Page 132 of Fated

His smile peeks out at me from the humming light of the computer screen. He’s under a sun-filled sky, water dripping down his shoulders, his hair wet, brown eyes alight. He’s in swim trunks, his chest bare and streaked with tattoos and hard lines of muscle. His shoulders are wide and solid and he’s standing on a large white catamaran, his legs spread wide, a grin on his face as if he just conquered the sea.

And he did.

The caption of the photo reads “Aaron McCormick, age 18, World Record Holder, after completing the South Eleuthera to Nassau, Bahamas route for the second time.”

I stare at the shining light in his eyes. He’s young in the photograph—as young as he was in his wedding photo. And he has that same carefree, easy, life-is-fine-life-is-wonderful expression. This is before the Gulf Stream swim. Before Scott and Jay died. Before Becca. The sea shines behind him, diamonds glittering on a great blue expanse.

The wind tosses the boat high, the white sail snaps behind him, and he looks as if he’s about to take a step forward. A gust of wind tousles his black hair. His cheeks are pink from the wind and the exhilaration of completing a forty-hour swim, and I expect him to lift his hand out to me and say, “Fi.”

My chest cracks and my heart tumbles about as if it’s rocking on the waves in the photograph, tossed about by the sea.

It’s him. He’s alive.

All this time he’s been here, waiting for me on the island.

I read the first article pulled up on the screen.

I scan the words lightning-quick, consuming every spare piece of information. It tells of the swims I already knew about—the channel, Barbados, Ibiza to Mallorca—they’re all there, more, and it has a quote from Aaron when asked how he accomplishes feats most people would never dream of.

He says, “I love being in the water. I love it. You can do almost anything if you love it enough.”

The article ends with the sentence “McCormick prepares to swim the Gulf Stream next month.”

My hand shakes and the quiet of the study presses down on me. It’s as if the rows of books, the tomes on horology, the timepiece diagrams on parchment, all of them, are still holding their breath, afraid of the exhale.

Outside the tall, lead-paned windows, the snow has stopped falling and the night has entered a watchful quiet. The moon strides over the cold with its silver light, and the bare branches of the trees reach and bend in the snow-filled gusts. I shiver and pull my sweater closer, the air in the study dry and cold.

“He’s alive,” I say, and when I do, my heart leaps. My voice echoes off the wood paneling, filling the still air. “He’salive.”

I select the next article, and the next. They’re all of the same theme: from age fourteen to eighteen Aaron swam the world—just as he said. I drink in the photographs, the details of his life.

There’s a picture of him grinning, his arm slung around a young, happier Robert, standing next to two boys—twins—with black curly hair, brown eyes, and Dee’s smile.

There’s another photo, all of them happy and relaxed on the metal benches of a large, rusty fishing boat. Aaron and one of the twins have their arms flung about each other. The gold of the setting sun streaks across their laughing faces, and the caption reads “Aaron McCormick, Crew, False Bay, South Africa, stories of white sharks.”

There are more. I drink them in greedily, thirstily, reading every article from the top of the page and moving down through the years of his life, when he was still swimming.

And maybe he will again. He said he would, didn’t he? He said he’d swim, knowing I was there.

I lean forward, the warm leather of the chair slick against my thighs. The chair creaks beneath me as I shift, scanning the screen. The computer hums, kicking soft, hot air into the cold.

There’s an article about his home—Saint Eligius, nicknamed Frying Pan Island—a tiny, remote island in the Caribbean, northeast of Brazil, sister island of Saint Noyon, the larger of the two.

It’sreal. It’s a real place.

I smile at this in amazement, that a place like the island isreal.

I could fly there. I could fly to London, then to Nassau, and hire a small propeller plane to land on the sandy runway along the beach. Odie would hold out his crossing guard sign, stopping all pedestrian traffic as the plane circled the runway and then bumped to a stop on the sand.

I could be there by Christmas.

My breath comes in short bursts and a prickle tingles up and along my spine. Mila and I could be on the beach by tomorrow, Christmas Eve at the latest. We could spend Christmas Eve on the island. Would Daniel mind? Would he host the Abry Gala on his own if I told him I had to fly across the world to meet the man I love?

And Max? What will he say? I called Leopold because of him. I learned Aaron is real because of his proposal.

And what will Aaron say when I arrive? A tall, auburn-haired, hazel-eyed woman named Fi? Will he know me? Recognize me?

My stomach flips as I flick down the computer page, my body electric, skin buzzing, mind urging me to do, go, fly.

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