19
I think about what Robert said for the rest of the afternoon. That the great Aaron McCormick’s ego won’t let him even consider his wife and best friend could betray him.
I’m not so sure.
There was that tension riding through the cottage like the scent of smoke curling in the air, warning of an unseen fire.
When Amy mentioned New York he kept his head down, meticulously scraping the fork along the breakfast plate, refusing to look my way.
I’ve replayed that scene dozens of times and I’ve come to one conclusion.
This is my dream.
And according to Uncle Leopold, Adolphus Abry, and my mum, this dream shows me my greatest desires. My secret wishes. My dreams.
Apparently, ever since Joel, it’s been my dream to put a cheater in his place. To right a wrong I took part in without my consent.
And maybe it’s also been my dream to have fifteen years of marriage where a man has stayed with me. By my side.
And since this is my dream, I’m going to take a taste of love.
Safely.
I’m going to glut myself on love. I’m going to swipe my finger through its rich vanilla icing, devour its velvety-crumb cake, and lick the chocolate ganache from my lips. I’m going to relish every bit of loving, because there’s nothing to be afraid of.
McCormick can’t leave me—he isn’t real.
He can’t hurt me—he isn’t real.
I can feast on love again without any of the pain that accompanies it.
I can explore all the flavors of our kiss. I can dive in and relish every taste, every feeling.
I like how McCormick looks at me.
I like how he kisses me.
I like how I feel when I’m near him.
And then, when I’ve had enough, I can leave this dream world. I can close it up, not having lost, only having loved. I can shut the box tight and never look back.
My mum was right. This watch is showing me my dream. I want to be able to love without ever having to fear loss.
McCormick isn’t real. He only feels real.
Maybe it’s a bit like training wheels. I can learn to ride a bike again, learn to love again. And when I’m confident, I can discard the training wheels and ride on my own.
I smile, thinking of Mila learning to ride her bike. She was wobbly and scared. Her pink handlebar streamers flew behind her as she pedaled hard. She kept her training wheels on longer than she needed them, but then one day she woke up and decided it was time to set them aside.
Perhaps that’s how this will be.
One day I’ll decide that I can set the watch and McCormick and this island aside.
But until then I’m going to ride.
I smile. The evening breeze is cooler now that the sun is down, and gray-blue clouds skitter across the star-studded sky. There’s a night perfume in the air, a soft floral scent that mixes with the barbecue chicken and grilled fish and the potatoes roasting in the hot coals of the beach fire.
The constellations are different here than in Geneva. The stars are brighter, flashing white and blue and red. That’s Mars and Venus and even Jupiter. The sky isn’t like this in Switzerland, and not in Greece or New York or Beijing. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a night sky like this.
There aren’t any city lights to smother the stars. There are only the cottages winking sleepily and the fire, sparking and glowing blue and orange in the sand, sending up little fireflies that wink out before they reach the sky.
It’s a beautiful night and a beautiful party. There are sixty-five people here—the entire population of the island. And they’re all drinking and laughing and dancing and congratulating me on fifteen years of marriage.
Junie is entertaining Sean, playing peek-a-boo with a palm leaf. A group of five kids, ages four to eleven, runs past, waving fizzing white sparklers in the air. Amy sits cross-legged on the beach reading a book by the fire, ignoring everyone. The three old women dole out huge slices of coconut rum cake—a last-minute, much bemoaned substitute to the chocolate box cake.
Across the yard, at the outdoor grills, McCormick catches my grin and his mouth spreads into an answering smile. He says something to the man next to him, his eyes on me. Then he hands the man the metal spatula he was holding and strides across the grass.
I drag in a breath of salt-smoked air and my heart taps out a quick beat.
The speakers blast music, drowning out the waves and the chickens and muting the laughter and conversations.
I watch McCormick cut through the dark, his gaze on my smile.
I wonder what happens when I leave here. I wonder what happens to him. I suppose he ceases to exist.
