Chapter 29

July 2023

After the lunch in James's restaurant, we're all very full and mostly drunk. I'd be more than happy to go home, but everyone else wants to go to Sag Harbor, and so that's what we do, piling back into the van and then out again when we get to town. We walk without discussion to the beach. It's a beautiful half-moon bay with a flat expanse of sand and the blue ocean curling lazily against it. The wind is down, and there are families paddleboarding and a few small sailboats looking discouraged.

"I've heard a lot about you," James says to me as we walk along the seaside. The rest of the group is up ahead, led by an excited Lucy, who's skipping rocks and turning cartwheels like it was ten years ago. Fred's rolled his pant legs up and opened the collar of his shirt, and he's walking just behind her, laughing at her antics.

"Have you?"

"Men on ships don't have that much to talk about other than the girls they left behind."

I laugh lightly. Wes is also ahead with Sophie, Ann, and Colin. His hands are moving in big sweeping motions, a hallmark of when he's telling one of his grand stories. Wes led a peripatetic life before we got married, never staying in one town long, or with one woman, though we didn't focus on that. He's spent time in every major city: Toronto, Boston, London, Hong Kong. He always said he left right before he got bored, but sometimes I wondered whether he had an instinct for when the bottom was about to fall out.

"Was I the girl Fred left behind?"

"Of course."

I clear my throat. "Ah, well … ancient history now."

"Are you sure about that?"

He motions to Fred, who's looking back at us. Our eyes lock for a moment before we both turn away.

"I … Yes. It should be, anyway." I kick at a shell in the sand. "What about you? Do you have anyone?"

His face clouds. "I lost her."

"I'm sorry."

"Not the way you think … she died. She waited for me, and three months before I was going to be discharged, she was diagnosed with leukemia."

"Oh, James. I'm so sorry."

"It's been hard. When you've met the person you're supposed to spend your life with, and then you can't …" He sighs. "Well, you know."

I clear my throat. "I think you have the wrong idea about me and Fred."

"I didn't mean to offend you," James says.

"No, it's fine. It's … we have a kind of doomed love. And I don't think that's how it's supposed to be."

"Love isn't always easy."

"I know, but it shouldn't be this hard either."

James smiles. "All poets and novelists would disagree with you."

"Maybe they're just romanticizing heartbreak. Telling us that if there isn't pain, then it isn't a love worth having. But what if that's the fiction? What if what we're supposed to be striving for is something that's clear and easy? Look at Colin and Sophie." They're walking arm in arm, Sophie's head resting on Colin' shoulder. "They met as teenagers. And I'm not saying they've never had a fight or growing pains and that they don't drive each other crazy sometimes. But they've had their life together without falling apart. That's a love story to admire. To write about."

"They're lucky."

"They are." I link my arm through his. "But, James, surely there must be someone else for you. I know it must be hard to get over …"

"Fanny. Her name was Fanny."

"That's a sweet name."

"She was a sweet girl."

"But you're still here. And I'm sure Fanny would want you to be happy."

"I never got the chance to ask her that," he says.

"Yes, of course—how stupid of me."

"It's all right."

"But poems, literature—they're full of second loves too, aren't they? I'm sure they are."

"I have to meet her, though." He gives me a soft look that implies that maybe I'm that girl, that I could be.

But I'm not. I pat him on the hand. "I'm sure you will. Now that the winery is ready to open to the public, take some time for yourself. Travel a bit. Live."

"You're very good to walk with me."

I point to the group. "I've already heard everything they have to say."

He throws his head back and laughs. "Wes certainly seems to be a good storyteller."

He is, and Ann especially appears enraptured by what he's saying. Even Charlotte, never his biggest fan since their breakup, is smiling at him in the way she used to when she was seventeen. He's a magnetic force that's hard to pull away from.

"He is great at storytelling. It's the rest of life that he has a bit of trouble with."

"Olivia!" Lucy calls to me, running up. Her face is red from the wind, and the salt air is making her hair a little wild. "Run with me."

"What?"

"Remember how we used to do it?" She points up ahead to the breakwater, a huge pile of old rocks and pilings that gentles the sea. A memory pops out of the ether—Sophie, Lucy, Ash, and me running through the sand and then up onto similar rocks nearer to home. We'd leap from them, one by one, with Lucy's nanny yelling after us, terrified that we'd slip and fall.

"Do you remember?"

"I do, but … it was dangerous then and still dangerous now."

"Who cares? It'll be freeing. Come on—let's do it."

She tugs on my hand, and I feel the pull of it. Why not run along the sand with her? I haven't done anything fun since I've been home, and I've never felt free.

