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The quirky design choice is to ensure Anthony will be able to tell the difference between the cabinets by touch, one day. Tears slip down my face and I’m grateful he’s not there to see them. I have the distinct feeling that Anthony gave me a gift tonight, by telling me. Life is unfair and ephemeral and yet so heartbreakingly beautiful, and I hope he’ll see that one day, eyesight or no.
17
Summer
Anthony’s mood is difficult to read at dinner. His eyes contain a challenge, as if he’s daring me to regard him differently. Daring me to treat him with anything that resembles pity.
“So windsurfing is done,” he says, looking at me over the rim of his glass. “But there’s one thing on your bucket list you can do here that you haven’t. Not yet.”
“There is?”
“Skinny-dipping in the ocean.”
Keeping his gaze, I put my napkin on the table. Put down the chopsticks and push up from the chair. His eyes track every movement and I let that steady me, despite the pounding of my heart. “You’re right,” I say.
He watches as I walk the short distance to the patio doors. As I push them open. The beach is covered in darkness, but that does nothing to stop the sound of waves lapping against the shore in invitation. Behind me, there’s the sound of another chair being pushed back.
I lose my nerve halfway down his patio steps.
Anthony’s deep voice rings out behind me, and not for the first time, I wonder if he’s capable of reading my mind. “It’s pitch dark out here,” he says. “If there’s moonlight to see by, it’s not enough for me. I won’t be able to see you.”
My feet sink down into the still-warm sand and I pull off my dress in one smooth motion, letting it drop onto the beach. The wind feels soft against my skin.
“All right,” I murmur. “Let’s do this, then.”
The rustle of clothing makes me turn my head. Anthony’s hands are moving over the buttons of his shirt, undoing them one by one.
Fire shoots through my veins. “You’re going swimming too?”
His hands pause. “If I may.”
“Yes. Yes, of course.” I don’t need to add that my eyes are good enough in the moonlight that I’ll be able to make out his form.
We both know that.
I look at him as I reach up to undo the clasp of my bra. He doesn’t look back at me.
He can’t see at all,I realize. The light out here is enough for me to make out the shapes and contours of things, but what had he told me? Night vision was the first to go.
“I’m almost done,” I tell him.
He nods and reaches for his pants, and if he can be out here, if he can tell me about his diagnosis… then I can damn well do this.
My heart pounds as I drop my panties and stand naked as the day I was born on Anthony’s beach in Montauk. The ocean is completely dark, ready to swallow us whole.
“I’m ready,” I say.
“Let’s, then.”
We walk side by side out to the water, and I keep sneaking glances at him, but he doesn’t seem to need any assistance. Maybe he’d bite my head off if I offered.
The water feels like ice around my ankles. “Wow. That’s cold.”
“Hesitating makes it worse.”
“True. But maybe this is something we should do in, like, the Cayman Islands?”
Anthony snorts. “It’ll feel better in a bit.”
