Page 85 of Wished

“—and Cap Taillat, I was just thinking, is like an uncut sapphire. Corundum,” I say, naming the mineral that both sapphire and rubies come from. “It’s rugged and raw and beautiful without any cut or any polish. It just is.”

I flush as Max presses a final kiss to my hand. He doesn’t let me go; he just tucks our bound hands next to his side.

“I love it here too,” he finally says.

We both watch Emme for a moment as she runs out onto the strip of white sand and then dashes to the clear, shallow water on the calm side. She dips a toe into the water and then splashes, sending the water into the air in a wide, sparkling arc.

“I think,” he says as we start down to the empty beach, “I like it here because it lets me forget all the polish, like you say.” He smiles over at me. “I can go back to being unpolished. There is something to be said for Paris, Geneva, New York. Yet sometimes it’s exhausting always doing or going or being. I like coming here, where the hardest decision is which beach we’ll go to and which wine we’ll have with dinner. It always seems here, in this place, we’re allowed to love without reservation, because that’s what a sea like this, a coast like this—what a place like this—expects. In Paris or back home, you can hide. There isn’t any hiding here.” The corner of his mouth lifts, and then he shrugs. “Is that what you meant?”

My heart trips over itself, crashing about, and I take in a rough breath. Without thinking about it I throw my arms around his middle and press my face to his chest. He lets out a surprised huff of air and then wraps his arms around me, pulling me close.

He’s warm from the sun and he smells like fresh sea air. I listen to the steady thud of his heart thumping against my cheek. He presses a kiss to my temple, then to the edge of my eye, and finally, he leans down to press a soft kiss to the edge of my lips.

“All right?” he asks.

I nod. “I’m okay. It just hit me. I had to hug you.”

He lets out a low laugh and presses another kiss to my mouth.

On the beach Emme has opened her pack and is pulling out her watercolor pad and paint tray.

“How long do you think she’ll paint?” Max asks, looking at the sun, nearing the zenith of the cloudless sky.

“Hours.”

Max nods, a humor-filled light in his eyes. “I should’ve brought more food. More drinks.”

He tucks me against his side, and then we start down the path for the last little bit until we reach the soft, sun-warmed sand. The wind whistles over it, leaving patterns that look like waves, and the grass bows beneath the breeze. A pair of gulls swoops overhead, and a few sailboats are moored far out in the shallows, but otherwise we’re alone. The three of us have a strip of sand, a little Eden to lounge in and be grateful for. Uncut and unspoiled.

“Now that’s a happy kid,” Max says, nodding at Emme.

She’s cracked open her paint and is stretched out on her belly, lying on the sand with a paintbrush in her hand and her pad in front of her. She’s eying the sailboats, preparing to imprint their likeness on paper.

“I was wondering,” I say, hesitant but asking anyway, “do you ever worry that you won’t be a good dad?”

Max stops. Pulls me up short. We’re only a few long shadows away from Emme, but the waves and the wind keep our words quiet.

It’s interesting standing in the middle of the sea like this. The strip of beach is narrow; within seconds you could choose to jump into rough foaming waves, or instead dip into cool, serene waters. I’ve never been anywhere where two opposite choices are so immediate and apparent.

“No,” Max says.

“No?”

He shakes his head. “No. I never worry. My father ...” He shrugs. “You know this. He often told me, even when I was four, five, that he wished he’d stopped with my brother. He’d rather I hadn’t been born. To him I was a mistake, a sort of representation of the prison of all his choices. My parents ...” He looks down at me, his brown eyes solemn. “Some parents don’t love their children. My parents certainly didn’t. So no. I never worry that I won’t be a good dad. Because whatever mistakes I make, whatever I don’t know and have to learn along the way, it’ll be okay, because every day I’ll let my child know I love them. I’ll say it, because a lot of the time, people don’t know you love them unless you tell them. So I’ll say it. And I’ll show it. So no. I don’t worry. I learned early on that not much else but loving mattered.”

He gives me a small smile, and then, as the wind tugs at my hair, he reaches up and tucks a loose strand behind my ear. “Is that what’s been bothering you?” he asks, lowering his hand. “Are you worried about me?”

I shake my head no and then change my mind and nod yes.

Max gives a surprised laugh and then grins. “Don’t. Don’t worry, love.” Then he grips my hand, gestures at the wide expanse of the beach and the sea and asks, “Ready?”

To my right is the choppy water and the jagged rocks rising from the foaming waves. To my left is the calm, tranquil, turquoise sea. I have to step forward. I have to keep going. We all do. But I’m not sure if loving Max will lead to the heartbreak of a turbulent sea or the gentle love of tranquil waters.

If I keep on, will he hate me, or will he love me again?

“Ready,” I say.

We spend the day in a sun-bleached, salt-soaked haze of soft sand and cool water and lapping sea. Sandcastles are built and destroyed. Paintings are created and pinned to the sand with sea rocks so they can dry in the sun. Cold bottles of Orangina and slices of baguette, creamy Brousse de Rove—the local goat’s milk cheese—and small, juicy, jewel-red tomatoes are greedily consumed. Max soaks in the sun, turning sun-bronzed. Emme and I pinken and freckle. The sand tickles, the salt dries, and the breeze whips my hair into curly tendrils.

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