Page 16 of Slanting Towards the Sea

FIFTEEN

THE DAY AFTER THE conversation with the Italian scientist turns out to be one of those glorious Dalmatian days that fill you with gratitude for life so deep it’s almost painful.

The air clean and fragrant after the storm, the sun high in the sky, the colors as lively as if it were late spring already.

I’ve been looking forward to having coffee with Tara while I’m in Split.

I don’t see her as often as I used to, not since she married Stipe and moved here after she’d learned she was pregnant.

It always seems so recent, until she mentions that Marko, that fated baby, is now in college himself, like we had been when he was conceived.

We meet on Split’s riva, the sea promenade adorned with a string of coffee shops that look over the seaport. The view shoots toward the faraway islands, ships big and small cutting through the tranquil sea in between.

Tara rocks their youngest on her knee, a three-year-old daughter who too came as a surprise in the moment when they were so close to finishing their job raising their sons.

Tara always rolls her eyes when she tells the story, but it’s obvious how enthralled she is by her daughter.

“There is something about girls,” she says, “that engages a more tender part of you.”

I don’t tell her that I wanted a girl, and always thought I would have one.

I also never told her about the morning before her wedding, when Vlaho and I went to Kaufland to buy a greeting card, and, as we passed the baby aisle, I slipped in, drawn by the doll-sized garments in pale blues and pinks.

“Maybe I could get her something,” I said to Vlaho.

I had already bought Tara a baby swing, I didn’t need to buy anything else.

But I wanted to feel the clothes—Tara’s pregnancy had left me with a sense of unexpected longing.

I picked up a pink onesie with a mushroom print.

The fabric was soft to the touch; I could almost smell the baby’s powdery scent as I brought it to my nose.

When we came home, I put it in a box under my bed, the intention of giving it to Tara only an afterthought.

To this day it’s there, though I take it out only when I am in the mood of completely undoing myself.

I don’t share this with Tara, because she is different than I am, less emotion-driven, more reasonable than I could ever be.

“Why do you still cling to him?” she asked once a few years back, her tone a little annoyed, when I mentioned Vlaho in a context I can’t even remember now.

“You’ve been divorced for years.” A rotten feeling surged up my throat, a sense of being deeply flawed for catering to these emotions, for being a part of his life and allowing him to be a part of mine.

How could I explain what Vlaho meant to me?

How could I illustrate what it was like for someone like me—someone who’d kept herself so shut for so long—to be unpacked so fully by someone, and be loved for what he found inside?

How can I explain even now, years after our relationship ended, that being loved by him, being loved like that, is the most life-affirming experience I’ve ever had?

I’d made light of Tara’s question at the time because I knew she’d never understand, and made a pact with myself never to mention Vlaho to her again.

Because, ultimately, she was right.

Vlaho and I broke up, while Tara is going on twenty years with the guy who didn’t think to pull out.

Now when Tara asks me, “What’s up?” I smile and rattle the little stuffed owl her daughter insists we pass back and forth. I talk about my dad, the looming foreclosure of the hotel, and how I might need to find a way to sell it if I can get him on board with that.

“You know,” Tara says, breaking a cracker for her daughter, “Stipe is supervising a reconstruction of an old building here in town that’s being turned into a hotel.

He’s meeting the investor as we speak. As I have it, they’ve been looking to buy more property in Croatia.

If you want, I can call Stipe, see if the investor might be interested to meet with you. ”

She dials her husband, and within three minutes, it’s done, a meeting arranged between the investor and me, without us ever exchanging a word. A strange combination of fear and excitement pools inside me. What if I mess it up? What if I get it right? What if getting it right is messing it up?