As If the Sun Belongs to Her

Maria learns that sometimes strength lies not in solving everything, but letting go.

In a city where everyone seemed to be searching for something—love, freedom, forgetfulness—Maria was mostly trying not to lose herself.

Maria arrived in Spain as if she had never belonged anywhere else. Some people drag their past behind them like an overstuffed suitcase; she carried hers lightly, almost carelessly, except for her accent. That soft Limburg sound stayed with her, no matter how fiercely the Spanish sun burned. You could hear it in the gentle vowels when she laughed, in the speed of her words when she became excited, in the way she could fill a room without ever needing to raise her voice. It gave her a disarming quality, as though beneath the sharp mind and quick decisions there still lived the girl who once cycled through rain between wet brick houses and winters that arrived too early.

She was not the kind of woman who waited for life to hand her anything. Maria went looking for it herself. She did not see work as a necessity so much as a hunting ground. Where others saw a bill, she saw an opportunity. Where others hesitated over risk, she was already wondering what might come from it. In a single afternoon, she could close three deals, buy a handbag she probably did not need, and arrange reservations at a restaurant whose wine list was thicker than some novels. Money moved through her life quickly, but rarely without purpose. She liked beautiful things, good food, good wine, and the occasional extravagance. Perhaps she had simply learned that waiting for life to become generous was not a particularly effective strategy.

Food, especially, was never just food to Maria. She experienced it almost like a love affair. There were no rushed bites over a kitchen counter, only tables crowded with fragrant dishes, glasses catching the light, and conversations that lasted longer than intended. She enjoyed herself without apologising for it. There was something almost defiant in that pleasure, as though every good meal was a small refusal to disappear into the ordinary.

That evening, dinner was at her father's house.

The barbecue had been smoking for nearly an hour, filling the garden with the smell of charcoal, garlic, and meat. Her father stood beside it with a pair of tongs in one hand and a glass in the other, insisting that he knew exactly what he was doing while repeatedly asking Maria whether she thought the sausages were done.

“They're sausages, Dad,” she said, laughing. “Not open-heart surgery.”

Her father looked at her over his glasses.

“Ja, maar gij kunt ze nog altijd verprutsen.”

The Limburg accent was still thick in both their voices, softened by years in Spain but never quite gone. Maria laughed again, the sound coming easily now, without the carefulness she sometimes carried with her elsewhere.

“You know,” she said, “for someone who has lived here this long, you still sound like you're ordering vlaai in Maastricht.”

“And you don't?”

She opened her mouth to answer, then stopped. Her father grinned.

“Thought so.”

A few minutes later, the gate opened and Karin, one of Maria's oldest friends from the Netherlands, appeared with a bottle of wine tucked under her arm.

“I was told there was food.”

“There is always food,” Maria said.

“And wine?”

Maria gave her an offended look. “Do I look like an amateur?”

Karin laughed and pulled out a chair.

For a while, the evening became exactly the kind of evening Maria liked best. Food passed from one person to another, glasses were refilled without anyone asking, her father told a story she had heard at least six times and somehow managed to make it sound new, and Karin interrupted him halfway through with an even worse story that made Maria nearly choke on her wine laughing.

For a while, nobody needed anything from her. Nobody needed her to arrange something, fix something, decide something, or know what came next. She could simply sit there.

Perhaps that was why she almost missed the first vibration of her phone.

It buzzed against the wooden table. Maria glanced at the screen.

Victor.

Something inside her tightened before she could stop it. She opened the message.

Can I see you tonight? I think we should talk.

She stared at it for a moment. Karin noticed.

“Who is it?”

“Victor.”

The name was enough to change the temperature at the table. Her father reached for another piece of meat and said nothing.

Maria let the phone rest beside her glass. “He wants to talk.”

“And?” Karin asked.

“And nothing.”

“You're not going to answer?”

Maria picked up her glass. “I haven't decided.”

Karin smiled. “That usually means you've already decided.”

Maria looked at her. “That's because you know me too well.”

Her phone buzzed again.

This time, she did not touch it. The conversation continued around her, but she found herself glancing at the phone as though it had become an object belonging to someone else.

Karin noticed. “You're not going to read it?”

“I already know who it is.”

“That wasn't what I asked.”

Maria smiled. “No. It wasn't.”

Her father glanced between them. “Probleem?”

Maria looked at him. “Nothing I can't solve.”

Her father nodded slowly. “That is usually when you've got a problem.”

The joke stayed with her longer than she expected. Maybe her father was right.

Maria liked control, perhaps a little too much. Agendas overlapped, phones kept ringing, and thoughts arrived faster than she could organise them. Stress sometimes gathered around her like the heavy air before a summer storm. Even then, she kept going—maybe tired, maybe irritated, perhaps surviving on too little sleep with a half-finished coffee forgotten somewhere on the table, but still moving.

For her father, she was more than a daughter. She was the person who noticed what needed to be done before anyone asked. She listened without making people feel sorry for themselves, solved problems without announcing that she had solved them, and protected the people she loved with a loyalty that seemed almost instinctive. For Maria, family was less about obligation than about showing up, again and again, when it mattered.

Perhaps that was why she sometimes found it harder to do the same for herself.

Karin reached across the table and touched the back of her hand. “You don't have to answer him tonight.”

Maria looked at her. “I know.”

“You don't even have to answer him tomorrow.”

“I know.”

“And you don't have to explain yourself.”

Maria smiled. “That one I don't know how to do.”

Karin laughed softly. “Of course you don't.”

Maria picked up her wine. The phone remained where it was, but she did not reach for it.

The conversation moved on. Her father started another story, Karin interrupted him before he could reach the part Maria knew was exaggerated, and Maria laughed so hard she had to put down her glass.

Somewhere between the laughter and the smoke from the barbecue, Maria glanced at the phone lying beside her glass. She was surprised by how much effort it took not to pick it up.

Then it buzzed again.

This time, she reached for it.

Please, Maria. Just give me one chance to explain.

She read the message twice. Her thumb hovered over the screen.

For a moment, the noise around her seemed to recede. She could answer. She could ask what he wanted to explain. She could meet him tonight and have the conversation over with. She could do what she always did: take the problem apart, understand it, solve it, and move on.

Instead, she locked the screen and placed the phone face down on the table. Karin looked at her but said nothing.

Maria reached for her wine.

The evening lasted longer than anyone had intended. By the time the plates had been cleared and the last of the wine had disappeared from the bottles, the garden had grown quiet. Maria helped her father stack the dishes before saying goodnight to Karin. Only the faint smell of charcoal remained in the warm night air.

She stepped outside alone.

Benidorm shimmered in the distance, all warm lights and restless promises. From there, the coastline looked like paradise. But paradise becomes strangely tiring when you live inside it long enough. Eventually, even the sunshine can begin to feel like something you have to keep performing beneath.

Her phone remained inside, face down on the table. She knew Victor would still be there in the morning.

For once, she could leave something unresolved.

As the night slowly dissolved into the first pale light of morning, Maria walked home beneath the fading streetlights, her footsteps steady against the pavement.

She did not know where she was going yet.

For once, she did not feel the need to know.

The sun would rise soon enough.

And somehow, Maria had always walked as though it belonged to her.