‘Yeuch, the whole leprechaun thing,’ I say, shuddering. ‘We have so many lovely legends, so many ancient stories. How have horrible little green men with pots of gold come to be an actual symbol people associate with this country? Where are the tourist statues of powerful Morrigan or the Tuatha de Danann?’
‘All countries have their burdens,’ says Stefan gravely. ‘You know nobody can talk about Lithuania without discussing the kaukas, same as the leprechauns. Evil spirits. Nobody is talking about the higher beings, the gods and goddesses. My mother was called Laima, named after the goddess of Fate and women bearing children.’
‘I prefer Vilma to Laima,’ Mum says to him grinning. ‘Stefan wanted your sister to be Laima but Vilma, truth, has such purity to it.’
They share another glance with such love in it that I’m smiling at them both, and then Mum turns her eyes to me. This time, she’s beaming at me.
‘So, truth, my darling. Tell us about this man.’
‘What man?’ I ask, blushing so much that Stefan laughs.
‘The man who makes you so happy, of course. Why have you not brought him to see us?’
I laugh then. How do mothers know these things?
I tell them how wonderful Finn is, how we’ve gone walking together, how he came to my charity parachute jump, how I had to meet his friends, how gentle he is with me, how gentlemanly, and how I’m going to his house soon for dinner.
‘He’s been learning to cook,’ I tell them, grinning like a loon, because it is adorable. ‘ “I want to cook things for you, feed you up, look after you,” he says.’ Just thinking about this and telling them makes me feel full of joy. I never dreamed there could be such happiness. All those years with Marc, thinking that I was safe because I had a man living with me, a man who was more of a brother than anything, a friend who shared my bed but never touched me because I couldn’t face the intimacy.
And then I tell them how it was all down to Vilma and her friends insisting that I go out with them one night.
‘I’d met him in the queue and she could just tell he was special,’ I recount. ‘You want to have heard her when I came back to the table with the food and drinks and hadn’t agreed to be friends with him.’
‘I knew Vilma had something to do with it,’ Mum crows. ‘She’s been keeping the secret very badly, you know. No talent for keeping things to herself, your sister.’
‘It is why she is called truth,’ says Stefan.
‘She told you?’ I ask.
Mum laughs. ‘She may have said something. But I can see it in you, Sid. You look –’ she pauses – ‘you look like you haven’t looked for years. You look like you did all those years ago before you went to the city.’
I stare into the fire. I never wanted to tell them because it would hurt them, but now that I am happy, now that I am healing, I can. So I do.
37
Marin
The phone rings, jerking me awake and I sit bolt upright in the bed. What was the noise? Then it clicks into my brain.
The house phone, Nate’s side of the bed. He’s not there, working late. Again.
I’d gone to bed early because I have an early meeting in the morning and was in a deep, heavy sleep – I feel like I’m underwater. I lunge across Nate’s side of the bed and drag the phone out of its cradle.
‘Yes,’ I hiss.
‘I’m looking for Mrs Marin Stanley,’ says the voice.
‘This is me, Marin, she, whatever.’
‘My name is Dr Luther, and I’m calling from the Emergency Department in St Vincent’s Hospital. Your husband Nate is here. He’s had a cardiac event.’
‘Is he all right, is he dead? Tell me.’ The words just keep tumbling out of my mouth.
‘No, he’s OK, stable for now. Do you have someone to drive you, to be with you?’
‘Yes,’ I say, ‘but, but what happened?’
‘That’s really all I can tell you over the phone.’
