The Longest Holiday

by Paige Toon

  ‘It was alright,’ I reply, holding my hand out for his beer. He hands it over and I take a swig.

  ‘You want me to get you something else?’ he offers.

  ‘No, I like sharing with you.’ I hand it back and rest my head against his chest, feeling happiness wash over me. I try to stifle a yawn, then give up and let it do its thing. I’m so tired. I could really do with an early night, yet here I am.

  ‘So we’re thinking about going back to Miami . . .’

  My ears prick up as I hear Carmen say this.

  ‘Really?’ Jorge asks with surprise. ‘What will you do?’

  ‘Well, Eric has been offered a job on a yacht. You know that hotshot club owner who’s been down here since April?’

  We all say yeah, because Javier told us about him when he helped out after his return from travelling. He sounded like a bit of a bastard, but Eric has faithfully returned to work for him every day since.

  ‘It’s good money,’ she adds.

  ‘Is that what you want, Eric?’ Jorge asks him.

  Eric shrugs. ‘Yeah, well, it’s good money,’ he repeats.

  ‘But is it what you want?’ Jorge asks again.

  ‘Sure.’ He shrugs.

  ‘Where will you live?’ Leo asks Carmen directly.

  ‘Our younger sister moved back to Miami recently. Eric and I can stay with her and her family until we get ourselves sorted.’ She looks around. ‘There’s not really much here for us, anymore.’ She smiles at Javier. ‘Javier is moving on and moving out.’

  He told us a week ago that he’s going to get a job further up the keys as soon as he’s qualified. A mate of his works at a dive centre in Key Largo, and it sounds like a young, fun place to work. They have a lot of new people in from Miami every weekend. It’s certainly not as secluded as Key West.

  ‘What will you do about this house?’ I ask.

  Carmen nods at Leo. ‘It’s Leonardo’s house. It’s about time we gave it back.’

  He freezes beside me and I shoot him a quick look. I never expected Carmen would say anything so reasonable, and neither, it seems, did he.

  ‘Would you stay here?’ I ask him hopefully, seeing my dreams laid out before me.

  He frowns. ‘What would I do?’

  ‘You could be a dive instructor.’

  His eyes flash past me to Jorge and I turn around to see Jorge smirking. I slap him on his arm. ‘He could be! What are you looking like that for?’

  I glance back at Leo to see him pursing his lips.

  ‘You could be a dive instructor,’ I say again.

  ‘If he could get out of bed in time,’ Jorge chips in.

  ‘Of course he can,’ I snap, kicking his foot with mine.

  ‘And what will you do?’ Jorge asks me with a raised eyebrow.

  I smirk. ‘I’ll run the guest house.’

  Jorge almost spits out his drink. ‘What?’

  I start to giggle. ‘This place.’ I glance up at the old house. ‘This could be a guest house.’

  Jorge looks at me as though I’m out of my mind, but his lips are turned up at the corners. He clearly thinks I’m joking.

  Carmen laughs lazily. ‘You sound like you’ve got it all worked out.’ I raise my eyebrows at her, but her smile is warm and it appears she’s not actually being a bitch for once. ‘And for a green card you’re going to . . .’ Her sentence trails off, but she gives Leo a significant look.

  ‘I’ll marry you,’ Jorge chips in with an enormous grin, deflecting the crapness of her question. ‘For a small fee,’ he adds. ‘Anything to help out a friend.’

  ‘You will not,’ Leo warns from beside me.

  ‘Thanks, but I’m not divorced, yet,’ I say wryly, pleased that he spoke up.

  ‘Well, when that all comes through . . .’ He takes a swig of his beer and gives me a jokey look.

  ‘I’ll keep you in mind.’

  Carmen’s raised eyebrow at Leo doesn’t go unnoticed.

  ‘Is it really such a crazy idea to set this up as a guest house?’ I ask Leo later when we’re getting ready for bed.

  ‘Pretty crazy, yes,’ he says, climbing under the covers and lying flat out on his back.

  I join him in bed and fold my arms across his chest, resting my chin on my hands and staring up at him. He touches his fingers to my back.

  ‘Why is it so crazy?’

  He brushes me off. ‘There’s too much to do.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘You can’t open a guest house without refurbishing this entire place. We’d need new bathrooms, en-suites . . . everything.’

