melon baller, the late sun a smear down the far side and throwing a golden sunspot onto the calm, shallow body of water that rocked and shushed gently onto the beach.
‘This can’t be for real,’ she whispered. ‘Linus, are you remembering to breathe?’ she asked him, perfectly serious. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d forgotten to inhale and exhale when he’d been surprised. He’d once fainted when he’d thought he’d seen Lionel Messi walking past his school window. ‘. . . Linus?’
But if he was breathing, he certainly wasn’t listening; he was staring at something. She followed his gaze to find a man sitting on a rock at the far end of the beach, staring back at them.
No one spoke. It was perfectly obvious who he was. Hanna’s husband. Linus’s father.
She felt her heart rate trip and quicken as he got up and began walking towards them.
The man who had screamed from that hospital bed. The villain of the piece, putting his needs first.
Silhouetted, he raked a hand through his hair. The hair that her own fingers had combed. A baseball cap in his hand.
He stopped in front of them. The very last person she had wanted to see again. To see here.
Here.
Bell realized she was the one forgetting to breathe, her body reacting to the sight of him with a visceral shock. This was a disaster – it couldn’t be him. He couldn’t be Hanna’s ex. Linus’s father.
His eyes cast lightly over her with the same surprised zip of recognition, but then something else too, something she couldn’t quite grasp . . . But he looked away in the next instant; this moment wasn’t about her, or their stolen night together. His gaze settled heavily on Linus, weighted like an anchor.
She felt the moment swell and tighten as father and son looked at one another, both so changed and grown even from their last, disastrous meeting. She saw Linus’s shock at his father’s altered appearance. Gone were the shaved head and withered limbs, the sunken eyes and papery skin. The man before him now was tall and lithe; he had muscles and a suntan; he even had a few freckles on the bridge of his nose – like Linus. His trousers were rolled up at the ankles, but they were still wet, showing off brown feet. He looked well. He looked normal, nothing like the half-man, half-beast in that hospital bed.
A look that could only be described as wonder bloomed on his face. His eyes were shining, his mouth parted as he scanned his child almost like a robot, taking in all the changes, developments, likenesses, differences . . . His right hand was hovering forwards slightly and she knew he wanted to reach out and touch him. That he did not dare.
‘You’ve grown, Linus.’ His voice was hoarse.
‘Yes, sir.’ Linus sounded almost apologetic for the fact. Was it a betrayal to have grown – grown up – whilst this man, his father, had been sleeping? ‘. . . So have you.’
A half-smile cocked Emil’s mouth. ‘I’ve been trying.’ He gave a shrug. ‘I heard you were a fast runner, so I thought I should train.’
‘Who told you that?’
‘Your mamma. Is it true?’
Linus gave an embarrassed shrug and kicked at the sand.
‘Absolutely it is,’ Bell interjected, putting a hand on Linus’s shoulder and squeezing it. She could tell he was overwhelmed, now that the initial adrenaline burst was diffusing. ‘He’s the fastest boy in his year.’
Emil’s eyes narrowed with pride, never lifting off his boy as she spoke. As though she wasn’t really there. ‘You must get it from me, then. I was always the fastest boy in my year too.’
Linus glanced up at him, but instinctively stepped back. His interest was piqued, but Bell knew it was still far too soon, too hard for him to fathom that he ‘got anything’ from him, was biological kin to this stranger; that it was this man here that was his father and not Max, the only one he had ever known. The child had had only a day to absorb that fact, thanks to Emil’s bullying tactic to be reunited as soon as possible, whatever the fallout. They all needed to remember that. She did. Behind those good looks and that diffident, reserved charisma was a man who Hanna had warned her always got what he wanted.
‘Do you remember me?’
Linus nodded, looking even more uncertain. ‘In the hospital.’
‘Oh.’ Emil frowned. ‘I’m afraid . . . I don’t remember much