There was no ocean far enough away from her that I could forget the look on her face when I told her to go. No ocean deep enough to plunge my heartbreak into so I could ease the pain of losing my beloved wife all over again, but I sailed to the horizon each day anyway, in search of something I knew I would never find. Four months had not healed the wound—hadn’t even began to scab it over.
By now, Ara would have moved on, forgotten about me and her son. I know she’d have felt bad for what she said, even though she meant it, because no matter what truths were in her heart, she wasn’t ever a cruel person. And I accused her of that. I wish I hadn’t. For all I knew, Brett got word of our fight and took her back home to Loslilian. Or maybe she brushed it off because it didn’t matter to her as much as it did to me, and I would return home one day to find her married—maybe to Cal. The only question then would be… should I tell her their love was based on a curse, or should I live and let live?
In my heart, I knew I’d tell her. I’d do anything to destroy her relationship with Cal. Not just because I hated him, but because even though she hurt me, I still loved her. Wished every day that I was home—with her—that I could tell her I was sorry and I didn’t mean what I said.
But at my core, I also knew I did. If not for this curse, the sane man ruling my actions would have left her months ago. She wasn’t at all like my Ara and, quite frankly, there wasn’t much I really liked about her anymore.
The winds changed suddenly then, and I quickly took the stairs up to the deck. It seemed even the ocean was calling me home, but I wasn’t ready yet. I retied the mast and steadied the yacht on a course away from home, losing my mind once again to thoughts of Ara—of our past life together.
The endless blue of the ocean and the clear sky gave my eye no point of interest, leaving my mind too free to wander though. I missed her too easily out here—the Ara I loved before, not this new Ara. And if I could get down on my knees and beg God to bring her back, I would trade almost anything for it.
As the urge to cry shook my shoulders, I pulled it back instantly, feeling a small hand slip into mine.
“Can we go home now, Daddy?” Harry asked.
I squeezed his fingers softly, casting my gaze back out to sea. The boat swayed gently under us, a soothing sensation to the rocky shores within my entire soul, and I tried to imagine myself on land right now—so close to her but unable to see my wife. “I think it’s too soon, Harry.”
“Mommy didn’t mean it—”
“She meant it, Harry,” I insisted. “Mommy has changed. When she died, someone else woke up in her place, and I don’t think we’ll ever get back the mommy we loved.”
“But you didn’t even tell her.” He tugged my sleeve until I looked down at him.
“Tell her what?”
“That I love her too.”
The hope in his eyes held all the innocence of a child—something I rarely saw in Harry. With his ability to read minds, he’d lost that naivety very early on. But looking at him now, how deeply he believed that his love would have changed her heart, I almost believed it too.
“Maybe if you tell her she’s my mom, she might change her mind and love us.”
Love us?
Love us.
And that was it, wasn’t it? I’d been so focused on getting her to love me that I forgot how badly Harry needed her love too. And now, out here, miles from land, I felt bad for running away like that—and taking Harry with me.
“What if she hurts us again?” I said. “Aren’t we better off out here where she can’t find us?”
“No.” He climbed up onto the bench and brought his face in line with mine. “Because then I’ll grow up and she’ll never know that she loved me.”
The idea of that sent an arrow through my heart. I laid a hand to it, closing my eyes. It was hard to look at Harry when he looked so much like Ara, and every day I woke up and looked into his little face, I missed her—missed her smile, her eyes, her love. Our love.
“Tell her.” He cupped my cheeks, squeezing them so my lips squashed up like a fish. “Tell her who she is, and if she doesn’t want us after that, we can run away then. And take Lors with us too. And Gran. And Uncle Mike and—”
“Okay, okay, I get it,” I laughed. And he was right, in a lot of ways. I wasn’t entirely sure she meant what she said to me that night—not deep down. On the surface, maybe, but if she knew Harry was hers, I was curious about how she would react. I had to know.
“Where are you going, Daddy?” Harry asked, hopping down to follow me.
“To turn the boat around,” I said. “We’re going home.”