Page 45 of Deep Blue Lies

FORTY-FOUR

I want to hide. I don’t want to speak to her, or anyone. I’m not even sure I remember how to speak. But I have to try. I used to be human, after all.

“Um...”

“Hey, I wanted to apologise,” a part of my brain hears her say.

She doesn’t catch my mumbled reply. “About before in the restaurant. I was in a bad mood.” She tips her head on one side, inspecting me curiously.

“I used to go out with Darius, you know, the waiter there? We broke up months ago, and he won’t accept it, and he was being a dick…

” She shakes her head. “It’s just Kostas sent me in there to pick up some breakfast and… hey are you OK?”

I think I must be crying. I know I’m crying. But I try to mask it.

“I’m fine,” I say, but clearly I’m not.

“No you’re not. Hey, come here.” She pulls the moped onto its stand and goes to hold me. For a moment we just stand there, her supporting me. Then she steadies me as she pulls back, looking in my face. “What is it?”

I turn my head. I still have my sunglasses on, but the tears are falling down my cheeks, impossible to hide.

“It’s nothing.” I step back out of her hands and wipe my cheek. Coming face to face with something real has broken the spell I’ve been in since I put the diary down. I face her, forcing a smile, amazed how easy it is to pretend everything’s OK. “I’m fine. Just tired.”

“Alright.” Sophia bites her lower lip, still staring at me. “So what are you doing up here?”

It takes me a moment to answer this, I’m not sure what she means, like – is this a place for locals only?

“I was just walking.”

“Why?”

Why? And like a punch to the stomach, the directness of her questions just floors me.

I don’t have an answer. Why am I here? Because my legs took me here.

Because my mother isn’t my mother. Because I’m so thirsty.

Suddenly it registers Sophia must live here.

In the house we’re standing outside of. It has a pretty porch with purple flowers growing up around.

They must need water. They must have water.

“I’m adopted,” I hear myself say, out loud, before I have a chance to stop myself saying it.

“ What? ”

“I’m adopted. I just found out I’m adopted,” I say again, and I stare at her now, horrified at the phrase I’ve just uttered. But after a few moments of looking confused, she actually smiles.

“I’m adopted too.”

“ What? ”

“Yeah. I’ve always known – well, not always, but for as long as I remember.

My mother – not my real mother, obviously – but I’ve always called her mamá , she never hid it from me though.

Her and my father said it didn’t matter, we were still a perfect family…

” She stops talking and bites her lip again.

“Hey, I’m sorry. You’ve just found out, right? That must be a shock. Do you want a drink, some water or something?”

Dumbly I nod my head. I don’t know how she knows, but I don’t care.

I think I might die if I don’t drink something.

I follow her like a puppy through her gate, and into a small garden, where she parks the moped properly and sits me down at a table in the shade.

She pulls open a French door and disappears inside, before coming back with a tall glass of water and a pretty jug with more. I take the glass and put it down empty.

“Wow. You want more?”

I nod. She refills it, and I empty it once more.

“More?” Her voice is edged with fun. She’s enjoying this. She seems able to enjoy anything.

I shake my head now. I feel so foolish, sitting here. Being like this.

“Is this where you live?”

“Yeah.” Sophia glances around, as if noticing for the first time, but then her interest comes back to me. “Yeah, I grew up here.” She hesitates a moment. “Well, here and the supermarket. That’s where my mother works.”

It takes me a moment to understand this, to make the connection. But there’s something about them both. “Maria, the lady from the shop? That’s…?”

Sophia laughs. “Yeah. That’s her.”

“What about your dad? Your adopted dad?”

“He was a programmer, computers. Stuff like that.” There’s a new note to her voice, a brittleness. “He died a couple years ago.”

I don’t say anything at first, but I blink at her.

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“Yeah,” – she bites her lip – “pancreatic cancer, when I was nineteen.” She rolls her shoulders, like this is how life goes, but it still sucks.

“I’m really sorry.”

