That night sleep steals me away like a thief. I hear distant thunder before I go. The sound of hurried feet on hardwood flooring. I think for a moment that the house is being overrun. I feel a panicked rash of sweat emerge across my body, but I find that I am unable to move. Though I’m still faintly aware of the stifling heat and stillness of our bedroom, I find myself biblically cold.
I see water all around us. We are at the beach, I realise. I shake Simone awake.
‘Phineas? Where is Phineas?’
‘Is he not with you?’ she asks, sitting bolt upright on her beach towel.
The sun sits so low in the sky that it feels as though it’s resting on my back. I walk the length of the beach. I call his name in a calm, measured voice. I walk until the beachgoers thin. Until the patchwork of towels dwindles. I walk until there is nothing but sand, and then I start back. I walk until I begin to run. Until my rising panic can no longer be hidden. Until the helter-skelter of my voice betrays me.
I shout his name. I ask strangers if they’ve seen him. I try to imagine his face, to condense his likeness. I try to recapitulate him into existence, as if he might manifest before my very eyes. But in my terror the edges of my memory begin to fray.
‘Has anyone seen my boy?’ I ask the faceless crowd. ‘A young boy. Blond hair. About this high. Anyone? Please?’
Simone and I cross paths multiple times. Each time she appears her face is somehow a shade paler, as if she is fading from existence. We double over to look beneath beach loungers. We investigate sand dunes and the holes dug by other children. Strangers join in the search. People run back and forth between lifeguard towers. They blow whistles and order people out of the water.
When I hear the first screams, when I see the crowd swell and head up the beach towards some unseen commotion, I tell myself it must be unrelated.
Phineas is a smart boy.
He’s always been comfortable near the water.
He wouldn’t just wander off like this.
I keep telling myself all of this as I pry apart the shoulders of the teenaged onlookers and wade into the water to find his body floating in the shallows. His eyes open beneath the waves, staring up at me. And when I lift him up I’m reminded of the day he was born. A water birth. A beautiful boy.
I call out for Simone as I lay him down on the sand and try to clear his airway. I reason with him. I bargain. I beg.
Don’t do this. Please.
I need you to breathe.
There are hundreds of people around me, but I am alone. For the first time in my life I feel true helplessness. In that moment I am a weak, broken thing. A child. I scan the crowd for any sign of an adult. For an authority figure, a badge, a uniform. Anyone capable of reversing the fate unfolding before me.
I ask for space as the crowd surges forward and blots out the sun, but I realise it’s Simone. She stands over me, her head bloated. The whites of her eyes the colour of fire and change. She runs her hand down the back of my neck and pulls me close to her.
‘He could be with us forever,’ she whispers and I feel her tongue on my neck. It is lizard rough and the sensation reminds me of a childhood diving accident. A piece of fire coral that cut straight through my diving suit and left my blood to hang in the water like a cloud.
I push her away and reach for Phineas but both he and the crowd have disappeared. When I stand it is late winter, the beach windswept and empty. Simone wades into the water and lies down, submerging herself beneath the waves. She calls out to me before she disappears completely.
‘Come,’ she says. ‘Lie with us.’