McCormick passes a group of men drinking beer under the marquee. They all shout at him, lifting their beers. He waves back. Robert’s with them. I’ve ignored him all night, only catching bits of conversation—fishing, hurricane season, off-island trips—and he’s ignored me too.
Hopefully it stays that way.
Finally McCormick reaches me.
There’s a tautness between us, a rubber band stretched tight, waiting to snap. The closer he comes the stronger the feeling is.
I’m at the edge of the light, past the marquee, between the grass and the sand, halfway between the ocean and the party.
McCormick draws close and looks down at me. There’s his smile and a questioning light in his eyes. And now I know to look, there’s also a wariness, almost as if he’s scared he’s about to be hurt—that he’s expecting it.
“You’re not joining everyone?”
I lift a shoulder. “I like watching. I always have. I’m more an on-the-edges than an in-the-middle kind of woman.”
His eyebrows draw down. “Since when? You’re always the life of the party. You and Robert, you always?—”
He stops then. Looks away from me. The silence stretches, and that tautness between us stretches too, vibrating with tension.
“McCormick?”
He looks down at me. Swallows. The bobbing of his Adam’s apple looks painful.
“Yeah?”
I glance up at him. He’s bulky. He takes up a lot of space, both physically and with that something else, that leashed power. The darkness likes him, it brings out the highlights in his coal-black hair, like the blue gleaming of the fire. His eyes swallow the light and the brown-black of them wink with starlight. His face is more rugged in the dark, and maybe because he thinks I can’t see him as well it’s less guarded. I could trace the lines of hope and fear from his jaw to his mouth. I know them well because I see them every time I look in the mirror.
I wonder why he loves me. Why he’s stayed with me, in this dream life where I’m not good for him.
“Why do I call you McCormick?”
He turns back to me, a single eyebrow rising. He shrugs. “You always have.”
“But why? Your name’s Aaron. Shouldn’t I call you that?”
He looks at me then, really studying me, as if he’s searching for something. The roar of the ocean becomes a soft mumble as I step closer. I’m only a foot away now, and I can smell the smoke on him, the charcoal and the heat.
His gaze flicks to a drop of sweat rolling down my neck, sliding along my collarbone and dipping to disappear at the collar of my white cotton dress. Then his mouth presses tight and he says, “You said you like calling me McCormick because it reminds you of who I really am.”
“Who’s that?”
He lifts a shoulder. “An almost. A never was. A dream that didn’t happen.”
Well.
“I’d rather call you Aaron then.”
He lets out a huff then, an almost laugh. The firelight flickers bright and the tattoos on his arms gleam in the light. His biceps are covered in them, and they trail up and over his chest and abdomen. I can’t see them under his T-shirt, but I know they’re there.
“I don’t mind McCormick. It’s true what you said, and it’ll be true no matter what you call me.”
“Do you like being married to me?”
He glances at me then, turning his gaze from the fire. He thinks about my question. This is something I like about him. He contemplates things. He doesn’t answer without thinking—he takes his time.
“I want you to be happy,” he finally says, watching me. “I want the kids to be happy.”
That wasn’t an answer.
Down the beach a firecracker is set off. It whines and then pops in the sky, bursting like a bright white flower, raining sparks down on the ocean. There are yells and cheers and shouts for more. The bulky bald man from the setup bends over to light another, and the crossing guard stands behind him, keeping the kids at bay.
The music has shifted to a slow song. One made for dancing in the sand.
“You wouldn’t ever leave me, would you?” I ask, considering the solid line of him, his patience with Amy, the way he scooped up Sean this morning and rubbed his cheeks free of banana before dropping a kiss on his nose.
“I won’t leave the island,” he says. “I’ll live and die here. So as long as you stay, then. . .”
That’s the answer. This island is my dream and he isn’t leaving it. As long as I’m here, he’ll be here too.
