CHAPTER EIGHT
THE RESTAURANT STEFANO had booked them into was a short walk from their home in the Westside of Santa Cruz. Anna adored the clean, affluent neighbourhood. This was a district to soak up culture, enjoy the amusements and raise children.
Why did she keep thinking of children? And why did it f
eel like a blade in the chest whenever she did?
She pushed the thoughts aside. This was their last night in Santa Cruz and she wanted to enjoy every last minute of it, not have her unreliable mind take her in directions she couldn’t understand.
The Thai Emerald was, as the name suggested, a Thai restaurant, located on the bustling beachfront.
She glimpsed a small room with a handful of tables before they were whisked up narrow stairs to a bright, spacious room with an open front overlooking the beach.
They were shown to a small square table near the front and menus were laid before them. Their drink order was taken and then they were alone.
Anna read her menu with a contentment in her heart she couldn’t remember feeling since childhood.
‘You look happy,’ Stefano observed with a smile.
She beamed at him. ‘Thai food is another favourite.’
‘I know.’
‘Do we ever cook?’
‘No.’
He answered so firmly that she laughed. ‘Melissa always did the cooking and I did the cleaning...’ Her voice tailed off as she thought of her sister.
‘You are most particular about tidiness,’ he said with a grin.
‘Melissa says I’m a control freak.’
‘You like order. There’s nothing wrong with that. I’m the same.’
The waiter came to their table with their wine and poured them each a glass.
‘I’ve been thinking,’ Anna said once their food order had been taken. ‘I’m going to get in touch with Melissa when we get back to London.’
‘I thought you were going to wait until she got home?’
‘I’ll drive myself crazy if I wait that long.’ She sighed. ‘I miss her. I can’t wait another three weeks to speak to her. I’ll borrow your phone if that’s okay and call her.’
He nodded thoughtfully. ‘If you’re sure.’
‘I am. I just feel...’ She shook her head. ‘Betrayed. I know it’s selfish of me but I want to know why. After everything Mum did to us, to up and leave to celebrate a birthday with her? I mean, she left us. She left me in Melissa’s care when I was fourteen years old and scarpered to the other side of the world to live with a man she’d known for only a few months. What kind of woman does that? What kind of mother does that?’
How many times had he heard all this? she wondered when he didn’t answer.
Her mother wasn’t a topic Anna liked to discuss. It was the judgement call she could read in people’s eyes when they learned about it, as if they were wondering what kind of daughter she must have been if her own mother abandoned her so soon after her father had died.
It was something that ate at her. What kind of hateful child must she have been to elicit that desertion?
But Stefano was her husband so it was only natural that in the course of their marriage she had opened up to him. And all he was doing right then was listening to a story she must have shared however many times but couldn’t stop relaying again now.
‘I often wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t put my foot down and refused to go with her. I don’t see how our relationship would be any different other than the fact I would have been on the other side of the world to my sister. Melissa couldn’t have gone. She’d just started university and was starting her adult life. I didn’t want to leave her or my friends. I didn’t want to leave my father.’
‘Your father was dead,’ he pointed out quietly. ‘Didn’t you want your mother to be happy?’