Chapter 22
At just that moment, Jo’s former in-laws emerged into the centre of the maze, accompanied by Mónica’s parents. Jo squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for Ben and Mónica to appear so they could all break into a musical number about ruining weddings.
Adrián was doing that breath thing again that only poorly concealed his agitation and his arm kept nudging hers.
‘Couple?’ Rita cried, dashing Jo’s hopes that nobody had heard the photographer’s faux pas. ‘Are you—? With Mónica’s—? Is it—?’ Rita even sounded hopeful, which grated. Poor, lonely Jo needs the sympathy of her former in-laws wasn’t a narrative she was interested in.
She glanced in horror at Mónica’s parents, who were stiffly expressionless, except Alberto had his jaw screwed shut so tight he’d need a power tool to loosen it for the photos. Despite their frozen faces, disapproval radiated from them.
Much worse, though, was the way Liss’s mouth was hanging open, her expression bewildered as she looked between her mother and Adrián. Jo should have put a lot more effort into pretending there was nothing going on.
‘Nooohhhh, noooo,’ Adrián responded with that familiar, emphatic rumble. ‘Dios, look at you all. What did you think? The photographer doesn’t know who we are.’ He turned to her with an amused smile. ‘We’re the exes,’ he explained with an exaggerated hand gesture.
‘Oh, I’m—’ The poor photographer turned puce and began to apologise in rapid Spanish until the whole group was laughing rather hysterically to clear the embarrassment.
‘Come on, kids,’ Jo called. ‘Let’s find the way out.’
‘After the photographer has taken her photo,’ Jo heard Mónica’s mother Barbara say behind her. ‘We need some of you both, if we don’t have you in the family photos.’
Jo’s hairline tingled with embarrassment, relief, amusement, all amplified because she could feel it in the air around Adrián too, in the way he cleared his throat and moved awkwardly on his feet. She caught his eye and struggled not to laugh – it would definitely have been hysterical if she had.
‘Shall we pose?’ Adrián suggested with a poor attempt at a straight face.
‘With the dinosaur, hmm?’
‘Oh, just take the photo!’ Barbara said with a flap of her hand.
‘I just did – I took a couple of shots,’ the photographer said with a meaningful smile that made Jo wonder what the photos would show.
They rounded up the kids and headed off into the maze again, precipitating sighs of relief in every corner – except perhaps from Liss. Jo didn’t know what to do about her daughter’s concerned look, so she ignored it.
‘You guys are lucky you don’t have to stand up in the stupid photos,’ she said emphatically, glancing warily at Adrián. ‘You could just go to the bar for an ice cream date.’
Was she testing them? Jo didn’t want to lie to her daughter, but there also wasn’t a lot she could tell her. She wasn’t sure a seventeen-year-old could understand that they’d slept together, but it was probably only in reaction to the stressful situation and their shared turmoil at the prospect of the wedding.
The fact remained that being the two ex-spouses of an engaged couple was not a good foundation for a healthy relationship – if they had the appetite for another relationship at all.
‘I’m sure the photos won’t take long,’ Jo murmured rather helplessly.
They wandered through the maze as the sun rose higher over the parched countryside. Jo began to dream of the sea at Pe?íscola that had looked nearly as inviting as their cove near Lloret de Mar. Thoughts of that cove brought her right back to Adrián again and she had to go to some effort to resist asking him if he’d bought any swimming shorts yet.
Oscar seemed to be enjoying himself in the maze – the only one of their grumpy party. She hadn’t had time to talk to Adrián about whatever was going on with their kids, whether they’d grown to tolerate each other or not – and damn it, she was thinking about him again. She’d barely known the man a week ago and now he appeared in each one of her thoughts – and feelings.
They’d just reached another dead end, making Liss sigh dramatically and even Dec’s shoulders drooped, when the sound of voices made them pause.
‘If you’re so concerned, go and get a manicure together or something.’ It was Ben’s voice.
‘That’s your suggestion?’ cried Mónica in response. ‘She’s Jo’s daughter! Jo, who I bet never met a manicure in her entire life!’
It was impossible not to flinch, but the quick squeeze of Adrián’s hand and Liss bristling and coming to her side helped her shake off the unintentionally hurtful comment. She found Dec’s eyes on her, a long, assessing look that made her spine tingle with misgiving. Then his gaze shifted briefly to Adrián, before bouncing away again as he resumed his usual hunched posture, hands shoved in his pockets.
‘This maze was a terrible idea,’ Liss said under her breath. Jo was inclined to agree.
‘This doesn’t have anything to do with Jo!’ Ben said from behind the hedge.
‘Are you sure? It’s like all our plans have been on hold until she got here!’
‘Only because she was lost somewhere in France!’
‘What would you have done if she hadn’t arrived? Called off the wedding?’
‘Of course not!’ Ben snapped. ‘What will you do now you are convinced Liss hates you? Call off the wedding?’
Jo’s stomach dipped to her ankles and her skin felt cold for the first time in days. Oscar opened his mouth to say something, but Adrián tugged him close and pressed a hand gently over his mouth.
