Chapter 4
Niebos, Greece
Eleanor finished working with the weights and grabbed a towel to wipe her face. Then she looked for the water. She hadn't worked out this hard in years. But she still had ground to make up. She still had the moves... but no real strength. She might need strength! She sat down on one of the benches to catch her breath. Time was this wouldn't have phased her at all. Well... she could be very single-minded when she needed to be... And right now, she needed to get her strength back. She took another swig of the water... polishing it off.
Her stomach growled. As she had figured... once she had begun to move past her grief... her appetite had returned. Phillip was either cooking or ordering to be cooked for her anything that would help her re-gain the lost weight. With her small frame, she needed all the weight she could carry... and more strength than it looked like she could muster. Thus the weights!
Eleanor's stomach growled again. Time to eat, she thought and tossed the used towel into the hamper and the empty water bottle into the trash. She padded softly in her bare feet through Phillip's villa to the kitchen. There was some pasta left from last night's dinner and she had her sights set on that.
When she passed Phillip's office, she could hear him inside once more attempting to convince the village elders that a state-of-the-art hospital would be a good thing... that it would make life better for them and for all of their children. She didn't think he would get anywhere with them that way. Well, she'd talk to him later.
Once in the kitchen she located the pasta and heated it in the microwave. The sauce was one of Phillip's specialties... she was always amazed at how much he had taken to Italian culture and cuisine over the years. Maybe the old man was secretly a Roman in Greek clothing. She snickered at that... knowing just how proud he was to be Greek... or at least raised a Greek.
The microwave beeped and she removed the pasta and stirred it. Just right! So she wandered back through the villa to the terrace to sit in the warm sunshine and eat her snack. The village leaders were leaving. Phillip nodded to her as he showed them the way out... then he joined her.
"I cannot get anywhere with them... they just don't listen."
"Maybe it is you who is not listening to them." Eleanor smiled and took another bite of the pasta.
"A hospital on the island would be a good thing," Phillip wanted this hospital. He planned it as a memorial for Carlo. He wanted the best of everything and he was exasperated that the villagers simply could not see it his way.
"But do they need a state-of-the-art hospital with all the latest 'bells and whistles'?" Eleanor sat straight up on the chaise, her legs on either side and gazed evenly at Phillip. "Do you need people coming to this island from all over the world to get treatments?"
Phillip considered what she was saying. He leaned back in the chair thoughtfully, "I already have too many people coming to Niebos. I can control the frequency and the size of the archeology digs... but I think I see what you're saying. They don't need the biggest and the best..." his voice trailed away. He sat in silence for a while then looked over at her. Eleanor had finished the pasta and set it down. She was once more lying on the chaise with her eyes closed. Now she was just resting in the warm Greek sunshine.
He continued, "So what do they need?"
Eleanor smiled, "When you know that... then you will reach a compromise."
Phillip nodded. She still had that gift of knowing what he needed. She was becoming her old self once more.
