“Just five more minutes”, I say, snuggling up to Seb. I wish we could stay here in bed all day. Just the two of us. Forget anything else exists.
Spain isn’t what I expected.
Bilbao’s airport felt small, the scheduled flights not at all the international destinations I was used to seeing. I expected quaint, but it felt suffocating.
“Cold, isn’t it?” Seb said, shivering as we arrived.
“Is it always like this?” I said, pulling my overcoat over my shoulders as we waited for our ride outside the airport terminal.
“Welcome to the North. It’s Spain like you’ve never seen it before.”
Maybe he meant it as a joke, but he had an unfamiliar look in his eye. It made me uneasy. I wished I was back on the plane.
A black Mercedes pulled up. A middle-aged man got out and put our luggage in the trunk as if he’d done it a million times before. Seb embraced him, greeting him warmly in Spanish. The man threw a smile my way, opened the backseat door, and closed it behind me as I got in.
Seb held my hand as I watched our surroundings change from industrial structures and grey fixtures to landscapes of green that stretched on and on. The houses nestled in the hills looked strange—too new to be romantic, too old to be modern.
I was also aware that something had changed between Seb and I. In Amsterdam, we’d been a proper couple, exploring the narrow streets together, sheltering from the rain. I felt at ease, like Seb was my best friend.
I thought less about you, too. So I had wrapped my old phone in a scarf and chucked it in my suitcase. I wanted it hidden from my next chapter. I didn’t want you near my new life.
But in that Mercedes, on the way to the house, Seb got a call.
It’s not what he said, but how he said it. It was his mother, calling to check when we’d arrive. But it was then, hearing him speak Spanish, that the unease grew. With me, he was Seb. My love. My travel buddy. But listening to him talk to his mother, he was someone else. He was Sebastian, a man with a whole other life who spoke a different language.
“Why Basque Country?” I said when Seb ended the call.
“My mother’s from there, remember?”
“I know,” I said. “But the winery is in La Rioja. And you told me you studied in Madrid.”
Seb looked out of the window, my hand still in his. “The house belongs to my mother. After my father passed, she wanted to be closer to home. The house in La Rioja felt too big for her. She loves being back in her town again. I think she’s just more comfortable there.”
“Does she have family in Gexta?”
He shook his head. “Not anymore. But my mom keeps to herself. You’ll see.”
I gulped. I’d told my mother I’d make an ally of this woman, my soon-to-be mother-in-law. It was another test. And yet I knew nothing about her. She was the closest thing to family Seb had spoken of.
What will we talk about?
“Will your sister be visiting too?” I said, veering down another unfamiliar path. Seb talked about a lot of things, but not his family. I knew exactly three things about Seb’s sister. Married with two kids. Lives in Barcelona. Works in consulting.
His face hardened momentarily. “No.”
And then his face lit up again. “We’re almost there,” he said. “It’s so light in the mornings. You’ll love writing here.”
But as we drove through the town, I felt the opposite. As in the countryside, the houses here followed the same architecture and style. Wooden roofs with green, blue, and red panels. The town seemed a bit worn, rough around the edges.
I wondered if there was something behind the small, closed-off windows. If the people who lived here knew something I didn’t. Seb pointed out to the water that sparkled in the distance. There was an opening in the sky, and I felt thankful for some air.
“We’re a few kilometres inland. This is actually a river,” he said.
We drove past empty taverns, a few supermarkets and more houses perched on the hills. We finally pulled up next to the ocean, a worn and wooden dock visible in the distance. As I stepped out of the car, the salty air was fresh on my face.
Townhouses lined the street, with big bay windows peeking out at the ocean. Seb put his hand on the small of my back, guiding me forward gently. “A British couple lives there,” he said, pointing up the road. “I’ll introduce you later.”
The house Seb’s mother owned was pale orange with wood finishings. When the front door opened, I held my breath. The woman standing there was tiny, with long, grey hair. She was older than I had imagined. She kissed Seb’s cheeks and spoke in words I couldn’t understand. There was no glance in my direction.
Seb gestured for me to come closer. “This is my mother, Alma.”
I greeted her in my basic Spanish. She smiled and moved forward, taking my hand in hers.
That night, I tried my best to communicate with her. She responded in broken English, but often just shook her head, looking at her son for clarity. Seb served as our translator, retelling our stories. When he laughed, his mother laughed with him.
But only a little.
The days went by slowly, one awkward moment after the next. Seb and I slept in his childhood room. By the looks of it, not much had changed. Everything looked 20 years old. The curtains were faded, the mahogany bed frame reminding me of my grandparents’ bed.
I found the structure of the house odd. The kitchen was separate from the living and dining room. The tiles in the bathroom were showing their age. It felt trapped in time.
But the scenery was beautiful. I paused each time I passed the bay window in the dining room, the ocean calling me to stay a little longer, look a little closer.
In the mornings, I could hear Alma moving through the house, the floorboards creaking as she went. I didn’t know what to call her. ‘Mother’ felt too strange. She stayed in the kitchen as Seb parked his laptop in the dining room, taking calls. We’d visit the winery soon, he’d said, but we would first stay here for a week or two. Alma seemed happy to have her son back in her house.
In between meals and walks to town with Seb, my mind was consumed with writing. He was right. The bay window was the perfect spot to write. I watched YouTube videos on plotting and character development, willing the water beyond the window to give way to a story.
But as the days turned to nights, I watched something else creep across the ocean. The fog would form without you noticing, and then, just when you turned your head, it would spread across the water like a white blanket. As the sun faded, it thickened, closing in on the house. On us.
It felt like a cycle. A coming and going. Each day thicker than the last.
“You’ll get used to it,” Seb said, his arms wrapped around me as I stared out into the fog. The thought of it made me surprisingly nervous.
In the few days we’d been there, Alma and I had established a routine. There wouldn’t be a bond, a deeper understanding. Only polite words. We spent our days drinking wine, listening to Seb pivot from English to Spanish, and enjoying the fresh, salty air.
But something was happening.
Between his calls and talks with Alma, I had less of Seb to myself. She served him unfamiliar pork dishes, which he ate like he was starving, grinning as he did so. Half of everything he said was incomprehensible. Most of what he did felt foreign.
I didn’t know what to do. I still don’t know what to do.
“We need to get up,” Seb whispers to me now, the sunlight peeping through the curtains.
“Just five more minutes”, I say again, squeezing harder against him. I want to stay here, to feel the comfort of only him here. Because the more I get to see his world, the more alone I feel in it.
“I need to get up,” he whispers.
I want to beg him to stay, in the places where he and I make sense, where we’re not so different. But he’s already up. I bite my lip, watch him walk to the shower, and close the door behind him.
A thought springs unbidden to my mind. What if you don’t know him at all?