SPOILERS!!!
At this point the novel is getting more and more captivating.
First, we learn more about Lillian’s past and miserable life. After the war she kept writing to Ted in America, and to her surprise and delight he replied to her, and they kept corresponding. Lillian told him about her feeling and how bored and disappointed she felt with her life in England. Then came the letter in which he asked her to be his wife, and she accepted straightaway. Then when she arrived in America, she realised that he wasn’t the man she remembered, and she could see in his eyes that he was not eager either. Lillian realised that she had been in love with a fantasy, the ideal dream of a young girl. At that moment she wished she could return home, but she couldn’t. This had been her decision, and they both went through with the wedding, not wanting to disappoint the family. So Lillian married a man she didn’t love, and the only comfort she had in all the years she shared her life with was her son. I feel so sorry for Lillian, lonely in America with a man she never loved, and then she lost her son.
In the parts about Glenn in Morocco, it is 1978 and he realises that he can’t continue living in the house without Bethany. So he decides to leave and try to find her in England, where he thinks she has gone. At the beginning of his trip back to Europe, he gets a lift in a cart from a man called Mustafa, and he offers him a job, but Glenn tells him that he can’t stop. Glenn, though, accepts to have dinner with him and his family. They are good people, and that night Glenn feels very ill, and for months Mustafa and his wife look after him. When he feels stronger, he realises that Mustafa owns a saffron farm, and he starts helping around the farm. Glenn knows that sooner or later he will have to leave as he wants to try to find Bethany. Mustafa and his wife treat him as the son they lost as a child, and Glenn is grateful, but he needs to leave. I wonder if maybe Glenn left finally and even found Bethany. Maybe Bethany was pregnant, and I don’t know if they talked and Bethany told him something that hurt him so much that he returned to Morocco, or maybe he saw that she was pregnant or with a baby, and he jumped to conclusions without speaking to her. Is the man Amy and Nell talk to Glenn? He claimed to be English, and he was very old. Glenn couldn’t be much older than sixty or so, if his mother is 83. So who is Hami?
As for Nell, she returns home with a clear determination. She won’t sell the farm and turn it into a pop-up restaurant. Callum picks her up, and when she tells him about her plans, he is disapproving at first, but then he seems to come around. That night in the hotel room he got for them, they make love for the first time, and Nell feels happy and in love. Callum confesses that he was afraid of losing her as it seemed that Nell blamed him for what happened to her mother. Nell reassures him that she never blamed him, and then Callum makes her promise that if her restaurant doesn’t work in six months, they will give it up.
Back home Callum goes to work, and as Nell goes to their study to find some information about pop-up restaurants on the Internet, she sees the documents about the estate agent that Callum hired to sell Nell’s mother’s house. Nell decides to call the estate agent and tell him herself that the sale is cancelled. When she calls, she is told that John, the estate agent, is out, but the woman she talks to tells her that the sale is almost complete and they are just waiting to hear from the solicitors. To her shock Nell learns that the sale started three weeks ago, much earlier than her trip to Morocco. So she realises that Callum went behind her back to sell the farm, and he got her the trip to Morocco so she could be easily influenced in the distance. Nell tells the woman on the phone that she is the owner and the farm is only in her name, and the sale is off. Then she packs her bags and leaves Callum without even leaving a note. Good for her!!! What a crook Callum is!!! Going behind her back! I can’t blame Nell for feeling used and tricked!!!
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