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Behind us, past the dark smudge of forest and the dark sky, the beach cottages stand dark and empty. A single light burns on a porch. It’s the yellow glow of a hurricane lamp. Essie stands in the light, Sean in her arms. She’s looking this way.
“There he is,” Robert says, his voice tight. He’s shrouded in the night, his expression indiscernible. His copper-colored hair is almost inky black in the darkness.
I follow the line of his gaze and squint out over the black sea. The torches bounce off the water and the matte black of the waves sucks in the light. Even so, I catch a glimmer of something. There’s movement in the water. About fifty meters out there’s the flash of metal glinting in the light of a torch. It’s a watch. Someone is out there, swimming in the dark.
“What ...?”
“He’s gone after her,” Robert says.
When I stiffen Robert spreads his hand over my back. He pulls me against him. “Don’t worry. He’ll find her. If she’s there, he’ll bring her out.”
And that’s when the entire scene that I’ve landed in snaps together. I can hear the people shouting now—“Amy! Amy!”—and I can see they’re searching the waves.
Now I see there’s a boat on the water too. A twenty-foot outboard motor fishing boat. It’s bobbing on the waves, moving slowly with a pale light shining over the depths.
They’re searching ... for Amy?
“No,” I say, stepping into the sinking sand and the dark, cool water. It grips at me and my feet slide in the murky sand. My bare feet nick on the sharp broken shells. I make it to my thighs, the water foaming around me, before Robert yanks me back.
“What the hell are you doing?” He shakes my arm. “You can’t swim. What are you going to do? Make it so McCormick has to save you both?”
“Let go of me.” I yank my arm, freeing myself from his grip.
“Becca!” Robert tugs me up the sand, away from the roaring water.
I search the waves, trying to catch another glimpse of McCormick. I remember his fear from the other day, the white lines on his face, the urgency in his voice when he pulled me out of the depths and shouted, “You know there are riptides.”
And now he’s out there again, in the dark, searching for his daughter.
If people die in dreams, do they come back? If Amy dies tonight, will she be here the next time I dream? If McCormick drowns, will I come back tomorrow and find myself in his arms?
I catch a glimmer of him again, a flash of muted moonlight glinting off his skin. He slices through the water, moving through the waves with powerful strokes.
I see what he’s doing now. He’s combing the water, searching in a grid. Ten feet forward, turn, ten feet back. Again. He’s meticulous. Solid. Yet the threat of the riptide and of Amy, lost, makes a battery-acid fear rise in me.
It reminds me of the day I took Mila to the Parc des Bastions at the center of Geneva. It was spring, the sun was finally shining warmly, the grass was green, and flowers were stretching drowsy heads toward the blue sky.
Mila was four. She wanted to run, to play chess in the park, to see the monuments. I looked down for one moment. I was searching for a bottle of water in my purse, and when I looked up Mila was gone.
The terror of that moment, of frantically scanning the trees, the empty benches, the families in the grass, and not finding my daughter? It strangled me in a tight, mindless grip. For five desperate minutes I lived in the terror of losing my daughter.
And then she skipped out from behind the wide trunk of a tall chestnut tree. She was smiling widely. There was a caterpillar in her dirt-coated hands. “Mummy, isn’t it pretty?”The swelling of relief was immediate and immense. I can still taste both the terror and the relief.
Right now I see that same desperation in McCormick’s relentless search of the night-black waves. There’s a desperate fear in the driven way he pushes through the water.
“What happened?”
Robert glances over at me and then back to McCormick. “Why’d he go in? Essie told us Amy said she was going for a swim. That was an hour ago. You know Aaron. If Amy drowns it’ll kill him.”
I stare at Robert then. The way he said that—it wasn’t the way someone would state a fact. It was more ... bitter. Surprising in its bitterness.
Robert grabs for my hand. I jerk my fingers away. “What do you mean? What are you talking about?”
He glances at me. His mouth twists in the dark and the light of a torch slices over us. There. Gone. For a moment I can see his eyes. He’s watching McCormick with a strange mix of emotion—admiration, bitterness, love, hate.
The hair raises on my arms and I shake my head. “I’m going in to help?—”
I start to lift my dress over my head. I’m not an expert, but Icanswim. And I can’t be hurt. I know if I drown here I’ll just wake up in my soft, cozy bed.
