The Choices We Made Read online

  “Maria my darling, I’m so glad you’re there - no Benjamin! Stop that you’ll....,” there was a crashing sound in the background and a deep sigh of resignation. “You’ll break it. Maria, hang on a minute.”

  The voice disappeared and Maria could hear a child getting soundly told of before the voice came back again to the phone. I want grandchildren she thought with a dull ache. Even if they wreck my house, I want to be able to watch them do it, and I shall enjoy every single precious moment of it.

  “Now then,” Sophia continued. “He’s gone and I shall have some peace. Maria I need your help desperately. Well not exactly desperately, but I really would appreciate your support.”

  Maria sighed, consigning her worry over her son to the back of her mind, as she concentrated on her friend.

  “Sophia we’ve been friends for ever, whatever you want I’ll do it,” she paused for a second thinking quickly, “Unless, you haven’t, by any chance, had a row with Daniel have you?”

  Sophia exploded into hearty laughter.

  “Row? How on earth could we row? Daniel is the most laid back person I have ever known despite being Irish; why he hasn’t got a hot headed trait within him, I never have the joy of a really good argument. I’d love to have the chance to just once get really angry with him so that I could throw something at him but it never happens, he always disarms with his kindness and understanding. I am however, just this once, intensely annoyed with him. Every year we attend a very important event hosted by his best friend and daughter, who just so happens to be Daniels goddaughter, but he has to go away for business this week and he’s informed he won’t be back in time to come with me.”

  She paused for breath.

  “And?” Maria prompted gently.

  Sophia sounded embarrassed, “I know it’s not the sort of thing you would normally attend, that’s why I’ve never asked you to come with us before, but I was rather hoping that you might feel able to support me in my hour of need and come in his place.”

  “Well of course I will.” Maria responded instantly, and then had an uneasy thought. “Could you clarify exactly what you mean when you say it’s not my sort of thing? What do you actually want me to do and am I going to regret agreeing to go with you?”

  “Daniel has a friend, Patrick, they grew up together in Ireland - well this friend inherited a fallen down manor and gradually over the years he’s turned it into a wonderful homely hotel. We’ve been going there for years, helping out as much as we can, it’s almost like our second home.”

  “I remember you talking about it vaguely.” Maria answered uneasily.

  “Well it was never going to be in the same league as anything your husband did so I always thought you wouldn’t really be that interested.” Sophia told her dryly.

  Maria gasped. “That’s not true, but I always thought it was more Daniels friends’ project and, well let’s be truthful, I didn’t even know Daniel’s friend.”

  She heard Sophia sigh deeply before she began to speak.

  “Well as you’ve agreed to come with me I need to give you some background history and I’m afraid bits of this story are quite sad. I suppose that’s why I’ve never gotten round to telling you before, what with you coping with Mikolas’s death and then with Stephanos dying. Really I didn’t want to burden you with my feelings at the time about everything that had happened and how upset I was. In the beginning it was all so romantic just like a fairy tale; Patrick rode like a knight to the rescue to help a stranded cyclist at the side of the road who had a flat tyre, except that it was a bicycle pump and not a sword. Of course the fact that she had long blond hair and legs that went right up to her miniscule shorts probably had something to do with it, but from the moment she looked up into his eyes he was smitten. Hannah was, well how can I explain her? She was beautiful, a classic Scandinavian blond, but what drew everybody to her was her gentle, kind nature that was the absolute essence of her being. She never returned to her parent’s home and when their daughter Emmelinda was born nine months later they were the happiest couple I have seen. Daniel was so proud when he was asked to be her godfather.”

  “Emmelinda? What a very unusual name.” Maria interrupted her.

  “It is, isn’t it, I believe Hannah’s great-great-grandma was called that. As a child Hannah called her Lindy even though Patrick preferred Emme; after Hannah was gone she stopped anyone calling her Lindy, it was too painful she said. Anyway let me continue. That christening was the one and only time that Hannah bowed to convention for she resolutely refused to marry Patrick till later. I’m sorry I’m making this a very long story, but unlike fairy tales there is no happy ending. Just when everything seemed perfect for them Hannah was diagnosed with cancer; only then did she insist Patrick married her. She died a few years later. Every year Patrick hosts a charity event at his hotel to raise money for the unit that supported them, and many of the regular guests return to help run the stalls.”

  Maria sighed sympathetically. “It is a sad story and I can hear how much it means to you to be there but, well, are you seriously asking me to help you run a stall? Is that what you are asking me to do? Because let’s be honest I have never done anything like that, not even when the boys were at school.”

  She sounded amused rather than offended.

  Sophia suddenly had a vision in her mind’s eye of Maria, elegantly dressed in a suit and high heels, flawless makeup, manicured nails and the cocoon of Chanel No 5 that heralded her arrival. No that person would look distinctly out of place selling books, bric-a-brac, or horror of horrors, touching and selling second hand clothes.

  She grinned. Maria, the elegant widow of a business man who was worth millions, no it was not the behaviour one would expect from her yet, she knew a different Maria. When they had been children back in Italy, they had not only sold cakes in her father shops but they had often helped bake and ice them.

