Page 76 of The Perfect Son
I make a face and start to shake my head but then Jamie is racing up the beach and swiping his goggles out of the bag. He’s grinning at Shelley as he strips to his swim shorts.
“Come on, Mummy.” Jamie’s squealing voice carries up to me as he races toward the water.He wants me to be with him,I think with aburst of love. And why not? It can’t be any colder than the ice I’ve felt inside me these past months.
New memories,I remind myself, leaving my dress bunched on the sand and jogging after Jamie and Shelley.
The sea burns my skin with cold. My feet are numb before I’m even up to my knees, and I’m already stopping, preparing to turn back, but Jamie has jumped all the way in and Shelley is just ahead of him, drawing her arms up and over her head in long, smooth strokes. I wade further in until icy waves lick the skin around my navel.
Go on, Tessie. Remember who you used to be.
I sob as I drop in the water. Tears are pricking the edges of my eyes, but I kick with all my might and swim forward until my body and my mind are numb and I no longer feel the cold.
“I told you it would do you good.” Shelley laughs, swimming up beside me.
I shake my head, my teeth chattering too much to speak.
The beach seems a long way off now. Jamie hasn’t followed us out as far and is jumping in and out of the waves, his shouts and laughter carrying in the breeze.
I force my arms up and out of the water in long sweeping arcs and swim after Shelley. I’m sure my crawl is nowhere near as elegant as hers but it feels good to be moving. We swim lengths, back and forth in line with the groins on our stretch of beach. Every other stroke my head swings to the side and I clock Jamie splashing in the waves. My arms tire quickly and I begin to slow, increasing the time between each stroke and the glance at Jamie.
Then he disappears.
I stop swimming, choking on a mouthful of salty water that stops me shouting out. My eyes scan the sea and the beach, but he’s nowhere.
Where’s Jamie? The question presses down on me as if the water is squeezing me tight. I lurch forward and force my arms and legs to move. The numbing coldness makes every desperate movement feel sluggish but I kick as hard as I can, my head jerking left and right, willing Jamie’s blond hair to bob out of the water, but it doesn’t.
I reach the spot where I last saw him and stand. The water isn’t as deep as I thought. It’s only up to my knees. I turn and spin with soft squelchy sand beneath my toes, looking everywhere.
“Tess?” Shelley shouts out.
Then out of the corner of my eye I catch a glimpse of Jamie on the beach and feel the weight lift as I breathe again. He must have run out when I wasn’t looking. I wade out of the water, shivering as warm air tickles my skin.
“Are you OK?” Shelley asks, following me onto the dry sand.
I smile and shake my head. “Yes, sorry. I just thought... Oh, it doesn’t matter now. Let’s have some lunch.”
CHAPTER 47
By midafternoon, the river maze Jamie built with his new friends is swallowed by the sea and hazy gray-yellow clouds blow over our heads. The day is still warm but the sun is now circled in an eerie pinkish ring that makes the sky feel wrong somehow, and I can’t help but keep staring upward.
Shelley follows my gaze. “It’s sand from the Sahara apparently.”
“What is?”
“The yellow in the sky. It’s sand blown in from the hurricane. It’s a bit apocalyptic if you ask me.”
I nod but say nothing. The truth is, I feel it too. The sense of something coming, not a foreboding but an end, an answer. The pages in my notebook are filling up. My own cryptic clues. Where will they lead? I can feel the answer, like a word on the tip of my tongue.
The family with the two children are packing up to leave and Jamie races up toward me and plonks himself down by my legs. His hair is a mess of crazy curls, a shade darker from the sand and the salt that’s dried in it. He’s smiling from ear to ear, and when I stare into his crystal-clear blue eyes I realize we’re going to be OK, he and I.There is joy ahead for us still. It won’t be the same without you, Mark, but it will be something.
Jamie lifts his foot and stomps on a sandcastle I made. He laughs and so do I. “I think we’ll be bringing half the beach home with us,” I say, reaching forward to brush dry sand from Jamie’s legs.
Jamie shrugs and when I turn back to Shelley she is staring at me with wide eyes and a face so pale I wonder if she’s ill. She glances at Jamie, then back to me. Jamie sticks out his tongue, making a silly face, but Shelley isn’t smiling now, she isn’t pulling faces. She looks emotional.
“You must miss him so much,” I say, thinking of the son she lost. It never occurred to me how hard it must be for Shelley to see Jamie and me together. I feel a twinge of shame.
“What?” Shelley blinks, staring for a long second at Jamie before focusing back on me. “Oh... every day.” She swallows, and tears glisten in her eyes.
“Of course. I’m sorry. That was a stupid thing to say.”
