When We Believed in Mermaids(74)

“Why? Why don’t you want to punish him?”

“They won’t punish him,” I said fiercely. “It’ll be all about me, and everyone will know, and—” I could just see the way people would look at me at school, and in my drunken state, I burst into tears. “You promised!”

“Oh, baby.” He hugged me. I thought he might be crying. “I’m so sorry. I should have protected you better.”

I buried my face in his shoulder, feeling relief and peace. I was so very, very tired. “It wasn’t your job.”

“Yeah,” he said. “It was.”

We lay down on the beach, and he held me. Just held me, while we looked at the stars.



After so shockingly running into Kit on the promenade in Devonport, I make it through my family’s dinner by focusing on the stories everyone else has to tell. If I let myself feel even the tiniest edge of it, I will lose control, and that is the one thing I absolutely cannot afford. So I’m perfectly Mom and Mari over dinner.

The effort of pretending gives me an enormous headache, however, and when I get back to the house and settle the children, I head for the kitchen to make a pot of tea. “Do you want some chamomile?” I ask Simon.

“No, thanks,” he says, typing something into the computer on his lap. Toby, the little mop dog, is perched on the arm of the chair, and the TV is on, playing the evening news. For a moment, I look at all the disasters happening around the world, and my drama seems ridiculous and small, all of my own doing.

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.