The easiest times between the two of us are at the sea. Élodie loves it there, like she loves dancing to my music. It forges a rare and fragile bond that I handle with the utmost care. It’s why I have the urge to go there with her today.
Greg’s parents left last night, Margaret unable to meet my eye as she waved goodbye. They were supposed to go at the end of the week but said they wanted to avoid the holiday traffic. I don’t believe this. Margaret had the same expression I see on my own face sometimes, a preoccupied unease that makes her look drawn.
I sneak glances at Élodie in the mirror as I drive south, hair blowing because she likes the window wound right down, her eyes flicking back and forth as she watches the passing road. I turn on the radio and it’s an Elton John song that seems to be played constantly. The uplift of the chorus makes my throat swell with tears I have to swallow hard. Her foot taps the back of my seat in time. I turn up the volume surreptitiously, because if she catches me doing it, she’ll stop.
One of the stick figures from her drawings comes into my head. It was wearing a long skirt like I often do—like I am now—and lying, eyes shut, in a swimming pool, the water scribbled right over her in lurid green. I chase away the image, and put my foot down on the accelerator.
Élodie likes the speed of the autoroute, especially when we overtake one of the huge transcontinental trucks, wheels spinning at eye level. On these journeys, it’s possible to feel as though we are co-conspirators, even allies, no one watching us, no one knowing where we are.
It’s late in the season, the holiday crowds thinned to nothing when we get there, the resort tired-looking, ready for its winter hibernation. As we walk to the beach from the half-empty parking lot, Élodie two steps ahead of me, the mistral whistles disconsolately through the metal shutters of deserted apartment blocks. There’s something disquieting about it but I have grown so sensitized to atmospheres and tiny shifts of mood that I make myself dismiss it.
In the sea, we present a relatively normal picture of mother and daughter to anyone who might be looking on. Élodie insists on staying in for so long that we’re both exhausted when we emerge. I roll out a couple of straw beach mats so we can lie down and dry off.
She seems to fall asleep almost immediately and I must nod off myself because the next thing I know I’m alone. There’s nothing left of her but a pair of shucked-off armbands and the damp imprint of her body on the mat.
I jump to my feet and call her name. I scan the sand around me but she’s nowhere. I run up and down the beach, screaming it over and over. Everything slows down, as moments of high drama do, and in the lulls between the fear and panic and horror, there is a speck of relief that shimmers, soft-lit and quiet. And I am so appalled by myself that I think I might be sick, right there in the sand.
It’s another mother who finds her. She’s holding Élodie’s small hand when I race up to them, falling to my knees in the sand and checking her over in case she’s been hurt. She watches me, dry-eyed and impassive, while I do this, our faces level. My hands are shaking but she doesn’t appear remotely upset.
“She said she didn’t know where her maman had gone,” the woman says from above. She can’t keep the reproof out of her voice. Just behind her, three stolid little boys are digging in the sand.
I stand. “She was right next to me. I closed my eyes for a second.”
The woman nods, relenting, and pats Élodie’s head. I wait for her to scowl and pull away because she hates to be touched like that. But she doesn’t. She looks up and gives her rescuer a brave, tremulous smile.
“You’ve got a little beauty there,” the woman says, as I take Élodie’s hand. “Look after her, won’t you?”
“Why did you go off? You frightened me so much. Anything could have happened to you,” I say, as we make our way back along the beach, my voice strained with the tears I’m holding back. She’s trying to wrench her hand out of mine but I’m holding on too tight. “Why didn’t you wake me?”
But she won’t answer. She refuses to speak a single word until we get home and Greg comes to the door, asking how our day at the beach went. She turns voluble enough then.