Page 42 of Slanting Towards the Sea
THIRTY-NINE
THE DAY WE’RE SUPPOSED to sign the contract happens to fall on the summer solstice, the longest and brightest day of the year.
I park the car on Branimir’s Coast and walk over the bridge to meet Asier on the town’s main square.
This is the first time we’re seeing each other in person since that night in his hotel room almost two months ago.
He stands out against the ocher building behind him, in his white shirt, sleeves rolled to the elbows.
As I make my way to him across the full square, he gives me a knowing smile, one that’s referencing all our shared moments, texts, and touches.
One that’s saying, There are so many people in this square, but you’re the one I’m waiting for.
The one I’m excited to see. It strikes me, the stark difference between this image and how he looked the first time I walked toward him, all foreign and cold.
He was uncharted territory then, one I felt insecure treading, but now I’m approaching him like a place I’ve been to dozens of times on vacation.
Not quite mine, but familiar, with a bit of shared history between us.
“You okay?” he asks on approach, because he knows today will be difficult.
I’m putting my signature on the contract that will take Lovorun from my family forever.
It won’t be my baba’s place anymore, the quaint little hamlet where my roots were steadily intertwined with the rocky land.
It will be someone else’s hotel. An investment.
A business acquisition with an infinity pool.
“I’ll be fine,” I say. The truth is, I’m so empty I’m almost weightless. Deciding was the hard part. Now all I want is for it to be over and done with.
The throng of tourists all but carry us in the direction of the public notary office.
Bits of sentences in French, German, Italian, Polish, and English come at me like small darts from all directions, until my own town feels alien to me.
Asier takes my hand as if he’s sensed this disorientation.
I stare at our bunched fingers as we walk.
I didn’t take him for the hand-holding type.
Surreal, that the person I’m handing Lovorun to is the person comforting me for the loss of it.
At the public notary’s office, things go so smoothly it almost feels like a letdown.
In the days leading up to this, I obsessed over how the signing would go, terrified I wouldn’t be able to hold it together, that I would start sobbing when they gave me the document, then rush out of there, throwing torn pieces of it in the air behind me, leaving Asier bewildered again.
But when we walk in, everything runs mechanically, a legal conveyer belt.
We wait in line at the crowded reception.
We chat about Asier’s son visiting him last weekend as they print out the document.
I tell him about my new business plan as they slide the document under my hand, and I sign it with the most basic three-kuna blue pen.
The clerk takes the document to the public notary for verification while Asier asks me where I’m taking him to eat, and before we know it, we’re walking out with the contract signed, verified, and enclosed in a plastic case, and Lovorun no longer belongs to my family.