‘What do you want me to say? Yes, let’s forget the whole thing? I haven’t seen you smile in days and this is supposed to be the—’ At least Mónica seemed to have the circumspection to cut herself off before saying ‘the best day of our lives’.
‘Perhaps that’s because you keep making me jump through hoops. Are we here to get married or to have a holiday with your entire family?’
‘My family is important to me. I thought you understood that,’ Mónica said in a wounded tone.
Jo felt a nudge to her shoulder and was surprised to find Adrián close enough that his arm pressed into her.
‘Yes, but we don’t need a thousand photos of them! I’ve done all this before: the engagement party; the welcome party; the rehearsal dinner; the first dance. I don’t need to do it again!’
Unable to drop her forehead to Adrián’s shoulder as she wanted to, she pressed a hand over her eyes instead. Ben, you idiot!
‘This is the entire problem with us, Benny!’ Mónica’s tone was rising fast. ‘You’ve done it all before, but I haven’t! It’s not fair. And even if that wasn’t the case, what does it say about how you value our future marriage?’
Jo met Adrián’s gaze urgently. Yes, overhearing all this was like a thousand fresh cuts in an old wound, but it was worse for the children. They had to do something. Adrián dropped his hand from Oscar’s mouth, pressing a finger to his lips in a final, silent warning to his son. He squeezed Jo’s shoulder and then tiptoed away around the corner. Another time, Jo would have laughed at his cartoon-like attempt to walk quietly, his shoulders hunched.
A moment later, from a few rows away, Jo heard him say, ‘Ah, María Dolores!’ and a string of Spanish in an artificially loud voice. Mónica abruptly – mercifully – stopped speaking and Ben remained silent too. Jo wasn’t sure if Mónica’s aunt was actually there, but she beckoned urgently for the kids to follow her and sneaked out of their dead end under the cover of Adrián’s loud conversation.
She didn’t know if she was heading in the right direction for the exit, but the only important thing in that moment was to get away from Ben. A few turns should do it – just another one, two. When she judged them far enough away, she paused to breathe out, long and deep.
That’s when Dec said, ‘Where’s Oscar?’
Finding a small child in a labyrinth sounded like a very difficult task but the reality was even more difficult than Adrián could have imagined. Any other child might have given up after twenty minutes – or after two if the parents were particularly lucky or the child had the attention span of a video-sharing app. But Oscar had disappeared so completely that, instead of a nice family photo, Mónica got a search party with dusty knees.
When a shout finally went up that one of his shoes had been sighted – sticking out from under a hedge as though they were ruby slippers and Oscar was the Wicked Witch – then began the mammoth task of convincing him to come out when he was obviously upset.
Adrián eventually told Mónica to go and wait with the car while he talked their son down. It took nearly forty-five minutes of him ignoring the loud opinions of Mónica’s family and waiting and listening and artificial calm. He wouldn’t have been surprised if everyone had left and he and Oscar had to get a taxi back to the hotel, but Mónica drove them silently back, looking exhausted, but only a fraction as haggard as he felt.
He returned to the hotel covered in dust, drowning in tension and desperate to make everything bearable for his son. The dust he could quickly dispense with – after washing down Oscar first – but the other two curses were less tractable.
It wasn’t difficult to coax Oscar into bed for once. After the excitement – and upheaval – of the day, his son had been like the walking dead during dinner. Adrián was just as tired, but restless enough that he knew he wouldn’t sleep yet. He tipped his head back against the sliding door that was open onto the balcony, soaking in the sound of the sea rushing outside and Oscar’s even breathing.
With an enormous sigh, he stumbled to the minibar and grabbed the tiny beer from inside, not caring if it cost a hundred euros. He stepped out onto the balcony and slid the door shut behind him so the cool air didn’t escape. The temperature outside was still stifling, even though it was nearly ten o’clock.
Perhaps this seaside wedding in a castle had been a stroke of genius after all. The hotel was on the esplanade, meaning he could stare out at the beach as the water changed from turquoise to navy to midnight blue with little white caps. The castle glowed warm orange with atmospheric lighting, where it sat atop a walled promontory at the end of the beach, flanked with whitewashed houses and palm trees. The wisps of cloud were a dull pink as the sun made its final descent behind him, over the land.
He wanted to lean on the railing and look out, but he still couldn’t put any pressure on his shoulder so he leaned against the concrete wall separating his balcony from the next one, gazing out to sea and letting his thoughts drift.
The first thing he focused on was the memory of Oscar’s face, bewildered and resentful, when Adrián had finally coaxed him out from under the plant where he’d wedged himself. The hour of searching in thirty-degree heat, the frustration of looking for a child hiding in a maze, had vanished in a second in the face of the surge of impotence he’d felt.
Mónica had fussed over him, but he’d sensed his ex-wife shared this turmoil. There was no solution to this.
The sound of another sliding door swishing open reached his ears from the other side of the wall, followed by a bottle cap popping off. A pair of hands appeared over the railing, holding a beer – hands he recognised. He tried to keep a lid on it, but his heart leapt.
‘Jo?’
The hands jerked and froze and then her head appeared around the wall. ‘That’s your room?’ she asked under her breath.
