* * *

At first, so many things about the holiday seem like bad omens.

The evening flight out of Gatwick is delayed, which means that by the time we land, the car-rental office has long been closed. We are met instead in the depths of the parking lot by a shady-looking guy with a mustache as patchy as his paperwork, who yawns as he hands over the keys to our Porsche Cayenne. When my husband finds the child seat, he tells the mustached man that there’s been a mistake and asks him to remove it. But Mustache Man refuses, claiming he has nowhere to put it, so we are forced to drive to our hotel with an empty toddler seat sitting in the back like a ghost.

We pull up in front of the hotel. The girl on reception is outrageously pregnant. Her belly ripples and twitches as she takes our details and talks us through the facilities.

As I finally start to drift off that night, a baby in the next room begins to cry and doesn’t stop. I emerge from the hotel the next morning, cranky and bleary-eyed, to find that the building next door houses a designer boutique that sells toys and clothes and little shoes and lunch boxes.

My husband is horrified, his face becoming increasingly red and angry as the universe sees fit to hurl into our path painful reminder after painful reminder. But I know what to do. I close my eyes and summon my superpowers. I shut down my mind and retreat, leaving my empty body to bob along behind him like a balloon on a string. Nothing can get to me. And nothing does, until the day I am unexpectedly left alone.

And then, all the bad omens start to look like good ones.

* * *

I am pulling back the sheets and climbing into bed when he opens the balcony doors and steps back into the room.

“Can I talk to you for a minute?” he says, tapping his phone against the heel of his hand. “That was Verity. There’s a problem with one of our exits.”

I stare at him.

He sits on the edge of the bed. “Apparently it’s not going to go ahead without me. I’m so sorry, but it looks like I’m going to have to pop back to London. Just for a couple of days.”

I scratch at my wrists. The scars are almost a year old now, but they still itch.

“You don’t have to come, though. I mean, I’m sure you’d rather not.…” He trails off.

I nod. I think about going back to London and feel ill.

“We’re due to check out on Monday anyway, so it’s not cutting the holiday short by much. But it does mean we’ll have to scrap the road trip.” He takes my hand. “I suggest you take the car back to the airport and hop on a flight to Bordeaux. I’ll organize a car from there.”

“I want to do the road trip,” I hear myself say.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I know it’s disappointing.”

“No. I mean I’ll do it on my own.”

“Oh, I don’t know.” He rakes his hands through his hair, a recently developed habit. “I think I’d be more comfortable if you flew.”

“No, I want to.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I could do with some time to myself.”

He rubs his chin. “It’s a long drive. Are you sure you’re up to it?”

“Honestly, I’ll be fine. I could even do those stops you talked about. I’ve always wanted to see Marseilles.”

He stops. Smiles at me. “God, it’s good to hear you talking like this. You haven’t taken an interest in anything for so long.”

It’s true, I haven’t. But Wonder Woman is back. And she can do anything.

* * *

I wake up to an empty room singing with silence. His suitcase is gone, his side of the bed cold. The balcony door stands ajar, and the curtains billow like wings, an imprint of my dream.

I order room service and eat breakfast on the balcony, chewing eggs without tasting them. I watch as a group of girls in short skirts cross the road. Behind them, a silver-haired couple in matching pastel polo shirts strolls arm in arm. A woman in a tan dress and heels pulls a yappy dog on a leash. Farther down the street, a family emerges from a side street. Five kids in a ragtag procession led by a skinny redhead with a mean face. The redhead stomps toward the pedestrian crossing, yanking on the arm of a scrawny boy, no older than nine, wearing a baseball cap. Two slightly shorter boys—twins?—trail behind, followed by a chunky five-or six-year-old. And at the very back, a smaller girl toddles along in a purple swimsuit.

