Of All Places by Lily Baines

Author:Lily Baines [Baines, Lily]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-07-16T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 6

On her second cup of coffee in Eva’s breakfast balcony on Sunday morning, Melanie thought that, for a woman who had only been abroad once, on a cruise to Mexico with her mother, she did pretty well get by all alone in a foreign country. The plan back then had been that Beth would join them, but she had canceled. Melanie had been concerned but ended up enjoying herself despite having only her mother for company.

She missed her mother. Though she hadn’t been a very soft woman, she’d been warm enough, albeit practical, and seemed to always know what was right. Her father had been a different story. She didn’t know him. He had left them when Melanie was two years old, moved across the country, and remarried after some time. She didn’t even know if she had siblings. Her mother had never talked about him much and had never blamed him for anything. She had only said that she should have known better than to marry a man who she knew didn’t fit her in any way. That was probably the only big mistake she had made in her life. She had never remarried or even dated, as far as Melanie knew. The two of them had been enough.

For holidays, they had her mother’s side of the family, and Melanie hadn’t felt alone growing up. When she had dated Ralph, his family had been a nice addition, and her mother, too, had hoped they’d tie the knot. She hadn’t said much when he had broken up with Melanie, except, “Better now than later.”

Church bells chimed once in the morning air, denoting a half hour. Strangely enough, despite her unnecessary and self-inflicted disappointment of yesterday, this place still made her feel like she had when she’d decided to relinquish the tour group and stay. Her lungs filled with the sea air, the sun, the beauty around her. She felt different than the lonely librarian who had escaped Cincinnati a little over a week ago. She hadn’t thought of Greg or Beth ever since she had arrived in Kotor. It had only been four days, yet it felt longer than that. If she could only hold on to this feeling, she might be okay at home, too.

Deep down, she knew all too well how it would be. After two weeks, the aura that this vacation left would fade, and after three weeks, she’d feel like she had never left home and that this had just been a distant dream. The familiar heaviness would settle in her again and things would continue as they always had.

If only I could… a thought formed in her head, and she crushed it, shaking her head. She couldn’t. It was a fact. She couldn’t.

She didn’t have solid plans for the day, except for checking for flights home, but she knew she’d go out sometime, even if only to check if Dimitri and Katia’s bookstore was open, so she wore the new wine-colored dress with the long silver necklace and her beige sneakers.

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