“Fine,” she replied. “No pressure. I won’t say anything except I love you and miss you. I’m looking forward to seeing you soon.”
“You too, Mum.”
She hung up the phone and then called Danita. She’d managed to convince her daughter to remain in the interior design degree she’d been enrolled in for the previous two years. Danita was in her third year of studies and had resisted her boyfriend’s urging to switch to architecture, at least for now.
“Hi, Mum,” Danita said in her patented busy tone of voice.
“Are you in the middle of something?”
“I have an assignment due, and I’m running a little late, so I’m typing like a madwoman. Are you home?”
“I’m home!”
“That’s great, Mum. I’m looking forward to seeing you. We both are.”
“Both? You mean you and Harry?”
Bea could almost hear the eye roll. “No, Mum. Me and Damien. We’re living together now, remember?”
How could Bea forget? Her beautiful, young university student had moved in with one of her professors. A man who eschewed furniture for cushions and who liked to reject Bea’s cooking — something she had yet to forgive.
“Oh, yes, of course. Well, I can’t wait to see you. Harry’s coming up next weekend. Do you want to come then too? My treat.”
“We’d love to. My assignments will be done by then, and that’s exactly the break we need.”
Bea’s heart sank. The invitation hadn’t been intended to include Damien, although she supposed that was how her daughter travelled now. With a middle-aged professor in tow. She bit down on her lip — her attitude was going to cause friction with Dani. She had to pull herself together and learn to accept this intruder into her family whether she liked him or not. Aidan had warned her not to drive Dani away, but it was so difficult to hold her tongue. She’d spent two decades telling her daughter how to live, and now she should disapprove in silence?
After she hung up the phone with Dani, she wandered inside to see where Aidan was. The cheese was getting shiny, and the crackers would be stale if he didn’t hurry. She called out to him, but there was no response. Perhaps he was in the shower.
Her laptop sat on the bench beside a pile of unopened mail. She’d tackle the mail later. Instead, she picked up her laptop and carried it back out to the deck, where she fired it up. There were dozens of unread email messages. She hadn’t kept up-to-date with her emails while she was away. She’d taken the laptop but had only replied to the urgent messages, since they’d kept so busy touring, walking, and eating out.
Suddenly, a slew of emails filtered into her updating inbox with the same subject line.
RE: RSVP for the Reunion!
She froze, her heart hammering against her ribcage. The reunion. She’d forgotten all about it. Before she went away, she’d thought it would be a great idea to put together a reunion for Coral Island High. It’d been thirty years since she, Taya, Evie, Penny, Rowan, and Aidan had graduated from high school, and she thought they should celebrate.
But now the reunion was only a couple of months away, and she hadn’t done anything about it other than sending out the initial save-the-date invitation. There were at least thirty RSVPs in her inbox. How had she missed them before now? The entire event had slipped her mind. If she was going to go through with it, there was so much to organise before the date rolled around. She wasn’t sure she could manage it.
Or if she even wanted to.
What was the point of bringing together a bunch of people she hadn’t seen since high school? The people she cared about still lived on the island—well, most of them. Penny and Rowan were itinerant now, going where his job took him all over the world. But the others were still here, and she could see them any time she liked. Did she want to see the other high school graduates who’d run away from the island and hadn’t looked back?
Aidan sat down at the table with her and reached for his glass with a sigh. “It’s hot.”
“I forgot how hot it gets here, and it’s nearly winter.” She laughed and raised her glass. “Let’s toast to being home.”
“Home sweet home,” he said, clinking his glass against hers with a wink. His hair was wet, and he wore a pair of board shorts that hung low around his waist and no T-shirt. She loved being married to him; she could stare as much as she liked.
“I’m enjoying you back in board shorts,” she said.
He laughed. “Not as much as I’m enjoying your little sundress.”
She squinted at the computer screen as the flood of emails brought her back to the moment. “Do you remember me saying I was going to arrange a school reunion?”
He reached for a cracker with cheese. “Mmmm.”
“I sent out the invitation before we left.”
