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“It will be,” I say, “when he realizes he doesn’t love me. That he never did. Or maybe he loved me a little bit, but that little bit was ruined by something I did.”
“What did you do?”
I look out over the rugged coastline, the secluded cove, and the sparks of blue sea shining like a dream.
“I made a wish.” I turn to her then. “Do you remember when I was little, how I always wanted to be a genie?”
Her eyes crinkle when she smiles, and she brushes her short hair back from her face. “You refused to believe me when I said humans couldn’t grow up to be genies.” Her expression softens. “You always wanted to make others happy. Your dad. Me. Your friends. Even strangers.” She shakes her head and shifts her ankle on the padded ottoman. “I’m not surprised you feel guilty about making a wish for yourself.”
“What?” I look at her in surprise. “I don’t feel ...”
Okay. Maybe I do.
Isn’t that just what Max said?
“One of the most wonderful things about you is how much you care. But sometimes, as your mother, I’d like you to be selfish. To take the biggest piece of cake. To take the first place in line for the slide. Do you remember at the playground, all the kids would shove ahead of you, and you’d wait, sometimes for ten minutes, until no one was there to step in front of you? I never understood why you didn’t feel deserving. Or was it that you felt others were more deserving?” She reaches out, taking my hand. My fingers are cold from the icy condensation of my glass. “Anna, you deserve love.”
“I know,” I say.
She squeezes my hand. “You may know here,”—she points to my head—“but maybe you haven’t figured it out here.” She points to my heart. “Let Max love you.”
“But ... he doesn’t ... he won’t ...”
“Let him love you. What’s wrong with wishing for love?”
“I suppose I don’t want him to love me if it wasn’t his choice. I don’t want to force him to love me.”
She laughs and nods toward the beach. “No one can force that man to do anything he doesn’t want.”
I look toward Max again. He and Emme have finished building the sandcastle and are now knocking the sand from their feet as they climb back up the rocks. They’ll be here soon, and then it’ll be time for dinner and then bed.
“Adversity,” my mom says, “either breaks people or makes them strong. Your husband had more adversity in his first twenty years than many people have in a lifetime. He’s strong. Nothing could make him love you if he didn’t want to.”
“Not even magic?”
After all, that magic is what made my mom appear in Saint-Tropez, happy and well-rested even with a broken leg.
“I don’t believe in magic,” my mom says. “And if I remember correctly, neither does Max. In fact, didn’t he say at your wedding that he didn’t even believe in love until you came along?”
I don’t know.
I don’t know what he said at our wedding.
But instead of admitting that, I say, “That’s right. He did say that.”
She nods and takes a long drink of her peach and raspberry fizz. Down below, Max opens the front door and Emme shouts up to us, “We’re back! Come see my watercolors, Anna!”
My mom smiles at me. “Thanks for coming. I only need two days. By then, I should be a little more mobile.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ve always wanted to come to the French Riviera.”
She gives me a strange look, then she shrugs and smiles. “Haven’t we all?”
When Emme bursts onto the balcony I turn to find Max trailing after her. His hair is mussed from the wind and he smells like sand and salt. He gives me an intimate smile that makes a soft, sweet humming start in my belly and spread all through me with a luxurious warm glow.
He leans down and brushes his lips across mine in greeting. “You taste like summer,” he says against my mouth.
Then we’re pulled to Emme’s art room, where we view dozens of paintings of sailboats, sunsets, and turquoise-studded seas. There’s a boisterous dinner on the balcony, a sunset walk through old town, and finally, Max and I wish my mom and Emme good night.
