‘And about time too!’ Calli exclaimed in mock annoyance when Eleni told her she would be on the morning’s flight to Crete. She knew that her mother’s delay was due to Keith’s little accident but nevertheless she was glad she was now on her way.
‘I know, agabi mou, I missed you too,’ she replied, oblivious to what Calli might have alluded to, ‘but I had to stay with your father. I’m sure you’ve had a great time so far and we’ll soon be together. How’s my sister?’
‘She’s fine, Mum, she misses you, too,’ Calli replied. ‘We’ll pick you up from the airport tomorrow.’
Costis offered to take the day off and drive them to Heraklion but Calli declined, preferring to borrow Chrysanthi’s car again. She thought perhaps Froso might be willing to chat to her on the way there if they were alone.
‘How would you like to do this, Thia?’ she asked on their way to the airport, gripping the steering wheel a little harder than usual. ‘Do you want to go through everything again with Mum, and would you like to be alone with her when you do?’
‘No! No, my girl, I don’t.’ Her aunt’s reply was emphatic. ‘I have neither the energy nor the heart to start all over again . . . Perhaps you can speak to her – would you do that?’ She gave Calli a pleading look. ‘I still have so much more to tell you both,’ she murmured and then fell silent. ‘But, please, my girl, please,’ she said after a while, ‘do me a favour. Don’t start on that just yet, not as soon as she arrives. Let’s have some time together to enjoy each other before we return to all that sadness again.’ Neither of them said anything else for the rest of the journey, each lost in their own particular thoughts.
How was it possible, Calli asked herself again, that nobody seemed to know anything about Froso’s story, and how could such momentous events have been kept secret from the family? Calli longed to talk to her mother but for now she had given her word to her aunt to stay silent for a while longer.
Searching the crowd for her sister and daughter, Eleni could feel her anxiety mounting. On the plane she had tried to distract herself from worries tinged with guilt about how she might find Froso. Calli said it wasn’t urgent, but I should have come earlier, cut the Lake District holiday short, she berated herself. Then she saw them both standing at the Arrivals gate, her sister looking much better than she’d feared, and Calli tanned, golden and more beautiful than ever.
With a huge sigh of relief, Eleni hugged them both and reverted back to her usual cheerful self.
‘How are you, my dear sister?’ she said, taking Froso in her arms and kissing her noisily on both cheeks. ‘Who said you weren’t well? You look as perky as a daisy!’
‘Looks can be deceptive,’ Froso smiled and hugged her back extra hard, ‘but you are right, I am fine, especially now you are here with us!’
‘So, how have you two been getting on without me?’ Eleni joked, settling into the back seat of the car. ‘This is the longest the two of you have ever spent alone together.’ She leaned into the front seat to take a look at them both: ‘How did it go?’
‘It has been a joy and a pleasure having your daughter with me,’ Froso replied, turning round to look at her sister. ‘I have always longed to have her to myself, she is such a good girl, she is just like you!’
‘Good women run in the family,’ Eleni pronounced. ‘Just look at the two of us, not to mention our mother. It’s in our DNA!’
The return journey to the village was as alive with chat and cheerful banter as it had been silent earlier on. Eleni wanted to know about all they had been doing and she in turn told them about news from home.
‘Alex wanted to come with me too, but I told him this was strictly a girls’ trip!’ Eleni laughed again. ‘I told him next time it will be his turn to come with Keith but right now he had to stay home and look after his dad.’
‘How is Dad?’ Calli asked, remembering her poor father.
‘He’s fine, it was just a sprain, but you know your dad – he’s such a baby when it comes to pain,’ Eleni jested.