“It’s OK. I mean yeah, me and Mamá too, obviously. He was English by the way. Came out here to work, met my mother and stayed. That’s how I speak OK English, it’s what we spoke at home. But you don’t need to hear about me. Let’s talk about you. I guess you found something out?”

I don’t actually know if I want to tell her, or if I need to tell her. But I find I’m already speaking before I wonder if it’s a good idea to share .

“I was reading my mum’s diary, from when she was here, twenty-two years ago. I was hoping it might tell me who my dad was, by working back from when I was born, and seeing who she was…sleeping with.”

“Well, that is how it works.” She flashes a grin, which fades as she waits for me to carry on.

“Only there were…lots of men. Different men. I couldn’t tell which of them was the right one.”

Sophia purses her lips at this.

“Well, that’s not gonna be the easiest of reads.”

I shake my head in agreement. “But that’s not it. The diary goes right up to when I was supposed to be born, only she doesn’t seem to be pregnant, and then – on the day I actually was born, there’s nothing, she just complains about stuff. Says she looks good in a bikini.”

Sophia thinks about this. “So it doesn’t say you’re adopted? You just figured it out?”

I nod. But my mind flares, screams in protest, and I have this need now for her to understand.

“Except I still don’t really know for sure, because this one time – when I was younger – she told me this thing on my birthday, that it wasn’t actually my birthday, it was just the day ‘they’d’ chosen to celebrate it on. Like what the hell does that mean?”

Her smile has disappeared. Now she just looks confused.

“Maybe you need something stronger than water?” She takes my empty glass and disappears inside, while I just wait.

A few moments later she comes back with it refilled, heavy with ice.

She sets it down, then crosses the garden to a small tree.

I didn’t notice, but now I see it’s laden with yellow fruits, huge lemons.

Around it are roses, white and red. It’s really pretty.

She twists off a lemon, sits back down and carves two slices with a pocket knife.

She drops one into my glass, the other into hers.

“Gin and tonic,” she says. “Hope that’s OK, it’s all we’ve got.”

I nod, then take a sip. The fizz, the acid, the bite of the gin. It helps. A bit.

“Can you talk to your mother?” Sophia says, moments later. “Ask her what it’s all about?”

I blink at her. Trying to imagine that. I tip my head back, really trying to see if that would work.

What would it mean to ask her, what would she say?

I know she’d be angry. Humiliated that I read her diary.

Maybe justifiable. She’s angry already, she never even replied to my text. I find myself shaking my head.

“We don’t really have that sort of a relationship,” I tell her, then give a crooked smile, as if I know how strange that sounds.

“So this was all in a diary?” Sophia says again, sipping her drink. I sense she’s about to ask where I got it, but she doesn’t. I reach into my shoulder bag and hand it to her. “Here.”

She hesitates, like she isn’t sure if she ought to look at it, but I press it towards her, and sit back while she flicks through.

I nurse the drink while she reads. I just surrender to the place, the fragrance of the roses. The buzz from the gin. I don’t know how much she gets through, but she looks up.

“So, what…” Sophia looks confused still.

“I was born on 20 May. Or I thought I was. The second year that she was working at the resort. Except obviously I wasn’t.”

“You should speak to her,” Sophia tells me again. “You have to speak to her. I mean, even if she isn’t your mother, she’s still your mother , right? She brought you up? And whatever happened, it doesn’t change that. The important thing is you have someone who loves you.”

I blink at her again. The words don’t connect.

“The important thing is you have someone who’s honest with you,” Sophia goes on, and this time I burst out laughing. A mirthless laugh.

“OK.” Sophia presses her fingers to her temples. “Wow, this is super heavy. I mean, could there be other explanations? Sometimes women don’t know they’re pregnant, not until super late. Could that explain it?”

“I don’t see how. I never heard of someone not knowing they were pregnant until four weeks after the baby was born. ”

Sophia grins again at this. “No. Fair point. I guess not. Well what about this date thing? What do you think she meant by that?”

“I don’t know.” I’ve thought about it for years, and I have no idea.

We both fall silent.

“So what are you going to do?” Sophia asks next.