Free The Years That Followed by Catherine Dunne Page B

descends as soon as she opens the door, its small bell jangling.
    But what she loves most of all is that this is about as far from Santa Juanita as it is possible to get.

calista
    Extremadura, 1989
    ----
    Monday morning.
    Calista glances at her watch once more: it is eleven o’clock on July 17. The previous three nights have been a fever of imagining, the days an increasing agitation of waiting.
    When will her son call? When will she know for sure?
    The transaction was completed on Friday. Calista knows she has not imagined that telephone message. It is over. Everything is now over. So why has Omiros not been in touch?
    She paces the living room floor, her steps measuring its length all over again. Calista keeps her back to the portraits on the chimney breast. The sight of her son’s young, smiling face makes Calista grieve all over again. She knows she has lost him, too, and somehow, his loss feels more final than ever.
    Calista stumbles against the side of the armchair. She looks up and can no longer avoid the child’s bright gaze. She sits, facing his portrait, and the day unfolds before her once more.
    * * *
    They are in the swimming pool together: she, Alexandros, Imogen, and one-year-old Omiros. It is the summer of 1973, and they are in Petros and Maroulla’s house in Platres. The early morning mountain air is pleasantly fresh. The pool is empty at this hour, and Calista loves having the children to herself before the squabbling cousins descend and the morning’s activities begin in earnest.
    It is one of those times when Calista can pretend that her days are almost like other people’s. Almost normal.
    â€œLook,” Alexandros calls, “a real water-baby!”
    Alexandros is holding on to his son, one large hand placed lightly under the baby’s tummy. Omiros is grinning, his small hands slapping the surface of the water, his chubby legs kicking. But it is clear to Calista even then that his movements have purpose. He is propelling himself forward, little by little, until he seems suddenly to remember that he cannot swim and begins to falter. Alexandros scoops him up then, laughing, and Omiros shrieks with delight.
    â€œHe is swimming. Did you see? Look, Imogen, your baby brother is swimming!”
    Imogen and Calista both cheer and clap, and Alexandros tosses Omiros’s small, sturdy body into the air and catches him again easily as he falls, swooping him towards the water and away again like a small, strange human bird.
    â€œLook at me, Papa!” Imogen calls. She swims towards her father, managing almost the full length of the pool before she tires.
    â€œYes, very good, Imogen,” Alexandros says. He places Omiros on his shoulders, and the child grasps his father’s hair. His expression veers from delight to terror as Alexandros jumps, weightless, up and down, up and down, in the shimmering blue water of the pool. His powerful legs look foreshortened, distorted in the waves he makes.
    â€œBe careful, Alexandros,” Calista calls. “Don’t frighten him.”
    But Alexandros ignores her. Calista sees where Imogen waits for her father to turn around, her small face a study in disappointment.
    â€œThat’s wonderful, Imogen,” Calista calls. “You’ve gotten even farther than yesterday. Now try to swim back to me.”
    Crestfallen, Imogen obeys. Calista feels the ripples of her own irritation as the child makes her way back to her. Alexandros is here only at weekends. He and Petros arrive together on Friday evening; they leave at dawn on Monday. Saturdays and Sundays are spent in the large family grouping that always converges on the house in Platres in August. Calista has asked Alexandros, tentatively, to make sure that he pays some attention to Imogen; but he always seems to forget until he is reminded again.
    â€œWell done, sweetheart,” Calista says as Imogen reaches her. She kisses her daughter’s cheek, scoops