Falling into Forever (Falling into You) - By Lauren Abrams Page 0,31

reach the impeccably decorated living room.

Marie’s photographs are everywhere, enormous blown-up shots of slightly abstracted faces and full-length portraits of people who’ve managed to capture her attention at one time or another. My eye catches on the one over the grand piano in the corner, and my breath hitches instantly.

The three figures are blurred and hazy, but she’s manage to create the illusion of movement, the passage of time perfectly frozen in a moment of kinetic energy. It’s as if the subjects could leap out from the canvas.

If only.

I look first at Sam’s image. He’s making a goofy face into the camera, sticking his tongue out and reaching into the air for Marie. Even though I know it’s going to hurt badly, my eyes hone in on the pair on the other side of the frame. A man with thick, sandy-brown hair and a brilliant smile on his sun-warmed face is leaning over to tie the shoes of a curly-haired little girl with enormous blue-green eyes. She’s giggling and touching his face. It’s clear that they adore each other. It’s clear that they belong to each other.

Ben. Grace.

Grace.

Damn it.

I forgot to call my daughter to say goodnight. It’s been hours since I’ve spoken to her, and this is the first time I’ve left her for more than a day since she was born. She must be panicked. I reach down for my phone before I realize that it’s past eleven o’clock.

I must have lost my mind.

All notions of tapping my foot to an inaudible rhythm are gone. But even with Ben and Grace staring down at me, the warm memory of the hotel room is still bubbling in my throat, the taste of Chris’s lips is still lingering in my mouth. I can’t regret it, what we had. I swallow the shame and force myself to look at what had once been my family.

Sam follows my stare, and he leans over to touch my arm. He takes a deep breath.

“I’m sorry, Hallie. I forgot about the portrait and what it would…”

I don’t smile, but I don’t avert my eyes from the picture, either. “Don’t be. It was a good trip. Do you remember the look on Grace’s face when she first saw the ocean? Ben was teaching her how to swim. That was our last summer at the beach house.”

“She kept looking up at Ben and saying, ‘Do you think it goes on and on and on forever?’ She sounded like an old woman, not an extremely precocious toddler. That whole week, she kept asking, again and again and again,” Sam says, watching my face carefully.

I slow my whirring brain and try to make sense of what happened to Ben, the fire and the noise and the screaming and the horror. It doesn’t make any sense. None of it will ever make sense.

But the picture of the man and the girl beside the ocean does. I take solace in the memory, and I’m almost able to feel the warmth of the sun, the grittiness of the sand beneath my feet. I can almost hear Ben’s deep voice and throaty laugh.

“And he kept saying that yes, every ocean goes on and on and on forever. Until you crushed her dreams by telling her that there is an end of the ocean,” I say, as Sam touches my hand.

I smile and turn my face to him. There’s a question in his eyes that he finally manages to put voice to.

“What took you so long to get here, Hals?”

The picture of Ben and Grace looms large above us. It makes it impossible for me to tell a lie.

“I was with Chris.”

“Please, Hallie, tell me that scumbag didn’t…”

“He’s not a scumbag.”

“He is.”

“I made my fair share of mistakes, too. You only picked my side because you needed a dancing partner and Chris has two left feet.”

Sam lets out a dramatic sigh. “Yep, that’s it. I picked you so that I wouldn’t get all embarrassed up in the club.” He grins at me and nudges my side. “What happened today?”

I can’t tell him and I can’t lie to him, so I focus my eyes on his deep brown ones and lift my hand slightly. He groans.

“Hallie. You know I want nothing more than for you to start living your life again. It’s what I want. It’s what Marie wants. It’s what your mom wants, and what Eva wants, and it’s what everyone else who cares about you wants. I can tell you right now that