Effie held out his arms and guided Julianna into them. “I’m going to walk out a way, beyond where the waves are cresting. It seems counterintuitive, but the waves will be gentler out there. I won’t let you go.”
“All right,” she said, and he set off with Julianna, his Jules, in his arms. How extraordinary.
He found a good spot and held her lightly, letting her feel the rocking of the waves. “If you tip your head back, fill your lungs with air, and hold your breath, you may be able to float on your own.”
“Let me try,” she said. “But don’t go anywhere.”
“I shan’t.” If only he never had to. “You’re doing it!”
She was floating perfectly, so cleverly and thoroughly had she taken his instructions.
A big wave hit, and she gasped. He could see her beginning to panic. He grabbed her, encouraging her to relax back into his arms. “You’re all right.”
They stayed like that for a while, Effie endeavoring to hold Jules tightly enough to buffer the worst of the waves but lightly enough that she might feel their motion. He wanted to ask her what she was thinking about, but he held his tongue.
“The dipper held me like this in Brighton,” she said, startling him by answering the question he hadn’t asked. “It reminded me then, as it does now, of a time when I was young, and ill, and my father rocked me.”
“Is it a happy memory? I suppose not, if you were ill.”
“I . . . don’t know. I was so shocked by it—it came into my mind seemingly out of nowhere—that I didn’t classify it.” She had kept her eyes closed while she spoke, and the furrow in her brow deepened. “I miss him.”
“Oh, Jules, he sounds wonderful.” His heart clenched. “How lovely—and lucky—to have a memory of someone holding you up like that.”
She opened her eyes and regarded him silently for a long while. “It is. It is also wonderful to have someone hold you up under a sunrise.” She smiled. He wanted to flatter himself that she was smiling at him, but more likely it was merely the lightening sky that she found pleasing. It was streaked with pink and yellow, a formless watercolor.
“I have a painting of you at home,” he said, though he had no idea why. “Or rather, I have a painting of the idea of you.”
He expected a big reaction—an exclamation or an expression of disbelief—but she merely said, “What am I doing in it?”
“Nothing. You’re standing against a sky the color of chartreuse, looking at me.” He paused, wondering if he ought to explain what he meant by “looking at me,” but decided she would understand. “I thought of it because now you are here, looking at me, and there is a pink and orange sky. I almost feel as if I have painted this scene into being, paintedyouinto being.”
“And yet,Iam the one who came to Brighton looking foryou.”
“Perhaps we painted each other into being.”
“I am not an artist.”
“Perhaps we dreamt each other into being.”
She smiled again. “Chartreuse like the liqueur? The sky may be many unusual colors”—she hitched a chin at the paintbox sunrise above them—“but I have never seen a green one.”
“I don’t know, except that it just came out that way.”
“Mm.”
“I blame you.”
“Me!” she said with mock indignation.
“Yes, I think you made it happen somehow. You bewitched my paintbrush from afar.”
“Drat. You’ve caught me.”
She shivered. They should get out of the water.
“Swimming—or floating—feels like . . .” She trailed off, her forehead wrinkling while she searched for words. “It feels like freedom.”
“Precisely,” he said. “The weightlessness of one’s body conferred by immersion seems to lead to an analogous mental state.”
