Ruth didn't hesitate when she heard that Christopher had died in the car accident, and immediately decided that Polly and the children must be brought in for a while.She and Gareth now have a place too, and Polly has been her best friend since elementary school.There was no doubt about it: they must come and stay for a while, and Ruth would take care of them. The call came on the last day of February.Anna and Flossie—both very young—were sleeping, and Ruth and Gareth had just sat down at the table to light candles and uncork wine.Renovation of Trowbridge, the capital of Wiltshire, a county in southern England.This house in the mountains took them two and a half years, during which time they dreamed of the day when they could sit down at a dinner table, light a candle and open a bottle of wine.Now, just a month after they moved in, that dream has become a reality.

The ringing of the telephone reverberated across the flagstone floor and into the house, breaking the silence of the countryside that still made them a little uneasy.Gareth grew up in upstate New York where the phones rang loudly.He's always wanted an old-fashioned phone now that rings in your ears no matter where you are.He once said he felt the ringtone gave off a tacit feeling that the call had been made on purpose, not by accident.Ruth didn't understand why he'd come to that conclusion, but it was practical that the phone was ringing loudly: they were far from town and had no cell phone reception.

Ruth went to answer the phone with her glass in hand. "Christos is dead," were Polly's first words. Ruth sat slumped on the window sill, the coolness of the stone invading her thighs. "What?" Of course she couldn't believe it. "He died in a car accident. He was drunk." "What's going on?" Gareth moved the chair over to sit next to Ruth, holding her hand.When she gradually understood what was going on, she was almost suffocated. Ruth thought of Christos, the man nicknamed "Big Bear."Of all the people she had ever known, apart from Gareth and the girls, Kristos' death was the most unacceptable to her.He is full of energy.When Ruth was pregnant with Anna, she had a craving for scallops once, and he made her a dozen. "You have to follow your body, which knows you better than you do," he says in soundly Greek logic.She and Gareth had hung his paintings all over the house.Their interiors are all in cool colours, and his colourful, vibrant, sensual and nourishing work instantly brightens up the room, complementing Gareth's more rational, restrained and well-proportioned work.They even had one of Christos's most erotic paintings of Polly hanging in their dressing room.

"When did you die?" Ruth asked.She needed details to bring herself to accept this fact. "Two weeks ago." Ruth thought she could hear the water lapping against the rocks on the other end of the phone.She pictured Polly sitting on the island of Karpathos, northeast of Crete, Greece.On the terrace of the home that stretches out to the sea, there is likely to be a mug of Metaxa brandy in hand.But it was February, and she was probably out of doors, too.Is it cold in Greece in February?Ruth didn't know.She's only been there in the summer, and it's been two and a half years now.She realized then that she hadn't spoken to Polly in six months.

However, no matter how long they've been apart, they always seem to be able to continue their friendship.Ruth and Polly were born together.They grew up together and lived together from their teens into their twenties.Both of them married artists. What surprised each other was that the girl who had an independent personality back then has now become a housewife who revolves around her husband and children. "He's been driving around here all the time," Polly was going on, "thinking he knew everything because he was born here. But he doesn't. It's all nonsense."

"You're so poor." Ruth didn't know what else to say. silence.The only sound on the phone is the sound of the waves: rush up, retreat; rush up, retreat. Ruth covered the microphone with her hand and broke the news to Gareth.Gareth gasped, closed his eyes, covered his face with his palms decadently, and scratched his forehead with his fingertips.Before Polly and Christopher met, he and Christopher were friends.In fact, it was through Christos that Ruth and Gareth met. Ruth then spoke to Polly again. "How are you?" For the sake of her friend, she tried her best to control her shock and uneasiness.She had no right to grieve for Christos the way Polly did.

"He has been buried, and those aunts, aunts, aunts, aunts, cousins, cousins, cousins, cousins, and mothers have blessed us a thousand times and wished us a good life. We are waiting There will be a memorial service, and then I will go away." "What about your son? How are they doing now?" Ruth couldn't bear to ask this.Nico and Yanis are the sons of Polly and Christos.That summer, before they started renovating the house, Ruth took Anna to their house and stayed with them for half a month, diving and basking in the sun together.Ruth remembered seven-year-old Nico emerging from the sea in front of her in a superb sea urchin shell, smiling as brightly as the stretch of sand in the bay behind him.Christos' voice calling for his son came from the sparkling sea.Ruth suddenly shivered at this moment, thinking that she should have visited their house more often.Now there is no going back to the past.

"The only thing I want to do now is to pet him," said Polly. "The idea surprises me. I didn't feel that way when I could. Now I just want to pet him. It's as if a fire took everything It's all burnt out." "What about the boys?" Ruth asked again. "They're too young to know what's going on. They'll realize it soon, but right now they don't know the long-term impact of this on them. Fuck it." The call came The sound of wine glasses breaking on stones. "I'll come over tomorrow," Ruth suggested, catching a warning look from Gareth's tear-filled eyes.She knew very well that the idea of ​​her throwing everything away and running to the easternmost point of Europe with a baby child was ludicrous.Gareth was going back to work, and she had to take care of the rest.

"No." Gareth murmured.Although the painting hung in the dressing room—he put it up, partly because of Ruth, and partly because it was Christos’ best work—he never liked it. Pass Polly.Gareth had said that Polly gave him goosebumps, and he'd never said such a heavy word before. "No, you don't move. The boys and I come. Let's get out of here," said Polly. "Uh, well, you must come and stay." Ruth said, looking straight at Gareth, "stay as long as you want." Gareth walked over, poured himself another glass of wine, and turned his back on Ruth.But what can he say?thought Ruth.He had no choice but to accept this fact.