  She considered asking her if her son even knew that she was a master baker, then she thought better of it; it was not that Maria was proud so much as she had buried her heritage when she fell in love and married a rich boy. That had been a terrible shame Sophia felt, because Maria had been an excellent cook and she had so loved to eat her cakes.

  She glanced down at her waist line and grimaced, oh well she sniffed, I should be thankful for small mercies, I have enough trouble controlling my weight as it is.

  “I know you’ve never done anything like this before and I know it all probably sounds weird to you, but some of the guests have been staying at the hotel for years. It’s an incredible thing really, but I guess so many of them feel like they are family, not guests, it’s this special thing that Patrick and Hannah did to make them feel welcome and at home; so for everyone who helps at this event I suppose in a way it allows them to celebrate Hannah’s existence. It is such an important event to me, to them, but it makes me so emotional, I always want to cry at some stage during the weekend, when Daniel’s there he knows when it’s going to happen and he helps me through it. That’s why I’m asking you to come; you’ve known me longer than Daniel has and you will know when I’m going to cry. Please? I don’t think I can do it by myself; well that’s not exactly true I know I can do it by myself, but I would really appreciate someone I can trust explicitly to be there to step in when I need them. I need my friend.”

  Sophia’s voice pleaded softly with Maria and Maria sighed. Although they had been friends for years, and Sophia was Christos’s godmother, they hadn’t always moved in the same circle, but it was obvious to her that her friend needed her now. The more she considered it, the more she realised that, while Sophia needed her, her son did not need her at all and he did, in fact, want to have as little to do with her as possible.

  She knew it would be good to feel useful to someone again instead of just a useless decorative piece. I need to be wanted, I need to be needed, to be of use to someone she thought sadly.

  “Of course I’ll come and do whatever you want me to do. How could you ever d
oubt it? When are we going?” She replied.

  “Thank you, thank you so much.” Sophia answered happily. “Oh but Maria, there is just one teensy weensy little thing that I would like to ask of you? The Cervantes name is so well known in the hotel business and I wouldn’t want Patrick or his staff to worry about the impression they might be making on you when they need to concentrate on this event. Would you mind very much using your maiden name?”

  Maria laughingly agreed with her. “I think that’s probably a good idea. If it became known that Maria Cervantes was helping to run a stall, at a charity event, at a small country hotel, well, I dread to think what might be said about me. Can you imagine what Christos would say to me? He’d probably think I was losing my mind.”

  Sophia chortled in total accord with her sentiments.

  “That’s true but that’s just because he’s so proud of his family’s name. You can’t blame him for that, though sometimes I do worry that my godson is so determined to live up to the family name that he forgets that underneath it all he is still Christos. Sorry forget I said that. Thank you again for agreeing to come with me, I’ll ring you later and confirm what time I’ll pick you up.”

  As Maria replaced the phone carefully in its cradle, her eyes rested on the photograph of her husband with his arms proudly wrapped around the shoulders of both their boys. Her heart twisted with a pain that was immeasurable. Sophia was right. Christos was determined to uphold the memory of his father, and he was just as adamant that nothing would ever besmirch the good name of his family; added to that, he carried the responsibility for so many people who worked for him upon his shoulders. It really was no surprise that he could appear distant.

  He was trying so hard to be the man his father had been that he seemed to have forgotten who he was and now, well now he was just so alone. Her whole being ached with the pain of the loss, not only of her husband and son that had died, but of the son she was unable to reach no matter what she tried to do; hot tears coursed unbidden down her face.

  She started to dream, perhaps, if she and Sophia worked together this time rather than separately they could create a list of girls that Christos might really like, then they could work on more subtle ways to introduce them to him, yes maybe that would work. She was aware that compiling a list would be a great deal easier to organise than getting her son to actually spend some time with a young woman. Somehow or other she was determined to try because no matter how angry she kept making him she knew that he was lonely and she was sure if she could find him a girl to love she’d finally find her son again instead of the automaton who was masquerading as her beloved son.

  Sophia was his godmother and she loved him deeply too. Maria began to feel light hearted as she considered that she would have a co-conspirator. In fact now she thought about, she didn’t know why they hadn’t worked together before now.

  In her mind’s eye she could began to picture her grandchildren crawling at her feet. She paused in her daydream; Sophia hadn’t said if Daniel’s goddaughter was married. She wondered how old she was. Wouldn’t it be splendid if she was as wonderful as the mother that Sophia had talked about? And it would be so easy to arrange a meeting if she was already part of Sophia’s family.

  She wondered why Sophia had never suggested it before.

  Never mind, and a smile spread across her face, I shall rectify that omission.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Emme sighed as she put the final touches to the lists she had made and there as if on cue, a tear began to slide down her cheek and drip down onto the paper.

