“I’m coming in after you,” he says, swinging his legs over the kayak’s edge.
“That’s really not necessary,” she says.
It’s too late, though. Henrique throws himself from the kayak, and the splash from his impact crests over Donna, reclogging her ears, nose, and throat with brine.
“Really,” she says as he doggy-paddles over to her. “I’m fine.”
“You’re certain?” His hair hangs in his face.
If she stretches out her legs long enough when she kicks, she can feel her toes scratch against the sea floor. “Yes.”
She wants to sink, to disappear, to bury herself in heaps of wet, rocky sand.
Their abandoned kayak floats back toward the arch, and Kenny instructs them to retrieve it before it drifts away on some strong current.
“Just drag it on over to the beach,” he yells, still standing. “We were going to stop there, anyway.”
Henrique swims out toward the boat. Now used to the cold, Donna dunks her head beneath the surface one final time before paddling toward the shore. After a few meters, she risks planting her feet on the floor. Rocks—some smooth, some not—press against the pads of her feet, and the incline up the beach is so steep that she has to lean forward as she walks, lest she tumble backward back into the surf. On two separate occasions, a wave knocks into the back of her knees and nearly sends her flying face-first into the rocks; both times she manages to steady herself. She thinks: small blessings.
She finds a spot on the beach where the slope begins to flatten out, and she plops down on the rocks. The wet suit clings uncomfortably to her thighs and armpits; she regrets ever letting Kenny convince her to put the damn thing on—she would’ve preferred to just freeze. Pulling the neoprene away from her skin, she lets whatever water was trapped beneath it flood down her ankles and across her toes. Henrique schleps the kayak halfway up the slope and collapses next to her. Sweat mixes with the seawater on his cheeks.
“You know damned well that I never went surfing in Biarritz,” she says.
Kenny picks through the smooth, wave-worn rocks in search of fossils. Next to him, on a blue, oversized towel, a mother prepares sandwiches for her two screaming children.
Henrique says, “Really, I didn’t. I’m sorry if I’ve forgotten and I somehow hurt you.”
She studies him, trying to uncover some twitch that might betray his sincerity—a smile, a sideways glance. There’s nothing, though; his face is clear, blank.
“Of course you hurt me,” she says.
“We were kids.”
“What—kids can’t hurt each other?”
“What do you want, Donna?”
“An apology would be a start.”
He chews on this and flexes his jaw. His face, she thinks, still looks like it’s composed of a series of interlocking triangles—a combination of sharp, definite lines that, even now, she finds infuriatingly attractive.
A gull squawks before diving headlong into the sea, and Henrique says, “Our little Eloise is getting married. How exciting. I was worried it wasn’t going to happen.”
“Because she’s thirty-five?”
“Elle n’est pas jeune, exactement.”
“I think it’s good. It’s smart. Getting married too young can be a disaster.” She adds: “She learned from her mother’s mistakes, I guess.”
Henrique stands up. “This was a bad idea.”
Donna reaches up and takes hold of his wrist; she doesn’t want him to leave and is fearful that he might. “Oh, come on,” she says. “There’s no need to be dramatic.”
“What is it that you want from me? To sit here and listen as you abuse me for something that happened thirty years ago?”
She doesn’t answer, mostly because she knows he’s right, and she’s too ashamed to admit it out loud. Yes, that is what she wants: to chastise and blame Henrique for what’s befallen her over the past three decades. She wants to strap him down and recount, in excruciating detail, the history of her life in St. Charles with Bill; her nights watching House Hunters International with Janice; what it’s like to have your fifteen-year-old Volvo break down on the side of I-88. And as much as she wants to tell him about all that, she also wants to tell him about the slow, always-there ache of being alone; of losing one husband to circumstance and the other to death, and realizing that while she may not have had the best luck when it comes to love, bad luck is better than no luck at all.
And then she wants to start all over again, to retell it all, and make damned certain he understands it.
But again, she doesn’t say any of that. Instead she tugs on his wrist, coaxing him back to the rocks. Because, she figures, the only thing worse than Henrique not feeling guilty would be Henrique not being here at all.
He sits down again, and she tightens her grip.
“I’m sorry,” Donna says, eventually. “That was uncalled for.”
“It’s fine. I understand.”
Kenny picks up two rocks, turns them over in his hand like they’re poker chips, then tosses them into the sea.
She feels her throat closing up, and she swallows hard. “I’m still…” she ventures, “I’m still happy to see you.”
“Ouais. Moi aussi.” He buries his toes beneath a small pile of stones. Being so close to him now, she considers how suddenly fragile he appears. In the glint of the sun, and the wet suits, and her own insecurities, Henrique had seemed timeless—aging, but still somehow locked in that youthful state with which she’d fallen in love. But here, on the beach, there are bags, shadows, that darken his eyes. His lips are thin and chapped, and loose pockets of skin form divots in his neck. She wonders what would happen if she were to reach out and take his hand. She wonders if she’d be any more capable of saving him than she’s been at saving herself.
Then he says: “What is it that you want, Donna?”
She lies down flat and stares up at the cloudless sky, exhausted by the realization of a fantasy thirty years in the making. “Oh, I don’t know, Henrique. I don’t know.”
He lies back as well, and props himself up on his elbow. He’s rolled the top of his wet suit down to his waist, and evaporated water has left swirls of salt across his chest.
“What don’t you know about?” he asks her.
“Some of it.” She throws her arm across her face, shielding her eyes from the sun. “No. All of it.”
She feels him reach out and run his fingers through her hair. He takes a few strands and rolls them between his fingers. Gently, he pushes her arm away from her face and leans over to kiss her.
“How about we take it slowly,” he says. “Slower than when we were kids.”
Gulls continue squawking overhead. The sea laps against the shore, beating limestone blocks into hollow, forgiving arches. Henrique dips down to kiss Donna again.
“Yeah,” she says. Licking her lips as he pulls away, she tastes salt and peppermint Chapstick. “Okay.”
Eloise