“I’ll stay,” I tell him, whispering over the waves and the cresting music. “I think I like you.” I step closer, bridging the gap between us. The heat of him swirls around me. I ride on the current of it, the taut vibration tugging me closer. “I’ll stay so I can learn more about you.”
“You already know everything about me.” His eyes are fathomless and unreadable.
“Not true. I don’t know anything about you.”
“Do you want to dance?” he asks, and I realize we’re already moving toward each other and my hands are already searching for his.
When I clasp him and settle against the hard line of his abdomen, the tension rolls out of me. I fold into him and rest my head against his shoulder. He lets out a shuddering breath, and it shifts my hair and caresses my neck.
I wonder what it would be like to lie down in the sand with him, to have the scratch of the sand abrade my back and legs as his mouth treads softly over my skin. I think I would glow as hot as the fire nearby.
I wonder. I wonder what he thinks about. I wonder what he does. I wonder who he is. I wonder if people in dreams also dream.
“There’s something different about you today,” he says, and when I look up at him he seems shocked he said that out loud.
Maybe he is. It wasn’t thought-out, only felt.
“Are you real? Do you feel alive?” I ask.
He smiles then glances across the beach at Amy, hunched over her book. “I feel alive some days more than others. I used to chase the gold to feel alive. Then . . . you know. Now I’m here.”
“What’s the gold?”
He laughs and pulls me tighter against him. A glow flows over me like sunlight spreading over the Alps in the morning, brushing them in molten light.
“How about you? Do you feel alive?”
I consider his question.
Have I been living my life, or have I been living a half-life?
I think my mum would say I’ve only been half-alive. If you don’t let yourself experience passion and love, joy and sorrow, then it’s a half-life, isn’t it?
If you’re always caught at the edge of the water or caught in the shadow between the light and the dark, never fully committing to one or the other, then . . . you’re not living. You’re only watching life pass you by.
I love Mila. I love my brother. I love Max as a friend. But I never let myself venture beyond those safe color-inside-the-lines forms of love. So do I feel alive?
It’s uncanny that this dream, this moment, feels rich with life.
Rich with possibility.
Another firework explodes over the ocean, and then another, and another, the loud pops echoing over the music. The sky lights and white sparks stream over us.
Finally, I tilt my chin and look into McCormick’s eyes.
“I’d like to feel alive,” I admit, and then, “I think I can. With you.”
At that we stop dancing, held still in the pregnant heat of the night. He stares down at me as if he’s been caught off-guard by my statement, as if he doesn’t quite believe me but wants very badly to let go of his doubt and say yes. Yes to whatever, to anything. To this moment.
“Kiss me?” I pull my bottom lip between my teeth and McCormick follows the dragging motion. The breeze stirs between us, bringing up smoke and sea.
“Please,” I say.
And then, after a breath-held moment full of tension and struggle, McCormick tilts his head and raggedly says, “You’re certain?”
“Yes. Yes.”
So he leans down, the warm breeze rustling his hair, blowing sand over my bare feet, catching the sound of music floating in the air and the scent of fireworks and bonfire, and he clutches my hand tightly—clutches it so hard that I feel the weight of him—the heavy, solid weight in the palm of my hand—and then Mila says, “Mummy, I really want to go to the Jardin Anglais to see the flower clock,” and I say,
“Not now.”
“But I really want to go to the Jardin Anglais. Max said he’d take us this weekend. I heard him on Friday. He said he would.”
I blink at McCormick. He’s staring down at me, a frown on his face.
I look around. What’s Mila doing here?
“Mum, wake up.”
McCormick clutches my hand and his grip is smooth, heavy, metal-cool.
“I want to kiss you,” I tell him.
And he smiles that smile that reaches deep into my chest and grips my heart.
“Wake up, wake up! The flower clock is waiting! Mum!”
Another firework explodes and a flash of bright white light, as bright as daylight, hits, and I gasp, open my eyes wide, and?—
Wake up.