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Time alone in her house meant time to paint, to read, to attend to the thousand and one chores of upkeep the old place demanded. On this fair morning, Nerea was in her studio working on a new piece. The room was already warm with the heat of a Spanish spring. There were things that would need attending to once she went downstairs, but here Nerea could be absorbed by her work, by the brushes and paints and canvasses that littered the room.
But this morning, as she stared at her sketches and the pale expanse of fabric waiting to be given form and color with her paints, Nerea’s mind wandered. There was so much going on right now, some of it expected, some of it very much not. And it all, in one way or another, came back to this house where Nerea had been born and where she had raised her own daughters. Before this room had been her studio, it had been her parents’ bedroom. Before that it had been only an attic. Who knew what it might become in the future, when this house was no longer hers.
When time moves forward it forces people — or at least women — to deal with their past. Nerea’s grandmother used to tell her that as she dealt with repairs on this heap of stone. Money they didn’t have and her grandfather’s frequent absences for his job had left that work to Abuelita Josefa’s hands.
Now, there was plenty of money for upkeep and anything else Nerea wanted. But Callum was in London. As much as their relationship had always flourished in the separations their lives demanded, today she felt it too keenly. Here in Spain, in a little town two hours from Porto in Portugal and five from Madrid, Nerea found herself in an unenviable position. She had to decide whether and how to share her family’s good news with the ex-lover they all liked to pretend didn’t live down the road. Nerea wanted her husband, not an awkward phone call with her past.
Leaving her brushes, she went downstairs and out into the garden with a cup of tea and her mobile. She wasn’t going to get any work done until she figured out what to do.
Callum sounded groggy when he picked up.
“Did I call at a bad time?” Nerea asked sweetly.
Callum muttered something unintelligible. “No,” he said after a moment. “I was just getting up anyway.”
“I’m sure you were,” Nerea said indulgently, in Spanish now. She could picture Callum, warm and cozy in their bed in London, gray morning light spilling in from the windows while he pulled a pillow over his face to block it out. The image made her miss him all the more.
“I have news,” she declared, forcing herself to smile out of her melancholy at a bird as it swooped over the back garden. There was dew on her favorite bench, still in the shade of the house, and so she walked along the uneven garden paths with her mobile tucked between her shoulder and her ear so she could use her hands to stir her tea.
“Is Leigh all right? The baby?” Callum sounded anxious and much more awake.
“They’re fine,” Nerea soothed. “But I’ve had a phone call, and now I need to make another, and I want to talk to you first.”
“Mmm, do tell,” Callum said, his voice returning to warm and lazy.
“For one, I’ve had a call from the Tate Modern.”
“Oh?”
“Oh? All I get is oh? I’ve had a call from the Tate Modern and it wasn’t fundraising. It was about my work.”
“Are you serious?”
“No, I’m making this up for no reason.” Nerea should have been annoyed, but she was enjoying sharing her news far too much. “Yes, I’m serious!”
“Nerea, that’s huge.”
“I know,” she said with satisfaction.
“Tell me everything about it,” Callum said. “When did this happen?”
“Yesterday. Late, but with Leigh and everything else....” she trailed off. “I wanted to keep it for myself for a day. Besides, it’s mostly boring planning details I’d rather bombard you with after the shine’s worn off and it’s begun to irritate me.”
“Really?”
“No, not really, but I’d rather celebrate with you when we’re in the same place.” She knew she sounded wistful.
“Topic change?” Callum asked as the pause stretched out.
“Topic change,” she agreed. Nerea knew each of them missed the other too powerfully for words.
“What’s the phone call you need to make?”
“To shift from one good piece of news to another.” Nerea felt hesitant but charge ahead. “Devon is getting married. This winter. At our house.”
“That’s not news,” Callum said, wary and confused.
“Ah, yes. But I had lunch with her yesterday, and we should talk about whether we’re going to invite Antonio.”
“Does Devon want to invite Antonio?”
“Of course she does.”
“Then why do we need to have a conversation?” Callum sounded breezy. That meant he was uncomfortable.
Nerea didn’t try to hide her annoyance. “Because if we’re going to invite Tonio to Devon’s wedding, we can’t just mail him a piece of paper telling him she’s getting married. Also, he owns the only catering company in town so we’re going to have to do business with him at some point. I should see him in person, sit down and have a drink or a meal with him, so that he knows the invitation is heartfelt and he is truly welcome. But before I do that I wanted to talk to you about whether that is going to be a problem.”
“Of course it’s not a problem. Why on earth would that be a problem?” Callum said.
Nerea could have smacked him. “Are you kidding me?” She stopped in her tracks and stared out at the vineyard. The branches of the vines were a soft warm grey in the early sun.
“No. Of course not.”
“After all the drama you caused. After all the fights you had with me — and him! — about being around for the girls. You ask me why that would be a problem.”
“I’m not angry about it now.”
“No, but you were at the time, and a couple decades of my life might have been easier if you’d decided to be this magnanimous back then.”
