Page 136 of Fated

I wonder. Did he try to save them? Did he struggle to free them from the water? Or was it sudden? A flash. A raging sea. Gone so quickly he didn’t know he was losing them.

Those names, set together in stone, they don’t tell anyone how much he loved them. They don’t tell how Amy loved poetry, how she dreamed of the New York Public Library and of flying into literary worlds. They don’t tell how Aaron sang to Sean during storms. How much he loved his kids. They don’t tell about how he loved the sea. He loved it even when it took him and everyone he loved.

There’s Junie Avery Finch.

Jordi Finch.

And under their names?—

Adelle June Finch.

They had their baby. A girl.

The list goes on. Cold, unfeeling type. All of them. Maranda. Essie. Dee.

Robert Stanton.

Gone.

Sixty-four names.

Just words in a stone.

“I wish,” Odie says, watching my fingers trace over the names, watching me press my hand to the unyielding stone, “I hadn’t listened to McCormick. He told me, ‘Go find Becca, she’s on the hill, make sure she’s okay.’ He went back to get the kids. To help. I wish I’d said, ‘You go get Becca. You take the kids up the hill.’ Then I’d be on there”—he points to the stone—“and he’d be right here.”

Sweat trickles down my back, the heat punishing.

“He knew something was wrong?” I ask, my voice as dry as a husk, hollow and ghostlike.

“Course he did,” Odie says. “We felt the earthquake, didn’t we? The airport crumbled like mud. Essie’s roof collapsed. He was sprinting back toward the cottage. Toward the damned sea. Grabbed me, pushed me toward the hill. Then I got there, and you and Robert were running down, and Robert said, “‘Stay here, I’ll help Aaron,’ and then—” His eyes cloud. “We stayed. We watched as half the island got swallowed, didn’t we? And us two, how come we survived? How come we were the only ones who got to live?”

I stare at the stone, at the names there.

They’ve been gone for two years.

When I started dreaming, they were already dead.

I was living their past, when in my time they’d already died.

When Amy said she’d die on the island and no one would care—she was already gone.

When McCormick said he’d be here, holding out his hand waiting for me—he’d already left.

When I said they weren’t alive, that they didn’t exist—I was half-wrong and half-right.

Two years ago a 7.8 earthquake hit off the coast of Brazil. I remember it because our leather supplier was badly affected. We sent aid: potable water, medical supplies, sat phones, and more.

Six months ago, Daniel and I sat in a meeting and I turned away from the reporter on the television screen recounting the effects of the earthquake. I didn’t want to see someone else’s suffering when I was already hurting so much. I didn’t know I was turning away from Aaron. The reporter stood in front of what looked like a decimated fishing village. I wouldn’t have recognized it. I hadn’t yet dreamed it.

But now I know where she was.

Charlestown, at the very edge of the town. The photographs online showed only three buildings survived. None of them were occupied.

The rest?

They didn’t crumble in the earthquake.

They didn’t collapse.

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