  ‘You wouldn’t need en-suites in all the rooms,’ I tell him. You could turn Javier’s room into another bathroom. There are plenty of guest houses in Key West that don’t have en-suites.’

  ‘And you know this how?’ He glances down at me.

  ‘I’ve researched it,’ I tell him, looking away uncomfortably. ‘Is that so out of order of me?’

  ‘It’s a bit . . . strange,’ he says.

  ‘Oh, well, I’m so sorry,’ I say sarcastically in an attempt to cover up my embarrassment. I sit up in bed, facing away from him.

  ‘This is me,’ he says sharply. ‘I’m not ambitious. I have no desire to be. I’m not like . . . him.’ Who? I look over my shoulder at him. Matthew? ‘And I’m not going to change, not for you, not for Ashlee, not for anyone.’

  My eyes widen and I can tell he regrets his outburst. I turn around to face him properly.

  ‘Is that why you and Ashlee split up?’ I ask curiously. ‘Because she wanted you to be more ambitious?’

  ‘That was part of it,’ he admits.

  ‘I thought she had a problem with alcohol.’

  ‘She did,’ he replies. ‘Jeez, the way she’d lay into me when she’d had a few.’ He rubs at his forehead in frustration as he recalls some memory. ‘But she wanted more and I couldn’t give it to her.’

  I frown. ‘Are you talking about marriage?’

  Irately he pulls back the covers and gets to his feet. ‘She would have wanted that eventually,’ he mutters as he goes to open the window and stands there with his hands on the sill, wearing nothing more than his boxer shorts.

  My brow furrows as I watch him, but before I can ask what his problem is with the ‘M’ word, he tells me.

  ‘I don’t believe in marriage,’ he says firmly, turning around to face me. ‘It’s a complete and utter farce. Look at my father. At my mother. Look at you.’ He gestures at me.

  I bite my lip and his face softens momentarily.

  ‘I’m never getting married,’ he promises me quietly.

  I look down at my hands, interlinked on my lap. My throat closes up, but the question comes out, anyway: ‘Do you believe in love, Leo?’

  When he doesn’t answer, I lift my eyes to meet his. His expression is troubled as he walks back over to the bed. And this may not be the right time, or the right place, but I can’t keep the words from escaping: ‘Because I love you.’

  His face falls. He drops to his knees in front of me on the mattress.

  ‘Don’t love me,’ he begs, shaking his head and taking my hands.

  ‘It’s too late,’ I tell him sadly, as my eyes fill up with tears.

  We don’t make love that night. He heads off to work early the next morning, leaving me with a feeling of foreboding.

  In a daze I get ready to go and see my mum. But my mood doesn’t improve when she tells me that she and Dad attended the charity ball last weekend in Will’s memory.

  ‘Did you?’ I ask with surprise. ‘How? Why?’ Their tickets have been the last thing on my mind this year, but I’ve organised them in the past.

  ‘Charles and Ellen invited us.’ They’re Will’s parents, whom I’ve only ever addressed as Mr and Mrs Trust. My parents have known them for years, although they’ve never strictly been friends.

  ‘Did they?’

  ‘Yes. I have to tell you, they were disappointed not to see you there.’

  I’m
filled with shame. I hate disappointing his parents, even though I owe them nothing. I haven’t seen them since I married Matthew.

  ‘They asked about Matthew,’ she informs me.

  ‘What did you tell them?’ I ask hesitantly. The thought of them knowing what he did . . . They’d hate me even more for moving on after the death of their beloved son.

  ‘I told them he was well,’ she replies, taking a sip of the coffee she’s just made from the machine in her room. We’re sitting on her balcony.

  ‘Thank you,’ I murmur.

  ‘But really, Laura, you can’t keep away from your responsibilities for much longer.’

  ‘Mother, I brought those responsibilities on myself and, if I remember correctly, you weren’t happy about it when I did.’

  She puts her mug down on the outdoor table, a little too forcefully. ‘No, I didn’t think you should set up a charity in Will’s name. I wanted to protect you. I thought the constant memories of him would wear you down. But then you met Matthew, moved on . . . You’re doing well, darl—’

  ‘Not that well,’ I interrupt with sarcasm, and then I snap. ‘What is wrong with me? Will cheated on me—’

  ‘You don’t know that.’

