“Where would you recommend, then?”
“Sicily. The food is second to none. Sun-drenched and bursting with flavour. The wines are excellent too—it is a shame you do not drink. In Sicily, you might find you make an exception. There is nothing nicer than sitting on a hill surrounded by vines, looking towards the sea as the sun sets.”
She was captivated by him, sitting on the edge of her seat now, the meal forgotten.
“Where else?”
“As macabre as it might sound, Pompeii. It is impossible to feel full of self-importance when you are surrounded by the eeriness of that place. Lives extinguished in the blink of an eye, the abject horror, the acts of love,” he shook his head, as if to catch himself on the romance of that thought. “The sacrifice,” he finished with a look of surprise. “Parents huddling their bodies over children—I suppose that’s a normal instinct, though, isn’t it? For a parent to protect a child?”
He was simply making an observation, but to Phoebe, who had no experience of this purported parental protection, the words were jarring. She squirmed a little uncomfortably in her seat.
“You’re right, it does sound macabre.”
“Still, worth seeing.” Something shifted, as though he was pushing aside the romanticism of his descriptions, and she didn’t want that. She liked hearing him talk about places, just not about parents and what they owed their children.
“Cinque Terre is also exquisite.”
“I’ve heard of it,” she murmured. “Five towns, high on cliffs?”
“That’s it,” he agreed with a nod, and she felt a zing of warmth as though she’d somehow earned his approval. Hating herself for being so childish, she took another bite of dinner, content to listen as he explained.
“The villages are very old, and mostly fishing communities, though now, tourism is also important to the region. But that doesn’t change the essence of Cinque Terre, where ancient houses jostle together, washing lines strung from one to the other, grape vines clambering up hillsides, and fishing boats dotting the beaches from dusk until dawn.” He hesitated, and when he spoke, his voice was gruff. “I suppose you know we used to go there together?”
She shook her head. “He didn’t mention it.”
His eyes probed hers, as if evaluating her answer for honesty, and then he took another sip of his wine. “We went most summers. My father was big on tradition—he never had much of that, growing up, and wanted us to have regular rhythms shaped into our lives. Fishing off the coast of Cinque Terre was one such rhythm.” His expression took on a faraway look. “It was nothing like this. No luxury, no creature comforts. We’d pile into a pretty rickety old boat, row out to sea, and cast our lines. Some days we’d catch plenty, other days nothing, but it didn’t matter. He’d talk to us, and sing, and we’d come back satisfied regardless of what was in our basket.”
“He’d sing?” She asked with a smile.
“He had a terrible voice.” Anastasios shook his head with affectionate indulgence and something in Phoebe pulled tight—an unmistakable sense of longing. What would it be like to have that sort of affection aimed in her direction? She sobered, crossing her cutlery and taking a last sip of water. “But that didn’t matter. There were all these songs from his childhood and he’d warble them out, no doubt scaring away the fish in the process.”
She laughed softly.
“And we never told him. We never told him anything he did wrong.” Anastasios looked at Phoebe, and now there was pain in their eyes. “I think we didn’t really see him as a man, sometimes. It’s as though he was larger than life, almost a god to us, beyond fault. Perhaps if we’d seen him as he really was, we might have seen the truth.”
“And if you’d known about his affair?”
His eyes widened at her apparent admission.
“With Anna,” she clarified, earning a small frown from Anastasios.
“He told you about her?”
She dipped her head.
“He shared so much with you.”
“I told you—,”
“You were ‘friends’, yes, I know.” But his skepticism was obvious, and she was tired of arguing the point.
“What would you have done, if you’d known?”
“Made him stop seeing her,” he answered, without skipping a beat.
“And if he refused?”
“He wouldn’t have.”