Sunrise By the Sea by Jenny Colgan
Chapter Sixty-six
It was astonishing how quickly a plan was put together. Everyone knew someone’s brother who could help with putting handles in the bathroom or take on shifts, and before the next day’s evening meal they were almost organised – by which time Marisa was almost dropping with exhaustion and the unfamiliar sense of interacting constantly, all the time, with other people. Although it gave her energy too, in its own way; everywhere she looked, people were chatting and gesticulating, shouting or laughing out loud.
She had missed this, she thought. All the parties skipped, the weddings postponed, the fun put on hold. How much time she had wasted in that little prison she had built, brick by brick, of sadness and fear, all by herself.
This was entirely different; this was a joint effort. It reminded her of the villagers in Mount Polbearne, all pulling together to repair the causeway and look after people’s homes. When one was needed, everyone was there.
And Marisa was all over it: joining in the cooking, helping the cousins with their English homework, debating whether to buy new sheets for Nonna’s bed (they decided against it in the end; she wanted familiarity and the ancient embroidered handed down family sheets, in a massive heavy linen nobody made any more, not new things she wouldn’t recognise that might annoy her, they figured). She was also drawn in to arguing with the senior clinician, who happened to be German, with excellent English, about the benefits of bringing their grandmother home, something he was adamantly set against, insistent that she would die. Lucia through her sobs pointed out that they’d told her she was going to die anyway and he had made a slightly stiff nod and said, ‘Well, this will be quicker’ and Lucia had said, ‘Good!’, and it had more or less deteriorated from there.
Marisa, used to being around grieving relatives, was able to calmly state their case, and her speaking English seemed to impress him, oddly, even if the old argument – we can free up one of your beds – didn’t have anything like the same power here as it would have done in the UK.
Her mother watched, drying her eyes, quietly proud that her unmarried daughter with the mental health issues that she found so hard to brag about was calmly negotiating in two languages in front of everyone, particularly her sister, Ann Angela, and found herself smiling a quiet smile of satisfaction to herself which she hid with her tear-stained handkerchief.
Finally it was arranged. Marisa made a decision. She called Polly and apologised and said that she didn’t know when she’d be back, and Polly said lots of people were complaining that the pizzas weren’t as good and Marisa said she was very sorry about that and Polly said that was okay, as even not quite as good pizza was still very good and popular pizza, so come back when she was ready.
Marisa was too tired – and her Italian was giving out, it had been a long day – when everyone announced they were going out to dinner at, of course, nine at night. She kissed them all fulsomely but announced she was going to have a quiet night. Tomorrow, with Nonna coming home, was going to be a very big day and she wanted to read her book in the bath and turn in early.