  ‘I’m pretty sure he did. Then Matthew . . . I mean, what is wrong with me?’

  ‘Nothing is wrong with you! You’re perfect, just as you are.’

  ‘I’m not perfect,’ I mutter, relieved that there’s no one in earshot.

  She sighs. ‘Perhaps, Laura, perhaps you’re too perfect,’ she says gently.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You’re so . . . Well, so good, and kind and ambitious and . . . Some men are intimated by that.’

  ‘No, they’re not,’ I reply huffily. Are they?

  Shit, am I scaring Leo off?

  She gives me a look. ‘It’s something to think about, in any case,’ she says.

  And think about it I do.

  ‘Hey,’ I call out to Leo as he passes by at the bottom of the stairs later. The others are already in the dining room. I can hear the clatter of their cutlery. He hangs back to wait for me as I jog down the stairs. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say, briefly touching my hand to his arm.

  He regards me with uncertainty.

  ‘I shouldn’t have pushed you. I don’t want you to change,’ I tell him calmly. ‘I like you just the way you are.’

  I don’t say ‘love’. I’ve done enough freaking him out for the moment.

  He nods and glances down the corridor towards the dining room.

  I force a smile. ‘Do you want to come out for dinner with Mum and me?’

  ‘Um . . .’ He screws up his nose and shakes his head.

  ‘Okay.’ I try not to appear hurt by his change of heart. ‘Maybe another night, then.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘See you later.’

  ‘Yep.’ He sets off down the corridor.

  I can’t concentrate that evening. Has Leo got cold feet? If he weren’t in the equation, what would I do? My mother, canny as she is, seems to read my mind.

  ‘Things not all rosy in Key West?’ she asks shrewdly.

  ‘They’ve been better,’ I admit.

  ‘Maybe the reality of your situation is setting in,’ she says.

  ‘Mum, you know nothing about it,’ I say. I don’t want her to have an opinion. She hasn’t even met Leo.

  ‘Laura,’ she sighs. ‘Enough is enough.’

  ‘What?’ Here comes my bratty teenage self . . .

  ‘I’m your mother so I’m just going to say it.’ Here we go . . . ‘You need to cut this out, you must stop all contact with Leo. You’re ruining all of your chances with Matthew.’

  ‘Huh!’ I’m outraged!

  ‘You’re being a very silly girl,’ she adds for good measure. ‘Your window of forgiveness will not stay open forever.’

  ‘My window of forgiveness?’ I ask with disbelief.

  ‘Matthew’s window of forgiveness,’ she corrects herself. ‘Matthew will forgive you now. For what you’ve done.’

  ‘What I’ve done?’

  ‘Yes, darling, what you’ve done. Not many men would allow their wives to sleep with another man and then welcome them home.’

  ‘I . . . I don’t expect him to . . . to forgive me,’ I stutter. ‘It’s over between us.’

  ‘No, it’s not, Laura,’ she says gently, her voice softening.

  ‘Yes, Mum, it is.’

  ‘Darling, he will forgive you. You will forgive him. You love Matthew. Don’t you remember that? Don’t you remember standing up there at the altar with him? Because I do. I remember you glancing over your shoulder at me, and the look in your eyes . . . It made me cry, too. I was so happy to see you happy, my darling. I thought I’d never see you smile again after Will died.’

  ‘Mum—’ I start.

  ‘Yes, I know you said he’d called things off with you before he died, but that didn’t make it hurt any less, did it?’

  ‘No,’ I admit.

  ‘Matthew has made you so happy. He will continue to make you happy. I know you can forgive him.’

  ‘How?’ I ask fervently. ‘How can I forgive him? The baby will remind me of his infidelity for the rest of my life.’

  ‘You will grow to love little Evan,’ she says calmly, and it takes me aback to hear her use his name, like she knows him. ‘It’s not his fault,’ she continues. ‘He’s the innocent party in all of this, but he’s lucky to have you in his life. We all are. We don’t want to lose you.’

  I must resemble a goldfish. ‘Have you seen him?’ My voice sounds like it’s coming out of someone else’s mouth, sort of detached and far away.

  ‘Don’t be cross.’

