Page 82 of When We Believed in Mermaids

What have I done?

As if she can read my thoughts, Paris trots over and leans on my legs, letting go of a sigh. “You miss Helen, don’t you, baby?” I murmur quietly, threading an ear through my fingers. “I’m sorry about that. I would make it better if I could, but I think you’ve just got to be sad for a while.”

She tilts her head back and licks my fingers.

Simon comes out and stands behind me, his hands on my shoulders. “Beautiful night.”

“Perfect.”

We stand there, all the unspoken things between us, until he says, as he did the other day, “Do you want to talk about it?”

“About?”

“Whatever is bothering you.”

“I’m just surprised, that’s all. I’m just thinking about old times.”

He steps closer, crosses his arms over my chest. “You know you can tell me anything, right?”

I close my eyes and lean back into him. If only that were true. His body is warm and solid, and I would know his scent in a football field full of men. “Thank you, sweetheart,” I say, unable to bring myself to say there’s nothing to tell.

“Have her to supper tomorrow.”

“Yes, good idea.”

“Sarah took to her in a flash, I thought.”

“She saw her T-shirt. She’s a physician.”

“Is she? Do you think she might have been the one to save that boy on Rangitoto?”

“What are you talking about?”

“A woman, a tourist who was a doctor, dived off the pier at Rangitoto when some boy cracked his head. It was in all the news.”

“Could have been,” I say, finally finding a reason to smile. “She was a lifeguard for years.”A lifesaver,I think, though she couldn’t save any of us.

“Does she surf?”

“She did, back in the day. We were quite competitive.”

“Who was better?”

I grin to myself. “I refuse to answer that question.”

He laughs, low and deep, the sound rumbling through my rib cage. He kisses my head. “I thought it might be that way. She’s a very fit and powerful-looking woman.”

I slide sideways to look up at him, teasing him. “Did you think she was hot?”

“Maybe,” he says, and kisses my neck. “But not as hot as you, my one and only love.”

“Pssht.” I push his hands away, laughing, but he captures me again and kisses me, and then we’re taking it inside, where the kettle has boiled and quit. If Kit comes to dinner tomorrow, this might be the last night I ever have with my beloved Simon. To be sure I don’t forget, I kiss every inch of him, pressing the taste of each into memory—the place where his jaw meets his neck, the crook of his elbow, his navel, his knee.

As we come together, so sweetly, so perfectly, as if our bodies were carved of one piece of wood, I find myself praying.

Oh, please,I think to the universe.Give me one more chance to set things right with everyone. One more.

Chapter Twenty-Three