young cousins there had been no opportunities to meet and get to know anybody of her own generation. So these new friends she was meeting now through Costis and Chrysanthi were making her feel at home. Her friendship with her cousin’s wife was also blossoming, and spending time with her and their family was providing Calli with the warmth and home comforts she always encountered with her own family in London. Their children too, little Katerina and Giorgos, took a great liking to the auntie from London; and although at times she felt a pang of regret that she had no family of her own, the pleasure she received from them was greater than the melancholy it sometimes induced.
‘You’re still young and there is plenty of time to start a family,’ Chrysanthi told Calli, contrary to what her older relatives had repeatedly told her, to her irritation, a decade ago. Although she knew this was so, time was passing; it was one thing for Chrysanthi to insist there was plenty of time when she already had her family around her, and another for Calli who knew that her childbearing years were flying past all too quickly.
‘We’ll see . . .’ Calli replied, feeling a pang of regret in her heart. Although, when she had found herself unexpectedly pregnant, she had been prepared and willing to raise her child alone, she now knew that if there were to be a next time for her it would have to be with a man who loved her and wanted the same things as she did.
Things always happen for a reason – she kept hearing Maya’s words – and perhaps being a mother was never meant to happen to me.
8
August was by far the hottest month on the island; Eleni believed July was worse, but Calli disagreed and maintained that August was when the thermometer rose highest and stayed highest, day and night. The advantage of this, in her view, was that by then the sea temperature was even balmier than in midsummer. Calli continued her daily early morning swim and walk on the beach, which she would often share with Michalis; although normally he would start his day even earlier than she did hers, he tried to orchestrate it so they would meet and spend a little time together before he drove to work. She was glad that she hadn’t rushed into anything physical with him yet. Their relationship was blossoming into a warm friendship and she couldn’t wait to spend time with him; his presence made her feel happy and secure. She found him thoughtful and receptive in talking openly on all manner of subjects, including her own personal worries and concerns.
‘I sometimes feel that I think too much about everything, which stops me from being spontaneous,’ she confessed.
‘Overthinking can stop us acting from our heart,’ he replied. ‘I should know, once or twice when I followed my head instead, it didn’t end well.’
‘I’m learning . . .’ she said and let out a sigh. ‘It takes time to shake off old habits.’
Michalis’s spontaneous expression of his love for Crete was infectious and seductive, and Calli needed nothing more than his encouragement to explore with him and, always taking her camera along, drive out to places where she had never ventured before. On past visits she had stayed well within range of her family’s village but as Michalis was willing to show her around, she accepted his offer with pleasure.
‘There is a little convent dedicated to the Holy Virgin, some way to the east from here, by the sea,’ he told her one evening while stopping for a drink with some friends in her aunt’s garden. ‘You might like to see it. It’s very small – just a handful of nuns live there. We can go on Sunday. They say that once or twice a year on certain dates, real tears run from the Panagia’s eyes, and whoever kisses the icon during that time will be cured of any ailments of the body or soul. When I was a boy my mother used to take me with her when she visited.’
‘It’s a really beautiful spot,’ Chrysanthi said, overhearing Michalis’s suggestion. ‘I’m not from these parts but I’ve heard of this phenomenon.’
‘I too used to go there with my grandmother,’ their friend Katerina added. ‘In fact, I remember going with her on pilgrimages to visit the icon of the Archangel Raphael as well as the weeping Panagia, because he too performs miracles.’ At