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And, of the two, I’m never sure which one of them is being entirely truthful.
I can’t help but to agonise over what it is that I must compromise on?
Today, with Waterfall Cay, it really seemed like I’d found the answer.
It seemed, in a moment of hope and glory, that I’d found my compromise.
But now that option has disappeared as fast as it came and I’m back to the same question.
How can I possibly choose to love a man over my own family?
How can I ever allow myself to really trust anyone ever again?
How can I trust another person when I can’t seem to trust my own instincts anymore?
When having it all is impossible and so means having to choose?
Ethan dragged his eyes away from staring at the bottom of his empty bourbon glass to look at me. I really don’t think I’ve ever seen him so dismayed. Not even when together we’d nursed a turtle, who’d been hit by the rudder of a longtail boat in Thailand, and its carapace was cracked open and its right flipper gone and a chunk missing from the edge of its shell.
‘Oh Lori, I lost something else today too —’ he confessed miserably. ‘I lost your ring.’
I didn’t know what to say. It was a beautiful ring. I just hoped it was insured.
‘I must have dropped it in the sand. I expect the chances of finding it again will be remote.’
I looked deeply into his soulful eyes. Those very beautiful but now incredibly sad pools of light and love and emotion. I couldn’t help myself. A great surge of love came crashing over my own fiery feelings and doused them out in a wave of both passion and compassion for him.
‘Ethan, losing a ring doesn’t mean you’ve lost my love. I love you. I want to be with you. But, despite what you call the cruise ship invasion, I still think that Geluk Island would be our next best choice as a perfect place for us to build a home together. Then we can have something that resembles a home life between our work projects. I need that stability. I want a door to close when I need to shut out the problems of the world. I want somewhere to rest when I’m feeling tired. I want walls on which to hang my favourite photographs. I’m afraid, I just can’t carry on like this —as a homeless nomad.’
Ethan shrugged and sighed and sulked and he didn’t look either convinced or happy.
‘I suppose I’ve always thought that one day, I’d settle down in the BVIs.’ He confessed. ‘I really wanted that island to be our home, Lori. I really felt we belonged there. Strangely, I’ve never felt that way about anywhere, not even Scotland. But, you’re right. I’ll just have to accept it’s not going to happen and move on. Just give me some time and I promise I’ll find us somewhere else to call home.’ He looked so incredibly sad and disappointed.
For someone who always seemed ready and prepared and who knew exactly how and when it was time to move on, I’ve never known Ethan to drag his heels, or to be so reluctant before.
‘Look —’ I tried to reason with him. ‘If this island is really that important to you, why don’t we go and talk to your brother about it? If he only knew how you feel – how very special this island is to you – then he might be prepared to back off and give it back to us?’
Ethan vehemently shook his head. ‘No way. Lori, you simply don’t understand who you are dealing with here. Damion will not give up the island. Especially, if he knew how special it was to me. There’s nothing that you or I can do about it. It’s gone.’
‘I simply can’t believe that to be true. You are brothers. Surely this can be worked out?’
Ethan shrugged again but it was more like an acknowledgement of defeat than of acquiesce.
‘If it was anyone else but him then I’d be inclined to agree with you,’ he said to me while signalling the bartender for another drink. ‘But Damion and I don’t get on and we never have.’
‘Never? Not even when you were small boys together?’ I queried.
‘No. Especially when we were kids. We were born ten years apart and it’s like we were born to be complete opposites in every way. We could never agree on anything. Damion would make everything into a competition that he would win no matter the cost or the consequence. If he wants something, then believe me, he will not stop until he has it and he will never give up or ever back down. It won’t work. So why don’t we just forget all about Waterfall Cay?’
‘Forget? But you said it was a rare find. You said it was your dream? There has to be another way. There must be something we can do. He is your brother and he must have some redeeming qualities. Surely, it’s time you two agreed on something and made amends?’
I pondered on my own childhood. I’d been an only child, but I’d always longed for a sister.
I’d imagined a sister to be a constant and reliable forever friend who would never let you down. I’d brought up my own two boys to be good friends and allies and to support each other.
‘Not while he is as stubborn as he is ruthless.’ Ethan noted sourly.
And just at that moment my phone rang. ‘Oh, I’ll need to take this. It’s Josh.’
A feeling of something that I can only describe as pure unadulterated dread washed over me in the moment when I saw that it was Josh calling. My stomach turned over because I knew it was well after midnight in the UK. It was the middle of the night. It was so unlike him to call at this time. Unless something was wrong?
And that’s when I heard the news about my mum and my mind and my body and my whole world went into a freefall of absolute and total panic.
