“No! I did go to St. Maarten for a few years. I worked on the boats, but after a while it felt exactly the same as here, just with better weather, and a bit more French.” She laughs, then shrugs. “So I came home. But I was the one who was jealous.”
“But you had all those years with … our father.”
“Yes. And when he was great, he was great. But nothing is ever how you think it is looking at it from the outside.”
“She’s right,” says Jason. “Life is where you look, right?”
Julia frowns. “What do you mean?”
“I mean look for the bad, you’ll find more of the bad, look for the good, you’ll find more of the good.”
A smile spreads on her face. “I like it. Life is where you look.”
“On that upbeat note”—I stand up—“let’s call the girls and go in for dinner.”
* * *
Dinner is wonderful, in every way. The food is delicious, everyone is relaxed, the girls don’t just sit at the end, having their own private conversation, but join in ours, as equals, and I think how perfect this evening is, how happy I am right now, how much I wish this could continue.
It feels like a perfect little slice of life, one that won’t last, that can’t last. We’ll go back to London in two days, back to our flat, and Jason will go back to his, and there will be no more family dinners, no more hanging out on sun porches talking about nothing in particular, and I will go back to being as desperately lonely as I have been since the moment we split up.
Jason being here has been the best and the worst thing imaginable. Every time I look at him I feel a mixture of love and pain. He’s here, but he’s not mine. He’s here, but he doesn’t want me.
Or does he? Because there have been moments these last few days when I’ve really wondered, moments when I am convinced there is chemistry between us, that all is not lost, that we may be able to find our way back to each other after all.
The more time we spend together, the easier it is, the more fun we seem to be having. I can’t believe it’s all about to be over, and I wonder if there’s any chance, if something may happen before we leave.
Oh God! Listen to me! I sound like a teenager. I feel like a teenager. Giddy with happiness at my crush finally paying attention to me. The fact that my crush happens to be my ex-husband feels irrelevant, other than that he belongs with me, we belong with each other, with Annie.
At 9:30 Julia says she has to go. She thanks me for a wonderful evening, hugs us all, and leaves. Trudy decides to stay for a final sleepover with Annie, and I pull out a box of DVDs I found in a cabinet in the living room, so they can curl up on the sofa and watch movies. What a terrible thing, I think, to be grateful for the accident, grateful that it has forced the two of them to be home, quiet, to do something safe where I can keep an eye on them.
I tuck a blanket around them and go into the kitchen to make popcorn. Sam leaves to go meet Eddie somewhere for a late-night drink, and Jason comes in, walks up behind me as I’m shaking the pan, waiting to hear the kernels start to explode, and I am completely still, remembering how he used to do this, used to come up behind me while I was cooking and slip his arms around my waist, rest his head on my shoulder to see what I was doing, nuzzle into my neck to make me laugh.
I am holding my breath, frozen with anticipation, waiting for those arms to slip around my waist as I am so sure they will. I can feel him, right behind me, feel his body heat, as he leans his head forward, until it is almost on my shoulder, but not touching, and I know he feels it too, and I don’t know whether to turn, whether this is the moment he might kiss me. I am completely frozen, I am sure he is too, and then, suddenly, he backs off.
“It smells delicious,” he says, and the only thing I