help us: you and me.”
“I am already doing everything I can to help us.” Vincent’s eyes flashed with anger.
“What? What is it exactly that you are doing?” I said, my voice rising. “Because from what it looks like to me, whatever you’re doing is causing you more harm than good.”
“That’s because you don’t understand how it’s supposed to work,” Vincent shot back, rubbing his temples in frustration.
I touched his knee. “Then explain it to me.”
Our eyes met, and we held the gaze for a long while before he exhaled. “Fine. Just give me a little time to think. But we’ll talk tonight, I promise.”
THIRTY
THE MORNING PASSED QUICKLY, WITH THE FOUR of us wandering lazily through the little town and across the abandoned winter beach. After a lighthearted lunch, during which Geneviève banned any serious or depressing subjects, we headed to the harbor to where a sleek blue speedboat was moored between massive luxury yachts.
“Wow, I wonder whose that is,” Charlotte remarked. Then, leaping over the railing, she plopped herself down in the driver’s seat. “All aboard!” she yelled, and then cracked up when she saw my expression. “Don’t worry, Kate, it’s ours.” She patted the seat next to her. “Come on!”
We spent the next couple of hours speeding up and down the coast, the landscape shifting rapidly from magnificent beaches to vertiginous cliffs towering over the sea. Vincent leaned toward me at one point and said, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you look this ecstatically happy before.”
“It’s the closest thing I can think of to flying,” I admitted.
“To-do list with Kate,” he said to himself, looking satisfied. “More speedboats.”
After dinner that night, Vincent stood and took my hand. “If you’ll excuse us, I’m going out with Kate,” he told Geneviève and Charlotte. We walked down the steps from the terrace, past a covered swimming pool, and through a gate into the trees. After a minute, we reached a rocky outcrop with a perfect view of the bay.
“I’ve been coming here as long as I’ve known Jean-Baptiste,” he said, settling himself on the edge of the cliff and lifting his hand to pull me down next to him. “It’s his favorite home-away-from-home. He had it built in the 1930s, after he saw photos of Le Corbusier’s buildings. The house is amazing, but I’ve always come here—to this spot—when I needed to stop and remember what life was about.” He wrapped an arm around me and we sat quietly, our legs dangling over the side of the rocks, watching the lights of the boats shimmer on the water.
“Close your eyes and tell me what you hear,” he said, and waited.
I smiled. “Is this a game?”
“No, it’s a meditation.”
I shut my eyes and calmed my breathing, letting my senses take over. “I hear waves crashing. And the wind in the trees.”
“What do you smell?”
I switched senses. “Pine trees. Brine.”
He took my hand and ran my fingers over the stone we sat on. I responded without him asking. “Cold, smooth rock with little indentations all over, the size of my fingertips.” Opening my eyes, I breathed in the chilly sea air and tasted its pure flavor—such a change from the city air of Paris.
I felt nature move around me and through me, as my pulse slowed to the rhythm set by the crashing waves and staccato sea breeze. Our two insignificant human bodies became indecipherable from the titan agelessness of the elements around us. As we sat in silence, I knew Vincent was experiencing the same mesmerizing calm as me. Finally he spoke.
“You know how you meditate in front of paintings? Well, I do it in nature, when I need to remember that my universe isn’t fantasy fiction—that I still exist in the real world. And that my immortality isn’t some cosmic joke. This is the purest place I know. And what I feel here is the closest I’ve felt to happiness in all the years after my death.
“But now I have something that blows that feeling out of the water. Every time I need a hit of joy, I think about you. You are my solace, Kate. Just knowing that you are in this world, everything makes sense.”
He leaned forward and, smoothing my hair off my face, gave me a short, sweet kiss before continuing.
“I want us to work, Kate. That is why I’ve been searching for something—anything—to make our time together as easy as it can be. Without the pain that my regular revenant existence—that my deaths—would bring. And, although things