‘What? Josh, slow down! What did you just say?’
I looked to Ethan. ‘My mum has had a heart attack. I need to go home right now!’
And Ethan did what he always does best. He immediately sprang into action.
He hailed us a taxi and we headed straight to the airport.
At the British Airways desk, he wanted to buy two first-class tickets to London, and we argued about it for a while, but I insisted that I needed to go home alone.
‘I need time to deal with this myself. My boys don’t know anything about us yet, Ethan. This is absolutely not the right time to tell them. I’ll call you. I’ll speak to them. I promise.’
Then in my rush to get to my gate and onto the plane that was already boarding, I turned to say goodbye to him, only to realise that I’d already gone through the point of no return.
And, suddenly, Ethan was nowhere to be seen.
Chapter 4 (#ulink_11730146-fdac-5ed1-a9f6-fe579af72472)
London UK (#ulink_11730146-fdac-5ed1-a9f6-fe579af72472)
It’s early morning in London when I step off my overnight flight and it’s very dark outside. The temperature is reported to be well below zero degrees and everyone else has deplaned wrapped up in coats and scarfs and boots. To my embarrassment, I’m wearing a flimsy summer dress and flip-flops. I have a small backpack with me and no checked luggage because I’ve left the mainstay of my sparse belongings back in the Caribbean.
I emerge from the green zone of customs into the brightly lit bustle of the arrivals area at Gatwick airport and I’m feeling like an exile after being away for a whole year. I know I look different. I feel different. I’m also shivering violently from an assault of icy cold air that’s being sucked inside the terminal from the doors leading to the outside world. I’m chilled to the bone.
Goosebumps are doing a Mexican Wave across my entire body and it feels as if my skin, that just yesterday was warm and brown and supple in the humid tropical air, has suddenly become grey and shrunken and icy in response to the dry air on the plane and now the cold damp atmosphere in the UK. My eyes feel sore and heavy as I look around me in confusion at the faceless crowd. Then, to my relief, I hear a shout from a familiar voice.
‘Mum!’ And my heart leaps as if it’s been shocked back to life by a defibrillator.
Then I’m standing in front of Josh, my darling eldest son, who looks even taller and more handsome than I can ever recall. I throw myself into his arms before noticing he’s with someone; a pretty young woman with big dark eyes and long brown hair.
‘Mum, this is Zoey, my fiancée.’
I embrace Zoey and kiss her cheek and say how pleased I am to meet her.
‘Hello, Mrs Anderson. Wow—you are so suntanned!’ said Zoey, who was staring at me as if I’d just arrived from another planet and she’d never seen anyone quite like me before.
‘Oh, please, call me Lori.’
‘We’ve brought you a warm coat, Mum. We guessed you’d be getting off the plane in summer clothes!’ Josh was now helping me take off my small backpack, so that he could wrap a padded jacket around my shoulders, to save me from freezing to death.
‘Oh thank you! I feel so ridiculously underdressed. Oh, that feels lovely and warm!’
It smelled of a young person’s scent: light and fruity and fresh.
‘And thank you, Zoey. I assume this is your coat?’
‘Yes, but I have others, so you can keep it for as long as you need.’
Then I saw her looking down in sympathy at my stone-cold blue-tinged toes.
And I could tell she was wishing that she’d also brought me some socks and boots.
I turned to Josh for an update on my mother’s condition.
‘How is your Gran? Can we go straight to the hospital to see her?’
When I saw Josh and Zoey exchange uncomfortable glances my heart dropped like a stone.
Tears filled my eyes and I was now shaking so much I could hear my teeth rattling.
Clearly, I’d arrived too late and she was gone. I’ll never see her or speak to her or hug her ever again. There would be no joyful reunions here or in the Caribbean. I’d never be able to tell her about all my adventures and the people I’d met over the past year.
There is no time left in which to celebrate or to tell her how much I’ve missed her.
None of that was ever going to happen now. I was too damned late.
I let out a sob of grief and felt a great stab of sorrow and guilt rip through my breaking heart.
I’ve been so heartless and selfish in abandoning my family when they’d needed me here.
What had I been thinking? Taking off without a care or a thought for my loved ones?
I’d behaved appallingly. I’d thought of only myself, when one year ago I’d grabbed my handbag and my passport and ran from the house to get as far away as possible, thinking of nothing but leaving behind my adulterous husband and treacherous best friend. When, what I’d really done, is to selfishly abandon my whole family. I’d ran away and left my kids and my mother to deal with the aftermath of what happened that day and then to face the mess of divorce without me here. What must my kids think of me now?
Selfish? Indulgent? Weak?
