But it’s not about comparison, as my counselor used to say. My pain is my pain.
Paris pads into the room as I fill the kettle and leads me to the back door. I prepare the pot with tea and turn the kettle on, then take her out. It’s a gorgeous night—soft and utterly clear, the stars overhead as bright as strings of patio lighting.
The feeling of Kit’s body in my arms slams back into me. I close my eyes to feel it again. So tall and strong, so incredibly fit that I know she still surfs all the time. She smelled of herself, that undernote that is entirely Kit, grass and ocean and sky. That smell made my heart hurt, physically, as if something were pressing on it very hard.
What have I done?
As if she can read my thoughts, Paris trots over and leans on my legs, letting go of a sigh. “You miss Helen, don’t you, baby?” I murmur quietly, threading an ear through my fingers. “I’m sorry about that. I would make it better if I could, but I think you’ve just got to be sad for a while.”
She tilts her head back and licks my fingers.
Simon comes out and stands behind me, his hands on my shoulders. “Beautiful night.”
“Perfect.”
We stand there, all the unspoken things between us, until he says, as he did the other day, “Do you want to talk about it?”
“About?”
“Whatever is bothering you.”
“I’m just surprised, that’s all. I’m just thinking about old times.”
He steps closer, crosses his arms over my chest. “You know you can tell me anything, right?”
I close my eyes and lean back into him. If only that were true. His body is warm and solid, and I would know his scent in a football field full of men. “Thank you, sweetheart,” I say, unable to bring myself to say there’s nothing to tell.
“Have her to supper tomorrow.”
“Yes, good idea.”
“Sarah took to her in a flash, I thought.”
“She saw her T-shirt. She’s a physician.”
“Is she? Do you think she might have been the one to save that boy on Rangitoto?”
“What are you talking about?”
“A woman, a tourist who was a doctor, dived off the pier at Rangitoto when some boy cracked his head. It was in all the news.”
“Could have been,” I say, finally finding a reason to smile. “She was a lifeguard for years.” A lifesaver, I think, though she couldn’t save any of us.
“Does she surf?”
“She did, back in the day. We were quite competitive.”
“Who was better?”
I grin to myself. “I refuse to answer that question.”
He laughs, low and deep, the sound rumbling through my rib cage. He kisses my head. “I thought it might be that way. She’s a very fit and powerful-looking woman.”
I slide sideways to look up at him, teasing him. “Did you think she was hot?”
“Maybe,” he says, and kisses my neck. “But not as hot as you, my one and only love.”
“Pssht.” I push his hands away, laughing, but he captures me again and kisses me, and then we’re taking it inside, where the kettle has boiled and quit. If Kit comes to dinner tomorrow, this might be the last night I ever have with my beloved Simon. To be sure I don’t forget, I kiss every inch of him, pressing the taste of each into memory—the place where his jaw meets his neck, the crook of his elbow, his navel, his knee.
As we come together, so sweetly, so perfectly, as if our bodies were carved of one piece of wood, I find myself praying.
Oh, please, I think to the universe. Give me one more chance to set things right with everyone. One more.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Kit
By the time I get back to the apartment from Devonport, it’s too late to call my mother. And really, I’m so depleted from all the emotions that have been careening around my body all day that all I want to do is sleep for a while anyway. I toss the keys on the table, drop the bag of new clothes, take my bra off through the sleeves of my T-shirt, and fall face-first on the bed. In seconds I’m asleep, shutting out everything.
Sleep is my superpower. It proved itself over and over and over when I was a child, and when I was so lonely in Salinas, and a hundred times over when I was in med school and after.
And it doesn’t fail me now. I fall deeply into the nothingness of sleep. No dreams, no sense of anything. For no reason I can name, I wake up almost exactly one hour later. It’s six thirty. Not much time to shower, but that’s how it goes. I dash in, wash away the humid, sweaty day, dash back out. My hair is insane from all the humidity, so big it almost makes me laugh when I look in the mirror. Leaving my skin to air-dry, I calm the crazy curls and frizz with product and water until it’s something like normal-person hair.
But that’s just about all I can manage. I am suddenly ravenous and nibble on a brownie as I get dressed in my last pair of clean underwear, one of the wrap skirts, and an aqua T-shirt with a fern in copper on the front. I have no taste for makeup, though I dig through my bag for a lipstick.
Javier is as continental as ever when I open the door to him, and he’s freshly shaved, smelling of some spicy cologne that makes me want to lean into his neck. I’m suddenly awash in nerves. “Sorry. I’m a bit underdressed, but it was so hot this afternoon, I had to stop in a tourist shop and buy something. Come in.”
He’s carrying a bottle of wine he settles on the counter, and then he turns to take my hand. Just my hand, running his calloused fingertips over my skin. “Are you all right?”
“Uh, yeah.” I pull away, start looking for my shoes, but I can’t find them, and I stop in the middle of the room with my hands on my hips. “I bought some jandals. I can’t find them.”
He bends over. “These?”
“Yes, thanks.” I slip them on. “Ready?”
“Wait.” He touches the small of my back with one hand, somehow urging me around to face him. “What is the matter?”
“I’m so hungry, Javier, I’m going to turn into a monster any second. A real live monster with horns and everything.”
“Mm.” He brushes hair away from my face. “Tell me.”
I’m standing so close to the door that I can feel a breeze coming through at floor level, and I’m aching to flee those dark, kind eyes, his tender gesture, his willing ear. I start shaking my head—“I’m fine”—and then, to my horror, tears are streaming out of my eyes, pouring and pouring, entirely against my will. I feel six years old, and yet I’m mute, only looking up at him.
From his pocket, he produces a handkerchief and, without a word, presses it into my hand and leads me over to the sofa. I sit down, and when he sits next to me, I lean into the space he’s made for me against his shoulder and let go. It’s a wordless, seemingly endless wave of emotion, and I’m helpless against it. It rolls out of me, unattached to any one thing but all the things, everything.
Javier simply holds me, one hand smoothing my hair, running down my back, the other anchoring me to the earth with its weight on my knee. Dozens of images pour through my mind—Dylan running on the beach with Cinder when he was sixteen or seventeen, happy when Cinder tackled him and licked his whole face. I ran after him and licked Cinder and licked Dylan, and Cinder licked me, and then we all ran toward the waves . . . My father teaching me how to slice tomatoes perfectly, always a sharp, sharp knife, you see . . . My parents dancing literally cheek to cheek, so in love, so beautiful . . . Josie bringing me a giant mermaid cake she and Dylan had baked for me, alight with eight candles and more candy glitter than we could possibly eat.