Page 70 of Fated

His head jerks up. His shoulders rise.

A swell of relief rides over me. She’s here. She’s alive.

“Why’s everyone at the beach?” Amy asks, blinking sleepily at her dad.

“Amy!” Maranda cries.

“Thank goodness,” Junie says, clasping a protective hand across her belly.

Amy’s in jean shorts and a bikini top, her hair messy, a book in her hand. She stands there blinking in confusion at the gathering of islanders.

McCormick makes a raw noise and then he’s in front of her, crushing her in a tight hug.

“What?” she protests. “Eww. Why are you so wet? Were you swimming? Why?”

He merely holds her, his arms wrapped tightly around her, his shoulders shaking.

After a moment Amy realizes this wasn’t a nighttime swim party—it was something more.

“I thought I lost you,” McCormick whispers, his voice ragged. “I thought I lost you.” He drops his head to rest on hers. Then he takes her shoulders, and says, “Dammit, you know not to swim by yourself! You know not to swim on this beach! Where were you?”

Amy stares up at her dad, stunned at the emotions. “I was ... I didn’t swim. I changed my mind. I fell asleep reading in the hammock.”

McCormick lets out a half-laugh, half-sob, and then he’s hugging his daughter again. “You’ll be the death of me,” he says, “You’ll kill me some day. I swear.”

“Dad.” She shoves at him. “I’m okay. It’s okay.” And then, when he doesn’t let her go, she hugs him back. “I’m okay, Dad.”

His shoulders relax then and he takes a step back, his gaze sweeping over her. I understand. He just spent adrenaline-fueled hours chopping through the waves searching for his daughter. He didn’t know if she was alive or dead. It’s hard to adjust to the reality that she’s been fine all along.

I imagine his heart is pounding, his ears are ringing, and the world feels a bit unreal to him right now.

Amy holds up her book. “I’m sorry, Dad. If you want to blame someone, blame it on Descartes.”

“What?” McCormick says, shaking his head. Water drips down his neck, trailing over his back.

“Descartes. ‘Let whoever can do so deceive me, he will never bring it about that I am nothing, so long as I continue to think I am something.’” Amy points to her book.

McCormick stares at her blankly. So she lifts the thick book and tries again.

“‘If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.’”

The fear has flown out of me and I’m left with a strange, giddy sensation. I want to laugh, and it bubbles inside me and catches in my throat.

I step forward then, crossing the cold sand, and pull Amy into a quick hug. “You’re very loved.”

At that, everyone on the beach gathers to give Amy a hug or a pat or a teasing scold for scaring the ever-loving daylights out of them all. After fifteen minutes, everyone has drifted back to their homes.

Thirty minutes later we’ve collected Sean from Essie and put him to bed. Amy’s asleep with her book tucked under her pillow.

And I’m alone with McCormick.

25

The clouds have flownto the north, leaving a clear, inky sky studded with winking stars. The heavy, humid, thundering air has blown away, replaced by a salty night-flower breeze. The frogs that hide in the mangroves have come alive, singing their song to the crescent moon, now bathing the black water with silver cobwebs of light.

I find McCormick on the beach, where the spiky grass meets the sand. He’s a lone figure, tall and dark, outlined by the glow of the moon. My feet whisper over the grass and my clothing, a silky white cotton nightdress, rustles in the breeze.

McCormick’s shoulders stiffen when he hears my footsteps. He doesn’t turn when I stop and stand next to him. Instead he continues to watch the waves cascade across the sand.

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