Calling her ‘Rose’.
That was a mistake, Rose thinks grimly. Everyone thinks they know who Rose Talisman is: that she’s a calm, serene woman who heals people. All of which is true. But she’s also a fighter.
Nobody from the past is going to ruin their future. Not if Rose can help it.
Chapter Twenty
Dianne watches the woman send a high kick into her opponent’s abdomen, can hear the roar of the crowd. The kicked woman falls to the mat for a moment, then recovers and is up, fighting again, determination in every move.
Yes!
Dianne loves watching women’s kickboxing on YouTube.
If only her kids could see her now, she thinks wryly.
They’d have her committed instead of opting to send her to a Greek retreat.
But watching powerful, muscled women fighting calms Dianne down. These women own their power and she loves it.
Ironic since she can’t even do basic stretches any more. Walking is her only exercise.
But if only she’d started doing something like kickboxing when she was in her twenties …
Imagine who she’d have been then. Fierce, determined, brave.
She’d have set up her own business, been somebody, run her lifeherway.
Then again, the twenty-something version of her wouldn’t have known where to start with getting kickboxing lessons, never mind setting up a business. But she thinks about what might have been.
The world is there for modern women, despite the misogynists, and it might have been there for her too, if only she’d known then what she knows now.
If onlyare the saddest words in the universe, she thinks.
Dianne looks at the time. Five p.m. Finally.
She’s been waiting to listen to Ellie’s message and then send one in return when Ellie is asleep thanks to the time difference. Waiting to hear her darling’s voice has been hell but she wants to do it when Ellie can’t see the blue tick, can’t know her mother’s waiting to leave a message.
Dianne now needs to be totally alone. Not in the villa, where she feels people can hear her, but away from them all.
She asked Adriana about where she might find privacy and Adriana told her about the little viewing point behind the villa.
They call it ‘the acropolis’, Adriana says.
‘It’s Greek for a citadel, really, and our acropolis is not that. But it’s high up, very private behind the villa. It’s a little terrace half-way up the cliff. When you’re up there, only the birds can hear you.’
Dianne doubts the birds will be interested in her conversation.
The sun is moving slowly down the early evening sky. Adriana has told her that this blissful September warmth is a relief after the sweltering summer.
Dianne climbs up the beautifully laid stone steps that seem part of the cliff face.
She holds carefully on to the wooden railing on the outer edge of the steps.
When she reaches the top, she stops and pants a little. She’s fit but it’s quite a climb.
Dianne peers over the edge which has a curved stone balcony and fragrant oleander and lavender bushes planted neatly around. It’s been set up as a little retreat where people can sit and stare at the sea, or meditate, as Rose has suggested.
She figures that the acropolis is some forty metres above the Villa Artemis complex. An eyrie in the sky.
