at your self-confidence. But Mum changed her tone and then asked sweetly, “How are you, darling?”
“Oh, you know. Getting by.” I wasn’t going to let her know I’d fallen flat on my face and twisted my ankle. Clumsy girl.
“Still no better?”
“Still so… broken-hearted.”
“You need to get out more, meet new friends.”
“Actually I met some fun young people today. Early twenties, I suppose. A boy and two girls. Fraternal triplets.”
“Oh, yes?”
“They’re a real laugh. One of the girls plays guitar. Poor things’ mother’s ill and I felt sorry for them. Invited them over for tea. Met them out walking.”
“Be careful, darling, with those long solitary walks of yours. You shouldn’t go round picking up strangers, willy-nilly. Find some proper friends.”
I knew what she meant by “proper” friends. She was worse than Pippa. Mum was hoping I’d start dating. She never did like Juan.
“You can’t mope around forever, my love. Not good for you. What about coming here for a stint? It would be lovely to see you.” Nice English boy, someone of your “own kind.”
“Maybe. Maybe for Christmas.”
“That would be wonderful. Just wonderful, darling. You could combine it with Rupert’s birthday.”
I closed my eyes and tried to suppress the little rage bubbling inside me that flared up every year. Rupert was my non-existent, older brother. Non-existent because I had never known him. He had died at thirteen months old of congenital heart disease. It was pitiful how my parents still stuck a candle on a cake for him and had dragged me (every year) into their “celebration of his short but sweet life.” This year would have been his fortieth.
“I can’t let Mr. Donner down,” I told Mum. “Too much workload.”
She changed the subject. “Cold there yet?” My mother never cared to hear about my work or career. As far as she was concerned a woman was nothing without a man. It didn’t matter about the A-grades I’d earned relentlessly through school and university, my scholarships, the prizes I’d won over the years for Latin, my fascinating job as an attorney at Juan’s law firm. Once, in one of her icy tempers, Mum had even called me her “terrible disappointment.”
“You know it never gets that cold here,” I said, carefully keeping the bitterness out of my voice. “But it’s been raining a lot. Unusual for round here. Especially after last year’s drought. And the mist. Sometimes I can’t see two feet in front of me. But then we have loads of days with full sunshine. The lemon tree still seems happy. And the hibiscus is in full flower.”
“It’s not safe where you live, darling, along that nasty San Andreas fault line. The whole lot will split in two one day. Floods, fires, earthquakes, you’re living in the most hazardous place in the world! What idiot thought of balancing a big glass house on a clifftop, I’ll never know. Californians. Honestly. And you were foolish to even think of buying that house. Come home, darling, sell up, you know I’m right.”
I didn’t answer. Stupid girl, you can’t do anything right, I could hear her thinking.
“It’s dangerous, perched on that terrifying cliff like that. One day it’ll get—”
“Washed into the sea.” I finished her sentence. I’d heard this speech a thousand times before. “How’s Dad?” I said, veering away from the lectures I’d heard so often.
“The same. It’s a nasty disease, you know. Takes hold of one bit by bit. Before you know it, you’re not the same person at all.”
“But he still knows who you are?”
“Goes in roundabouts. But let’s not talk about that, darling.”
“I miss Juan, Mum. Life’s so silent without him.”
“Of course you do. It’s only natural.”
“It shouldn’t have happened like it did.”
“No, of course not. Life can be shocking sometimes. Look what happened to your father. Things can sneak up on you unawares.”
“It was so unexpected. I just wasn’t prepared.”
“Course you weren’t.”
“I miss working with him, too.”
“But that new job you told me about with that elderly man, what’s his name, Mr. Donner, sounds all right.”
“It’s not the same, though. Still, it gets me out of the house, I suppose, and I do like him.”
Silence. My mother felt—I was only too aware—that I should be back in England, and any discussion about any topic at all would end up leading in that one, cul-de-sac direction. I wasn’t in the mood to explain why I could never go back.
“How are your bed and breakfast plans coming on?” She said this with a clipped voice. She always referred to it as