‘No, it’s María Dolores’s room. I just climbed up to her balcony,’ he whispered in reply. Realising one possible unintended implication of his joke, he continued, ‘I miscounted. I meant to arrive on that balcony.’
She gave a splutter and said his name with a groan. ‘We shouldn’t be talking to each other.’
‘Are you really afraid of María Rosa grilling us? I was joking.’
She glanced over her shoulder, disappearing again to slide the door shut with a mumbled excuse to Liss and Dec that reminded Adrián that she wasn’t alone.
‘Oscar might still be clueless, but mine suspect something and I don’t know what to say if they do ask.’ Her expression was pained and he didn’t like it. She glanced warily at him. ‘How are you? It looked like Oscar gave you a shock.’
His skin prickled as he churned through the emotions again. ‘He does it sometimes – hides, runs away. At school too.’
‘Just since the divorce?’
‘No,’ he said faintly. ‘We had the social services on our doorstep when he was three because he worked out how to open the front door and wandered across the street. A stranger found him and called the police.’
‘Oh, my God,’ Jo said with a choke.
‘They don’t warn you that parenting can be traumatic – or marriage.’
Her hand appeared on his side of the wall and he grasped it eagerly, rubbing his thumb along her wrist.
‘But do you think the conversation we overheard set him off?’
‘Most definitely,’ Adrián murmured. ‘He can’t put everything into words like Liss does. It just… boils in him.’
‘Dec doesn’t express much either,’ she pointed out, her voice strained. ‘They had time to get used to the living arrangements when Mónica moved in, but there’s so much pressure on this couple of days.’
‘Maybe Oscar had the right idea,’ Adrián quipped. Jo kept a tight grip on his hand, as though she understood he was protecting himself with the joke.
‘Do you think they’re… overcompensating? Ben and Mónica? I mean, we established that we’re far from ready for new relationships and considering how screwed up all of this is, I feel quite vindicated now.’
It was his turn to squeeze her hand and not let go. She held her head high, looking dignified and beautiful as she gazed out to sea with the fading light on her face. But there was sadness in her expression too – so much sadness.
‘You think they’re having a big wedding to hide the fact that their marriage doesn’t have a good foundation?’ he clarified.
She closed her eyes as a blush rose up her chest. ‘Maybe that’s the case. Maybe Ben is repeating history. What happens to our kids if they break up? What kind of message are we sending them?’ She swiped at her face and he hated that there was a wall between them.
‘Jo, you are a family with your kids no matter what. Every time I see the three of you, it makes me look forward to Oscar growing up. That’s the message they’ll get – that they’re worth your love.’
‘God, I hope so,’ she said.
‘It’s the only thing we can do sometimes: hope. For Ben and Mónica too.’
‘You really hope they’ll build a good marriage? Even though she hurt you?’
‘What’s the alternative? You want to be right that much?’
She tugged her hand back and her eyes flashed at him. ‘No, but if they make it work, then the problem really was with me!’
‘It takes two people to make a marriage,’ he pointed out gruffly, too tired to soften his frustration with her.
‘And only one to break it!’ she snapped. ‘As you know.’
He stilled, her words washing over him with a dose of remorse. ‘Maybe I was taking the easy way out to express it that way. Mónica left me but I gave up too. Like your big wedding, you did everything to work things out with Ben, while I… I just said hurtful things back.’
‘So you’re the one overcompensating for misplaced guilt,’ she commented. ‘Are you seriously going to play the guitar for them at the reception? Even though Alberto treats you like shit?’
‘I’ve committed now,’ he pointed out. ‘I brought the guitar all this way.’
She made a little frustrated noise. ‘And you think you weren’t committed to Mónica,’ she grumbled. ‘I suppose it would be a shame if we went to all that trouble for the guitar in vain. Did you tell the airline about the family jewels hidden in the case? I bet they weren’t insured.’
‘Ha! But you should keep quiet about that. Alberto doesn’t know I stole them out of the safe years ago and someone might hear you.’ He delivered the joke half-heartedly and then sighed.
‘I should get back before the kids work out we’re sneaking around.’
‘I wish we were sneaking around,’ he said, the words slipping out before he could stop them.
‘Adrián,’ she began, her voice stilted, ‘we probably shouldn’t have kissed in the maze today. I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong idea.’
‘I didn’t get any ideas. It’s kind of hard to think when you’re kissing me.’
‘I mean, all we do is talk about Ben and Mónica?—’
‘And the kids,’ he pointed out.
‘And the kids,’ she allowed. ‘I don’t regret what happened while we were travelling, but obviously that was different.’
‘We’re back to PTA adversaries?’
‘I’m not on the PTA any more,’ she responded drily.
‘Not even that? Are we little more than strangers?’ He clapped a hand over his chest, hoping this time she wouldn’t work out he was covering his distress with jokes.
‘I was going to say friends, but if you’re?—’
‘Friends,’ he confirmed emphatically before she could finish. ‘I don’t think I could bear anything less.’
She peered around the wall to eye him one last time. ‘Stop being so dramatic.’
As he listened to her footsteps disappear back inside her room, he realised he couldn’t do as she asked. Dramatic as they sounded, his words were unfortunately true.