I focus in on her. I’m five stories up but I can see every detail. She waddles like a duckling, her footsteps flat and irregular. Copper-colored curls bounce around her face as she turns her head from side to side, taking everything in: the traffic, the tourists, the buildings, the shops. She tries to keep up with her siblings but gets distracted, first by a dog and then by something small on the ground. She stops to pick it up, and I feel my body twitch. “Don’t pick that up, sweetie,” I murmur. “It’s yucky.” I wince as the little girl pops whatever it is into her mouth.

Ahead, the redheaded woman spins around and throws up her arms in frustration. The twins are fighting. Letting go of the eldest boy, she stalks back to the end of the line and pushes one of them in the back with one hand. Meanwhile, the little girl in the swimsuit has stopped to stare at the souvenir stalls on the other side of the road. Colorful balls and whirling windmills are stacked under red-and-white–striped awnings. She points, mesmerized, and edges toward the curb.

I grip the balcony railing hard.

Blissfully unaware of the cars hurtling by in both directions, the child squats and puts her hands down, steadying herself on the curb. She lowers one plump foot onto the asphalt, and I choke back a terrified sob—and then a man in a Hawaiian shirt bounds to the rescue amid a cacophony of horns. Grabbing the little girl’s arm, he hauls her back onto the pavement. I go slack with relief.

The ginger woman, having heard the commotion, is coming back now. Completely ignoring the stranger who has saved her daughter’s life, she bends down and, sticking her big red face right up close, yells so loud that the sound carries all the way to my balcony. Then she draws back her hand and whacks the little girl hard across her legs.

And that’s all it takes. I see her anguished little face and feel the sting of the blow on my own skin, and suddenly I’m alive and fizzing, rushing up and out of what feels like a long tunnel, gasping for breath as if I’ve just been pulled from a watery grave.

* * *

Gripping the handle of my suitcase, I drag it down to the lobby. I pay my bill and request that the valet bring my car around to the street parking spaces.

“I hope you enjoyed your stay with us, madame,” said the receptionist. “Stay safe in the storm.”

“Storm?”

“Oui, madame. There is a storm forecast this morning.”

I glance out of the window at the clear blue sky. “Well, there’s no sign of it yet. I think I’ll head to the beach for one last swim.”

“Very good. Will you be leaving your bag with the concierge?”

“No, thank you, I’ll take it to the car.”

The Porsche is brought to a side street just behind the hotel. After stowing my suitcase in the back, I sling my beach bag over my shoulder and walk across the road to the beach, stopping in at the U Express on the corner for a box of strawberries.

The beach is already busy, surprisingly so for a Monday morning.

I pick my spot carefully. I lay on my sun lounger and put on my sunglasses. I just want to watch her. I just want to be close.

With her copper curls and milky skin, she doesn’t look exactly like my baby, not at first. She’s older than Aurelia was, but even so, there are similarities. The angle at which she cocks her head. The way she tucks her chin into her chest when something catches her attention. The petal-like lower lip, the position of her ears, the way she sticks out her elbows when she walks, like a busy housewife. No time to stop, things to do, places to be.

I pull the strawberries from my bag—Aurelia’s favorite. I set the box on my lounger and pick the biggest, juiciest one. I hold it out and press a finger to my lips. Sssh, it’s a secret. No one sees; most of the surrounding sunbathers have their eyes closed, and the redhead is too busy swiping and scrolling on her phone. The little curly-haired child pads over to me, eyeing the strawberry. I smile, and she edges closer. Finally, she plucks up the courage and swipes it from my palm. Then, spying the box, helps herself to another, then another, stuffing them in her mouth until the juice runs down her chin. At perhaps two and a half, maybe three years old, she is already a practiced thief.

“Come here, strawberry girl,” I say, reaching out with a napkin to wipe the evidence off her face—and my heart stops. Her eyes. They’re totally different colors, like two gemstones: one tawny gold, and the other the color of shallow seawater.

Aurelia’s face comes back to me with an almost physical force; those glittering, complex browns and then that little quarter patch of blue, the little rock pool.