Chapter 14
Lottie is walking along the clifftop, allowing the breeze to cool her moist neck and face.
She has Josh in the backpack, and he occasionally leans over to shout garbled messages in her ear or point at a bird, a boat, a dog that crosses their path.
Tim has offered to carry him but she refused his help, despite the fact that her back is starting to ache and her legs feel tired.
They have decided to take another hike to explore more of the coastline.
Staying in the apartment was not an option, what with the noise and the dust and the simmering tension between them both.
Earlier, they had caught the ferry over to the other side of the bay.
Standing as foot passengers alongside the cars, they had all enjoyed the brief ride, admiring the large detached properties that nestled along the coast, revealing themselves intermittently.
Ladder-like stone or wood staircases built into the rock descended down to private beaches, speaking of wealth and exclusivity.
Lottie had stared out over the water, lost in her own thoughts, imagining what it must be like to live there, to own a piece of this ancient landscape, to claim a part of the sea.
The idea that you could really buy anything if the price was right.
Trudging along in her hot, dusty trainers, she stops to pick at some blackberries now from a huge, established briar.
They are surprisingly sweet, bursting with juice, ripened by the sun and she hands one back towards Josh who tastes it tentatively.
Then she picks another handful and passes them to Tim like a peace offering.
‘I didn’t mean to suggest that you were to blame or anything,’ he begins and he takes the berries from her. She notices that her fingertips are stained as though dipped in blood but she quickly dismisses the thought as soon as it arrives.
Tim ploughs on, continuing their conversation from before, despite her silence. ‘None of that awful business was your fault. You know that.’
He is alluding to the past again, the thing they never normally speak about. She turns away from him and carries on walking.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘I know you don’t like talking about it. But you can’t keep punishing yourself, Lotts.’
Stopping abruptly, so that Tim collides with her on the single-file path, Lottie holds up a hand to silence him.
‘I’m not punishing myself, Tim, and I know I’m not to blame for anything. And yes, you’re right, I don’t want to talk about any of this.’
‘Okay, okay,’ he says.
‘So why are we still talking about it?’ She rounds on him. ‘It was years ago, for God’s sake.’ She hears the wobble in her voice and, furious with herself, the next sentence comes out with more anger than she intends. ‘I’d just like to forget about it, Tim.’
They continue walking in silence. An older couple dressed in T-shirts and khaki shorts passes them, smiling broadly, exclaiming over Josh’s curls.
Lottie accepts these adoring comments graciously, though she is used to them.
They exchange banalities about the weather, the beauty surrounding them.
How easy it is to become accustomed to it all.
And Lottie nods because it’s true, how much she takes her good fortune for granted.
This freedom. Her marriage, her child. This life.
What if it had all been taken away from her?
Or she from it? If she had been arrested, imprisoned for a crime (even if it wasn’t intentional or planned)?
She still thinks about the woman, what happened, all the time. Despite what she says to Tim. She could never forget her name, her face. It haunts her. It always will.