Page 77 of Take Me Away

KIT

Ican’t get the taste of her out of my mouth. I’m hoping you tell me… Could I have sounded any more twelve if I tried?

I can hear Maisie and Isla talking in Maisie’s room and there’s this solid ache inside of me that I can’t move around.

Her kiss. How can something be so different and yet still the same all at once?

I’m waiting for the guilt to awaken inside me, that slumbering monster that lives and breathes every day that I get to live my life with Maisie and Jess doesn’t, but it’s still quiet, slumbering. The framed picture of Jess, Maisie and me blinks at me from the wall above the sofa. Jess’s grin is so wide, the wind lifting her hair. Her gaze meets mine across the living room and there is no recrimination there, which doesn’t make sense. I just kissed another woman in her house.

Shaking my head, I climb the stairs, but with every tread I recall our conversation in Maggie’s old kitchen this morning. Could everything have been so different, if I’d just been brave enough to ask her to stay?

But what does that mean for the life I’ve lived? For Jess and me, and Maisie?

Isla always felt like the firefly I’d never be able to keep, shouldn’t be able to keep, too bright to trap in a jar. What’s that they say? If you love something, set it free?

I think whoever came up with that might have been cooked on some Class A.

What a mess. Ten years spent pretending not to care, and one taste of her mouth and I’ve unravelled.

On the landing I pause, listening, and peek in.

‘And this one,’ Maisie says, holding up a pale pink conch with reverence. She’s cross-legged, sitting by her pillows, while Isla is cross-legged at the other end of the bed. Between them are a scattering of Maisie’s favourite shells, and Isla is holding one up to the light, her attention mirroring my daughter’s as she takes in the tiger stripes on the rare shell Mais found down at St Agnes Bay. ‘It makes the ocean sound if you put it to your ear,’ Maisie is telling her, ‘even though it’s not really the ocean, it’s just the air moving around inside, but it sounds exactly like it.’

I watch from the doorway as Isla puts down the striped shell and takes the newly offered one, her eyes widening with exaggerated wonder as she holds it to her ear. The soft light from the bedroom lamp catches in her hair, turning it to liquid gold in the pink-and-blue-hued room my wife chose for our daughter.

‘You’re right,’ she says. ‘That’s incredible. The sea is always with you.’

Maisie beams, triumphant. ‘Dad found it for me. On the beach after that really big storm last year. He says it came all the way from the Caribbean.’

Isla glances up, catching me in the doorway. I’m sure her lips still look slightly swollen from our kiss. Or maybe that’s just my imagination.

I should regret it. I want to regret it. But watching her now, with that shell pressed to her ear, with my daughter’s complete adoration shining up at her, all I can think about is crossing the room and doing it again.

‘I should get going, it’s getting late,’ she says, returning the conch to Maisie’s hands. ‘Thank you for dinner. And for sharing your collection.’

‘No, wait! You can’t go yet, it’s not bedtime,’ Maisie insists, with all the determined authority of an eight-year-old making plans. ‘I still haven’t shown you my rock collection or my special mermaid book or⁠—’

‘Maisie.’ My voice comes out rougher than intended. ‘Put your PJs on and I’ll come and read you a bedtime story.’

Disappointment clouds my daughter’s face, but she nods with forced maturity. ‘Maybe another time?’

‘I’d like that,’ Isla says, rising from the bed. She smooths her hands down her jeans, a nervous gesture I remember from years ago. Some things never change. ‘The fish was delicious, Kit. Not at all cold. Thank you.’ The flash of her gaze, the quirk of her mouth does something twisting and uncomfortable to my stomach. Desire, so dormant, so deeply buried, blasts its way free, as an ache settles through me that’s almost eye-watering.

‘Anytime.’ The word escapes before I can consider its implication.

I follow her downstairs, aware of every inch of her. She grabs her jacket, shrugging it on in silence, and then I walk her to the door, hyperaware of each step, each breath, the careful distance she maintains between us. Maisie trails behind, chattering about her upcoming school week and something about her art teacher that I can’t focus on because all my attention is locked on Isla’s profile, the curve of her neck, the way she’s deliberately not looking directly at me.

‘Thanks again,’ she says at the door, finally meeting my eyes. ‘For everything. It was … nice.’

Her gaze drops to my mouth for the briefest second, a small hitch in her breathing. ‘I should—’ she starts, then falters. ‘I mean, I’ll see you … around.’

She brushes her fingertips against my forearm – a touch so light it might be imagined – and then she’s gone, limping slightly down the path towards Maggie’s cottage.

I stand in the doorway watching her go, a hollow feeling expanding in my chest.

My skin burning where she touched.

‘Right, PJs.’ I turn to Maisie, clearing my throat. ‘Teeth and into bed.’