I. But he wasn’t happy when he heard Mateo’s voice in the background on the boat when we came here. And I haven’t heard from him since.’
Gayle gripped her hand for reassurance, in a way she’d never been allowed to before, and only hoped that it would go some way to comfort her. ‘Talk to Alex.’
‘I’ll try.’
She waited a beat before she asked, ‘How do you feel about Louisa?’
‘Strangely okay.’
‘You are?’
‘I’ve surprised even myself. Addie is slowly getting her head around it, and it’s not Louisa’s fault that her mum had an affair with our dad, or our dad had an affair with her mum, whichever way you want to put it. I can see that, you know, with my forty-four years of wisdom.’
‘Rather than your fourteen-year-old self?’
‘Not sure how I’d have felt back then if I’d discovered Dad had fathered another child.’
She had so much to catch up on with Susanna and she wanted to know, ‘What did it really feel like coming back to Anchor Island after all this time?’
‘Honestly? Weird, terrifying, confronting, eye-opening… especially when my dead aunt suddenly came alive.’
Gayle stopped a giggle in its tracks. ‘Maybe we’ll laugh about my faux pas on the invites someday.’
‘What a story, eh?’
‘So, the island… Do you like it, or is it a case of you can’t leave soon enough?’
‘I’ve pushed it away for so long, the same way I pushed you away. But it’s beautiful. I love all the open spaces, the water from different vantage points, the quaint streets, the absence of traffic. I wish I’d appreciated it more and not been so selfish to see that Addie liked it here.’
‘You are not selfish. You have turned into a wonderful woman, despite all the crap thrown at you along the way.’
‘We did have a lot of crap. All of us.’
‘Maybe it’s time we faced the crap together,’ said Gayle.
