The Winter Project

36. Isabel

The seasons felt as if they were changing at the speed of light. The mountainous backdrop was covered in thick sheets of snow when Isabel had arrived at the lake, and now stood tall and brown with only a few specks of white to show their glorious height and the sign of a season past. She spent Christmas morning aimlessly wandering the streets, followed by an intense argument with the hotel owner who assured her that it was not acceptable for her to live in their car park, not because of the social unacceptability but because he was worried for the strange girl who slept out there every cold winter night in a van with no working heating system. The hotel was practically empty throughout most of the winter, he told her. She could stay there for free as long as she would work in the restaurant in the evenings and clean hotel rooms in the morning.

It took her no time at all to complete these duties every day because the hotel truly was practically empty. The hotel manager was a sweet English man named Steven who had moved to Lake Garda in his early sixties to fulfil his dream of running a hotel and seeing out his retirement in his favourite place on earth.

He fixed up her van out of nothing but his own kindness, replacing the tires, refilling the oil and brake fluid and replacing her windscreen wipers. He sewed up holes in the upholstery and refitted a heating system and air conditioning unit. He painted the walls of the inside of the van a bright teal colour, Isabel's favourite. He called it his Winter Project, and Isabel was always sat beside him, trying to learn what to do in case she ever needed to do it again.

However, her hotel room was her new home. She spent most of her time in the plush double bed, covered in fresh white sheets every morning that she had changed herself. The sliding French doors led onto a balcony that overlooked the pool, and further on the lake. On cloudy days she could barely see the water, but on brighter days she could spend hours looking out at the mountain range. Ever since she had arrived, she had not driven the van once, but promised herself that one day she would take it and drive the entirety of the lake to see what the mountains looked like up close. She also wanted to fit the description of the lake with her grandmother's stories and work out if she was finally following in her footsteps.

Steven taught Isabel how to cook. He taught her how to make a bed perfectly. He taught her basic Italian, and he taught her how to focus on the more simple joys in life and not to get worked up on the big things. It turned out that his wife Julia had died one year before their planned retirement, and it had always been their shared dream to run the hotel. When she had died of breast cancer, he told Isabel that he was going to give up and stay in their marital home, surrounded by her memories as the only way to keep her alive in his mind. Only one day, he had thought about what Julia would have done to him if she knew he was wasting his retirement, so he sold everything they had jointly owned, including the house, and moved to the lake to finally fulfil his late wife's dream. Isabel told him that she still owned her grandmother's house, unable to say goodbye to her just yet. She was amazed that he could let go of all of their material things and memories. He told Isabel that one day, she would be ready to say goodbye in the fullest sense, but that such a goodbye should never be rushed and should not adhere to any specific timeline. Isabel imagined that her grandfather was probably much like Steven, and Steven told Isabel that if he and Julia had ever had a daughter, he would have hoped for her to be as brave and independent as Isabel.

By the time spring came, Isabel was working longer hours at the hotel to cater for the guests and was beginning to enjoy how confident she was becoming at talking to strangers in Italian and how well she could serve expensive wine and suggest which bottle would best compliment the dishes. Steven, however, had another job for her.

He showed her to the small wooden pier that she had sat on when she had first arrived at the lake, and pointed out the several small boats that bobbed aimlessly in the water beside it. He was going to show her how to fix them up, and they would paint the pier together and rent out the boats to tourists for the summer season. Together they painted each slab of the pier three different colours; teal for Isabel, brown for Steven and yellow for Julia. Isabel created a large sign out of plywood and leftover paint, and Steven fixed up the boats with Isabel watching on, relentlessly trying to learn things that she would never need to know back at home.

Her hair had grown almost all the way down her back, always worn in French plaits that grew ever longer to stop it from getting tangled or covered in paint. Her pale skin was now a healthy shade of brown from endless days in the sun on top of the pier. When she looked at herself in the mirror she did not recognise herself; not for her change in appearance but for the fact that she was happier than she had ever been in her life and that fact radiated from her eyes and from her skin. Without Cleo to constantly stand by her side and remind her of her mental illness, Isabel had forgotten entirely that she was ever a housebound agoraphobic with an inability to go outside freely or see the beauty in life.

As with most people in life, once Isabel had achieved something she was starting to look for the other missing things in her life. Now that she had settled into a new routine in a new place, she thought often of Steven and how his eyes lit up when he talked about Julia. She thought about whether she could ever fall in love, or whether her fear of those she loved dying would stop her from ever allowing herself to love somebody. She thought about how she had loved Cleo and how well that had worked out and she decided that she would probably never be able to open herself up to somebody enough. In Isabel's mind, it simply wasn't worth the risk of being heartbroken.