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Sanem sat alone at the end of the garden, absentmindedly pulling up tufts of grass with her hands as she overlooked the beach below where her husband and son were playing in the sand.
Almost five years had passed since she'd last been here, but every part of the islands remained just the same as they had been in her memory. The same breeze, salty and warm against her skin, the same gentle whoosh of waves against the sand, the same distant cries of seabirds, the occasional stray swooping over the house. It was as if the house had been frozen in time, nothing here had changed. And yet so much had.
Sanem smiled as Azi dug out a shell from the sand, showing it proudly to his father before placing it onto the sand castle wall he was building. A grand arrangement of towers, walkways and moats that he had designed with Can's help. In all honesty, Can had done most of the work, but Azi had directed where to position the buckets for emptying and had carefully selected a range of ornaments to work as windows and doors. For a nearly four-year-old it was a work of art - creativity must have been genetic. Never the less, being a nearly four-year-old, of course, he'd managed to make a mess of himself, getting sand ruffled into his wavy, brown hair. Sanem rolled her eyes half-heartedly.
She watched as Azi climbed onto Can's back before his father gave him a piggy-pack along the beach, stopping and putting the little boy down when they came across the perfect final touch for their castle. Azi ran back over, holding it in his hand, before carefully placing the Albatros feather at the highest point - using it as a sigil flag. An Albatros castle. It seemed appropriate.
Sanem ran a hand over the book in her lap - a gift from Can for their fifth wedding anniversary, the very reason they had flown all the way to the Galapagos. She'd looked through the pages briefly after unwrapping it, but nostalgia and sentimentality had pulled at her heart and made her eyes fog up with tears before she could appreciate it properly. She'd closed it again in fear of drenching the pages. She was, unfortunately, a bit wobbly at the moment.
She steeled herself, opening the book back up, fawning her hands over the pages of colourful photos her husband had taken over the last few years. It held their history. Every beautiful moment since they had married - all captured through Can's eyes. Love seemed to seep out of the very paper itself and Sanem had to steady herself with a deep breath before she delved in further.
The first pages were, of course, filled with their wedding. They'd hired a proper photographer for the event but the shots Can had hastily taken on his phone turned out far more intimate. The images slightly off-kilter and clumsily, yet managing to capture the atmosphere perfectly. Their disjointed family huddled around a large table outdoor on the beach, eating, talking and laughing with wine glasses in their hands as evening stars glittering overhead. Mevkibe looking proud and tearful; Emre and Leyla in quiet, bashful conversation; their fathers talking cheerfully. And Sanem's favourite. A photo of herself with a wide, honest smile and bright eyes that Can had sneakily taken after she had turned to look at him for a moment. She looked so happy, the promise of their future sparkling in her eyes.