  ‘You’ve seen him?’ I whisper, aghast. How could my own mother betray me like this?

  ‘It’s not his fault,’ she says again. ‘He’s just an innocent little baby. We are all responsible for him.’

  ‘No. No.’ I shake my head and push my chair out from the table. ‘No. You’re not responsible for him. You’re my mother, not his grandmother. Oh my God, I can’t believe you’ve done this to me.’

  The blood has drained from my face and I stand up, wobbling slightly.

  ‘Laura, sit down,’ she demands fiercely, trying to snap me out of it.

  ‘No, no. I’m going.’

  I turn and hurry out of the restaurant, feeling bad to be leaving her with the bill, but she’ll be able to find her own way back to the hotel. We only went down the road.

  The others are eating dinner, but I can’t face any of them, so I go to my room and shut the door, sitting down on the end of the bed. My mother has been visiting Matthew’s baby. How could she? How could she? I haven’t even seen him. How could she invite this tiny impostor into our lives? How could she possibly think that this is acceptable?

  There’s a knock at my door and Leo enters straight away.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ he demands to know.

  I shake my head, too afraid to talk in case I cry.

  ‘Something your mother said?’ he presses, sitting on the bed next to me.

  I nod.

  ‘Tell me.’

  I take a deep, shaky breath, and then tell him how she’s been visiting the baby, managing, but only just, to keep the tears at bay. He strokes my wrist with his thumb as I speak. When I’ve finished I take his hand, and he holds it tightly.

  ‘I never knew my grandparents,’ he says quietly, staring at the picture of his mother on the dressing table.

  An odd awareness begins to dawn on me, something shifty and untouchable. I can’t quite get a grip on it.

  ‘My mother’s parents died when I was young, and my father’s parents, well, they didn’t know Alejandro and I existed. Or, if they did, they had to pretend that they didn’t.’ He smiles a small smile and meets my eyes.

  Then, suddenly, I see him as Evan. A boy without a father; at least, a boy without a father who would acknowledge his existence to the rest of the world. Matthew isn’t l
ike Leo’s dad. He’s doing the right thing, I know that. It may not be the right thing for me, but it’s the right thing for that little boy, who, as my mother said, is the innocent party in all of this.

  Somehow, I’ve been caught in the middle. But, really, what do I matter when there’s a child at stake?

  I squeeze my eyes shut and then, to my dismay, I start to cry. Leo takes me in his arms, and even if I’m losing him, even if I’m scaring him off, I feel grateful to have him in my life at this moment.

  A loud pounding at my door startles us both. ‘Come in,’ I call.

  Carmen pushes the door open. ‘You have a visitor,’ she says with concern as she notices the state of me. Standing behind her, in the corridor, is my mother.

  ‘Mum,’ I say, breaking away from Leo to stand up. I brush away my tears and he looks awkward as he slowly gets to his feet.

  ‘I’ll leave you alone,’ he says, following Carmen as she backs out of the room.

  ‘No, don’t go yet,’ I say. He hesitates. ‘Mum, this is Leo.’

  ‘Hello,’ she says disapprovingly, not holding out her hand for him to shake.

  He nods at her, his features hardening. ‘I’ll see you later,’ he says to me with meaning, shutting the door behind him.

  I didn’t think it was possible to feel any more miserable.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Mum says, and I try to focus on what she’s saying. ‘I didn’t realise that it would hurt you so much.’

  ‘Well, it did,’ I say, fighting back a fresh onslaught of tears.

  ‘If I had known . . .’

  Her voice trails off, and I don’t ask her to finish her sentence, because I’m not sure I want to hear her lie, or try to convince herself that she wouldn’t have wanted to get to know her almost-grandson.

  ‘Have Matthew’s parents seen much of him?’ I ask. She looks away. ‘I’ll take that as a yes.’ She fidgets with her wedding ring. ‘What about his brothers and sister?’ Her eyes flicker towards mine. ‘Another yes,’ I say dully. ‘You know, you could have been nicer to Leo,’ I add drily.

  ‘I was perfectly fine with him,’ she bats back defensively.

  ‘No, you weren’t.’ She shifts uneasily and I probably should leave it at that, but I can’t. ‘I’m in love with him, you know.’

  ‘You’re not,’ she says, brushing me off.