‘How did today go?’ Tiff asked, accepting the cool beer Marina handed her. It was Marina’s first day back at college.
Marina joined her on the garden bench. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘Obviously the students were curious and a few of the younger ones asked me questions, but most of the new ones were too terrified to speak or only interested in talking to their mates.’ She smiled. ‘I’ll take a self-obsessed teenager over a nosy colleague any day.’
‘I’m glad you felt you could go back to work …’ Tiff rested her own bottle on the arm of the bench. ‘Have you given any more thought to going back to the Wave Watchers?’ she said.
‘That’s much more difficult.’
‘Why?’
She sighed. ‘Because I feel like a fraud, and that I’ve betrayed people’s trust.’
‘Oh, my love, why would you think that?’ Tiff exclaimed.
‘Because the station – the whole Wave Watchers project – was built on a terrible lie. All that effort, all that energy that I threw into starting the Wave Watchers … People sympathised with me, I played on their sympathy and good nature. On their pity. They gave their time and their money to re-open the station, for my sake, when all along …’ She raised her eyes to the sky in shame. ‘That plaque on the wall dedicating the hut to Nate’s memory. The thought of even seeing it makes me feel sick with guilt.’
‘Listen to me,’ Tiff said sternly. ‘You didn’t know any of that. Nate was dead, in your eyes. Your feelings were genuine and no one will think otherwise. And besides, they didn’t do it only for you and Nate. They did it for their loved ones, for the community, for themselves. They knew it would save lives and it has. For God’s sake, don’t let Nate steal this Wave Watchers from you along with everything else he’s taken.’
The passion in Tiff’s voice moved Marina, but she still felt desolate.
‘Everything you’re saying is right, but I can’t help it. What’s happened has shaken everything I believed in: love, this community, myself. Now I don’t know if I can ever go back.’