“Are you angry I grew up?” Callum asked.
“I’m upset you’re failing to acknowledge the long-term implications of your bad behavior and acting as if it’s bizarre I should want to check in with you about this.”
“Are we going to have this fight — ”
“Callum,” Nerea interrupted sharply. “I’m not interested in having old fights again. Which you know very well. I’d appreciate it if you stayed grown up.”
“About you having lunch with your ex-lover who was like a father to our daughters when they were little because I was too busy with my career to be a constructive part of their lives,” Callum said dully.
“Yes. Exactly.”
“When are you seeing him?”
“I’m not sure yet, because, as I said, I wanted to talk to you first.” No one could capitulate more passive-aggressively than her husband, and Nerea knew how to retaliate in kind.
“Let me know how it goes?”
“I surely will.”
Somehow, mostly through the long practice of having to actually work on their marriage, they turned their attention to the smaller, less fraught matters of their separate days. Once they said their goodbyes — and their I-love-you’s — and hung up the call, Nerea sighed. She adored Callum but being married to him was never easy. Perhaps it shouldn’t have, but decades later it still hurt, the way she and Tonio had fallen apart. Which was not entirely on Callum’s shoulders; Tonio had been just as unwilling and incapable of having an adult conversation with Callum as Callum had been with him. But the end result was the same: One of the best relationships of her life had ended, and her relationship with Callum had needed desperate repair. Although long stitched up, the edges of that wound sometimes still itched.
These days when Nerea and Tonio saw each other, in the market or the odd Sunday at church, they nodded cordially to each other before turning their attention to their own families. Tonio had been married for ten years now and had two beautiful girls of his own. His catering company was by all accounts very successful. As far as Nerea knew, his experiment with polyamory had ended with her. It certainly wasn’t a relationship style that worked for everyone. Even in her own family, there was significant variance on the issue.
Of Nerea’s daughters, Leigh was the only one she was certain inclined toward poly. Devon was, to her knowledge, monogamous. She had no idea what Piper’s dating arrangements were like, aside from the fact that Piper seemed to date a lot of people at the same time. But whether that meant Piper was poly or just young and having fun, she didn’t know. Piper’s irritation that she couldn’t scandalize her parents with her strings of boyfriends was a source of amusement to Nerea and Callum both.
Nerea’s lack of concern over Piper’s dating life, however, was no reason not to parent her to the fullest. Especially when she’d been so focused on her other two daughters lately. Nerea had been in close communication with Leigh over the pregnancy announcement. Devon lived in the town down the road, and Nerea saw her often. But she hadn’t talked to Piper in nearly a week. Piper may have been neither pregnant nor engaged, but surely she could use some motherly fretting. Nerea thumbed through her mobile and hit call on Piper’s number with delight.
Piper answered after the fourth ring, her greeting disgruntled and barely comprehensible. Nerea waited patiently until she managed to get out something vaguely recognizable as “What is it?”
“I’ve called you to be overbearing so you don’t feel neglected,” Nerea announced cheerfully.
Piper moaned. “Mum, I don’t feel neglected. I promise.”
“Are you sure? Because Leigh’s pregnant, Devon’s getting married, and I’m going to have a show at the Tate Modern — ”
“And you should tell me more about that. Later. Please, Mum, I don’t feel neglected, I feel hungover.”
Nerea sighed. Her people might drink constantly, but the English, they drank excessively and for sport. Especially at Piper’s age. Nerea was learning to let it go. That was the beauty of having three children. Eventually they stopped alarming you with their garden-variety woes. Not that it wasn’t still annoying. Which she told Piper, in Spanish, because Piper always had trouble switching when she was hungover. Nerea was her mother; it was her job to make Piper’s life harder.
“It’s Dad’s fault,” Piper declared in slow Spanish.
“Were you drinking with your father?” It wouldn’t have been the first time.
“No. He was out with Thom.”
Nerea wasn’t sure how those facts were connected. “Have you seen your father recently?” she asked.
“No. Unlike you, he’s willing to let me suffer in peace.”
“You should see him,” Nerea insisted. If she couldn’t be attentive toward Piper in person, Callum could. Even if he was busy with filming.
“Mum, I’m going to hang up now, okay?”
“But you sound more awake!” Nerea with almost malicious false cheer.
“Mum. I. Have. Company.”
Nerea laughed. On the other end of the line she could hear an inquiring male voice and Piper’s muttered answer before the call clicked off. If her daughter was going to insist on getting off the phone so quickly, she apparently had a good reason.
Nerea hummed to herself as she slipped her mobile into the pocket of her sweater and strolled back inside the kitchen. Piper with company over was nothing new. Piper with company she’d hang up on Nerea for, was. Either Nerea had hit a nerve — unlikely — or Piper was not the only member of the family without something new and exciting happening.
She was glad. Nerea rinsed out her mug in the sink and set it to dry on the draining board. Everyone deserved something beyond the ordinary to keep them occupied.