Sunrise By the Sea by Jenny Colgan

Chapter Thirty-one

It wasn’t like the dam inside Marisa had broken. It didn’t change immediately. It didn’t even change noticeably, but it was as if the storm had weakened the structures; had washed away some of the roots of the anxiety and fear that had got inside her so deeply – just as, even though she didn’t know it then, that a lot of water had buried itself deep inside the structures of the island, with results that would be worse than she could possibly have imagined.

But she managed. To walk a little every day.

Alexei had stopped talking to her completely. The night music stopped too. But she still heard that big bear growl as he cajoled his students and played along with them and then at night she would have to cope with her nonna saying what had happened to the boy who lived next door who she used to feed, what was his family like, why couldn’t he play them music any more, she loved music, and Marisa would hush her and turn on the television.

But she was happy to be able to tell Anita she was moving forwards. She hadn’t left her own road, to be sure, and she only went when she knew nobody would see her, i.e. when Alexei had a lesson. But it was definitely something. And she even got to enjoy the seasons changing; spring roaring in with extraordinary speed, flowers appearing between cracks in the rocks and an eruption of green which raised the heart beyond all sense. She would see a solitary dog walker from time to time, and she never ranged further than within sight of her front door – but it was something. It was out, as long as there were no people and no situations she might get herself into that would bring in that dreaded panic response.

The open air didn’t make her panic.

‘Slowly, slowly,’ said Anita, delighted. ‘Just keep breathing. Just keep moving on.’

‘But what about my job and my life and my friends and the world and—’

‘You can’t do anything about that until you get well,’ said Anita. ‘Listen to me. And your grandmother.’

‘All she does is shout at me for not slicing courgettes thinly enough,’ grumbled Marisa, who had indeed been on the end of a rather cranky Skype call the evening before as they had both tried to grill lemon courgettes with blackened garlic in olive oil and Nonna’s had been light and crisp and delicious-looking and Marisa’s had been soggy and fibrous.

‘Good,’ said Anita. ‘Do you know what you’re not thinking about when you’re slicing courgettes?’

‘Everything else?’

‘Correct. You’re not overthinking everything else.’