For a whole year I’ve been travelling all over the world looking for purpose and happiness when that purpose and happiness was right here all the time – with my family. I hadn’t really needed to travel great distances or pray in golden temples or take guidance from monks in saffron robes or find ways to make a difference in the world. I’d already made a difference. I might not be a wife anymore, or a housewife, but I was still a daughter and a mother.
The full impact of this realisation and the consequences – that I’d never see my lovely mum ever again – was more than I thought I could take. I just stood there with tears streaming down my face. ‘Oh, Josh! I’m s-s-s-so very sorry!’
‘Mum. No. It’s not what you think!’ Josh responded rapidly to my deathly reaction. ‘Gran’s fine. In fact, she’s just been discharged from hospital. We feel badly now, for telling you over the phone that she’d had a heart attack, when actually it just turned out to be bad indigestion.’
I stood speechless and in shock with my mouth open for what seemed like an age.
I’m relieved, of course, that my poor mother isn’t dead or on death’s door, but part of me is now also somewhat annoyed. I’ve just flown half way around the world in a terrible state of panic. I’d left Ethan in a very bad situation and I’d practically given myself a coronary in my rush to get to the airport and onto a flight immediately after getting Josh’s phone call.
I hadn’t stopped to think. I’d just reacted.
And I suppose that’s exactly what I did this time last year too.
My instinct to run has by fate and circumstance brought me right back here.
And now the gruelling flight is over, and the awful panic dispersed and the weight lifted from my shoulders, I feel like I’ve just woken up from a nightmare and with a terrible hangover.
Maybe I’m suffering some kind of post-traumatic stress?
‘Come on, let’s get you out of here before you freeze to death,’ said Josh, rattling car keys.
We walked briskly outside of the terminal and crossed a dark wet and busy road filled with the noise of screeching taxis and the roar of busses and the clatter of people dragging enormous suitcases or pushing precarious piles of luggage on stiff wheeled trollies. Josh fed a parking ticket machine with notes and coins. When I saw how much it had cost him to park the car, I searched for my purse, before realising I didn’t have any money in Sterling to offer him.
‘Oh, can we stop at an ATM? I had meant to go and swap my dollars for pounds.’
‘No problem. I’ve got it. We can sort that out later, mum.’
I slid into the back seat of the car and soon we were driving away from the airport. It was the morning rush-hour and I peered out of the window at the foreboding sight of shiny slate grey streets and a background of darkness. It’s as if I’ve been transported from a world of technicolour into a one of monochrome. It was raining hard. I watched Josh’s head move from side to side in sync with the windscreen wipers as he negotiated the heavy traffic, checked the rear-view mirror, changed lanes and twiddled with the air con all at the same time.
‘We’ll soon have you warm, Mum,’ he said, setting the dial to red and the blower to full.
I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself by staring down at the goose bumps standing to attention on my bare knees and wondered if I’d ever feel warm again.
It had been thirty-six degrees C when I’d left Grand Cayman.
It was, of course, the middle of winter in the UK, so what could I expect?
But had it always been this awfully dark and dreary looking?
‘We’ll go straight over to Gran’s.’ Josh said. ‘She’s got the spare bedroom ready for you. She’s looking forward to having you stay with her until you get yourself sorted.’
I bit down on my lower lip and realised I was a homeless burden until I ‘get myself sorted’.
Sorted with what? My own place? I suppose that all depended on how long I stay.
And then I realise that I’m already contemplating leaving when I’ve only just arrived.
In the same front room of the small terraced house where I’d been born forty-eight years ago, my mum was sitting in her armchair with a cup of tea and a shortbread biscuit when we arrived. The house was warm, the TV was blaring, and she was watching Good Morning.
Her face broke into an immediate expression of joy when she saw me, and she leapt to her slipper-shod feet without any hesitation. ‘Lorraine! You’ve come home!’
‘How are you, Mum? You gave us all quite a scare.’ I said, hugging her tightly.
She ignored my comment and insisted on pouring me a cup of tea to warm me up.
Then she fussed over us and force fed us cakes and biscuits. When I asked how she was feeling, she replied that she was ‘feeling much better now’ but wouldn’t look me in the eye.
Then my younger son, Lucas, arrived and it felt so wonderful to be in the same room as both my sons again. I’d missed them so much that I didn’t want to stop hugging them. I found myself stroking their shirt sleeves and touching their faces and ruffling their hair. Checking they were real. And of course, it was lovely to meet and chat to Zoey, and admire the engagement ring she was wearing. Even though it made me emotional and tearful on two counts. I was full of joy for them both, but I couldn’t help but to be reminded of Ethan and the ring he’d offered me.