I kick off my shoes and we trot up to Sophie. "Come with us," I say.

"What? No."

"Come on, Sophie. I'll race you."

Sophie's face changes in an instant. She was always the fastest, and though I doubt she's sprinted in years, she has a deep competitive streak where footraces are concerned.

She hands her bag to Colin and kicks off her sandals. "Where are we going to?"

"The breakwater."

"Do you think that's—" But Fred's objection is buried in Lucy's command.

"Three, two, one—go!"

We take off down the beach, the sand flying up beneath our heels. The shore's a bit rocky, and the spray from the sea is wetting the bottom of my pants, slowing me down. Sophie sprints ahead, but Lucy is on fire today, and she starts to catch up with her, inch by inch. I hear shouts in the wind, trash-talking. The breakwater approaches, thirty seconds away, and I dig in for one last push. These last weeks of tennis have made a difference in my fitness but also worn me down. My lungs are screaming at me to stop, but I'm competitive too.

I pull close to Sophie and Lucy, who are battling to an imaginary finish line. Sophie raises her hands in victory as Lucy sprints past her to the breakwater.

I stop.

"Where's she going?" Sophie pants.

"Not sure."

We watch her, our hands on our knees, breathing in and out. She gets to the first rock and scrambles up, then turns, her hands above her head.

"I feel like I'm having a heart attack," Sophie says.

"Seriously."

"That doesn't look safe."

"Agreed."

Lucy starts to hop from rock to rock, a natural parkour course, which seemed like nothing as a child, but now is terrifying me like when I'm watching someone stand too close to the edge of a cliff.

"She should get down from there," Fred says behind me.

"Not sure we can stop her."

Fred steps ahead of us. "Lucy! Come on down!"

She turns, almost pirouettes, and waves to him. "Come catch me," she yells over the crashing waves.

Fred takes a step toward her, then starts to trot, getting closer and closer till he's waded into the water and is standing below her. He's got his arms up to catch her, but as she bends to take off, she slips the wrong way, her body coming down sideways on the rock. I can hear the sick crunch of her head against it from here as Sophie's scream pierces the day.

I run toward them as Fred scrambles up onto the rock and pulls her up into his lap. Her eyes open slowly, then close again. She's bleeding from a head wound that looks nasty.

"Call 911!"

I reach into my pocket for my phone and pull it out. I don't have a signal. It's been patchy all day. "There's a lifeguard just down the beach—I'll go get him."

Fred nods, his face pale. He's holding her so tenderly it makes me want to weep, but I turn on my heel and sprint as fast as I can past our group, all looking stunned. Past the pain in my legs and lungs and heart, heading for the white structure that houses the lifeguards, hoping that I don't get there too late.

Hours later, in the hospital, we breathe a sigh of relief when the doctor tells us that Lucy is going to be okay. She has a concussion and will need to take it easy for several weeks, but there shouldn't be any lasting damage except for a small scar near her hairline.

It's just me, Fred, and James at the hospital. Sophie and Colin took the van home because they couldn't leave the kids overnight, and Charlotte and Ann took the opportunity to escape. At the last minute, Wes decided to go with them. He has some important calls in the morning, and he needs his laptop. He felt bad about leaving, but I dismissed his concern. He barely knows Lucy, and he shouldn't blow an important meeting because of her.

I think he was more worried about leaving me with Fred, but he didn't have to be. Fred was too busy beating himself up over what had happened to Lucy, as if she were his child and it was his fault she'd acted impulsively. I told him to cut it out, and we had a short, bitter argument. Fred stalked off, saying he was going to get some coffee, as I sank back into my chair next to James.

"Things are clearly totally over between you two," James says dryly.

"Oh, hush."

"I've got a car waiting to take us all back to the vineyard."

"That's nice of you."

"Lucy shouldn't drive too long to get to a bed."

"No, you're right."

"It isn't your fault, Olivia."

"I know."

"Why so glum, then? She's going to be okay."

"Just a long day."

I can tell he doesn't believe me. And he's right. I am feeling glum. Down, like a deflated balloon. I'm not sure what it is, exactly. Only the way Fred had looked at Lucy when he had her in his lap earlier on the beach—that wasn't the casual thing I'd assumed it to be between them. There was real pain there, the pain of potential loss, and I didn't like how that felt.

Did that mean I wasn't over Fred, or just that I didn't want him to be with someone else?

Was there a difference?

It didn't matter. What I'd said to James on the beach earlier was true. Fred and I didn't belong together. What more proof do I need than the fact that we couldn't make it despite numerous chances?

Only a hopeless romantic would think that there was still a place for us after everything we'd been through.

And I've never been that.