  Each year this sadness hit her, the nearer this weekend came, and the more she missed her beautiful mother. Her father said that her mother had bewitched him, filling his life with all the colours of the rainbow but that wasn’t how she remembered her. Instead she thought of her as a shaft of sunlight flowing from an enchanted land into their home, warming everything and everyone in its glow and leaving them sad and cold when that light was cruelly obscured by the grey mantle of death.

  So many memories, so many happy times, so much of what they had once had, that was forever lost.

  When she had told her mother that she was pregnant and that she had walked away from the father, it had been the worst moment of her life. Yet all her mother had ever given her was her limitless support, she could still see, even now, the love glistening in her mother’s eyes as she had held the twins, her grandchildren, for the very first time.

  She tried to clear her mind of those memories but as clearly as she remembered the twin’s birth, the rest found her and the memories that she had tried so hard to forget came crashing and tumbling into her consciousness.

  She was powerless to ignore them.

  She stood again in the doorway that first morning at college and saw him standing there, the most beautiful man she had ever seen in her life. Standing alone, tall he had been concentrating on some leaflets in his hands but as if aware of her stare he looked up and their eyes met. She could still remember the thrill she had felt as his eyes caressed her and she could still see in her mind the smile hovering on his lips as she had begun to walk towards him. Even after all this time she could feel the way her heart had begun to beat painfully against her ribs as she’d moved towards him and when he had finally spoken to her and smiled into her eyes; she had been lost from that moment on and she knew somehow that they were meant to be together, forever.

  Had he ever realised, she wondered, how she’d felt about him? Had he known how she would watch him sometimes when she knew he was concentrating on lectures? Had he known that all she had wanted was to sit beside him and hold his hand?

  He had the most incredibly long black lashes that framed soft eyes, they swirled with a myriad of colours, amber, chocolate and gold. She remembered how she could stare into them all day long, bewitched, as the flecks of gold flashed and sparkled as he chattered seriously to her.

  How she had longed to run her fingers through his soft dark hair and encourage him to kiss her. But, friendly though he was, there always seemed to be something that was holding him back from being completely open with her, some part of him that felt as if it was forever hidden from her. She had found the knowledge of that secrecy difficult to deal with.

  She was afraid to appear too forward with him just in case he did, actually, only want to be her friend. Despite that, she tried everything she could think of to encourage him to see her as a desirable woman and give her some sign that he might like her in a more intimate way; she swapped her swimsuit for a bikini as they swam together so frequently, but he didn’t seem to so much as bat an eyelid when he saw her in it, in fact, if she was perfectly honest she didn’t think he had even noticed.

  So then she had shortened all her dresses into minis hoping that might get a response from him and when that didn’t work she tried going around with no bra. She smiled slightly as she remembered he had noticed that but it hadn’t done her any good; it never encouraged him to try and kiss her, even though her very soul screamed at him to try, and all she finally ended up with was sore nipples where her tee-shirt had rubbed.

  In desperation she had gone home and poured out her pent up feelings to her mother who had, as always, come up trumps. She had taken her to the hairdresser and had her hair styled, then she had bought her the most beautiful dress, finally she had sat her down to have a heart to heart with her.

  “Tell me, how does he make you feel?” Her mother had asked her quietly.

  She had thought for a while. “Like my insides are doing cartwheels all the time. I ache for him to hold me close even if it’s only for a moment. I can’t look at his lips without wondering what they would feel like when he kissed me. Just the smell of him makes me have this funny hot feeling that tingles right through me. He makes me feel safe and alive and cared for, and if he doesn’t do something about it soon I am going to burst with all these feelings exploding inside me. That or I’m going to punch him into next week; I bet he’d have to notice that.” She finished
dolefully.

  Her mother tweaked a curl then tenderly held her hand. “You didn’t mean that last bit did you? You’re just frustrated; you know sometimes boys can be a bit stupid when it comes to love. Sometimes they just need to be given a little push in the right direction to know what they want. I know your father did.”

  “Mum?” perplexed, Emme looked at her. “What on earth do you mean? I thought Dad found you in a lane and mended your bike.”

  She remembered her mother hugging her, could still almost feel what it felt like to be engulfed within her loving arms.

  “That’s how your father tells the tale and it is true enough in a way but what he never knew was that I had seen him weeks before and I had stalked him until I’d found out his daily routine so I could make sure I was in the right place at the right time. Your father had no chance against me; I knew I wanted him and I was determined to get him. Now don’t tell your father that because he is so convinced that he had to persuade me to go out with him; so please, let this be our little secret. What I’m trying to tell you is that if this boy means that much to you then you need to help him realise how important you are to him. You are going to have to give him a nudge in the right direction because otherwise he won’t realise it. You are going to have to take a chance on having your heart broken if you truly want to be loved.”

  She had taken her mother’s word’s to heart and the night of the graduation ball she had dressed with such care knowing that this was her last chance to make him really see her. The moment she walked into the room and looked at him she knew that she had won, finally he was really seeing her. As she looked at him she could see the love she felt in her heart mirrored in his eyes and when he kissed her under the moonlight there was nothing she would have done anything for him, even though she had sworn to herself that she would wait until she was married.