Page 52 of Slanting Towards the Sea

FORTY-EIGHT

IT ALWAYS HAPPENS IN a single day. A storm sweeps in, seemingly like any other summer shower, but afterward, the temperature doesn’t quite bounce back, and the sea nibbles at your skin when you go for a swim.

The colors dull, even the falling sun’s orange and pinks are filtered through a thin layer of gray.

The cicadas sing without the usual ardor, each day fewer of them in the choir, as they die one by one after mating.

The subtle signs of the world sputtering to a stop.

Dad’s not been well. On bad days, he barely gets up, and refuses to eat anything other than oatmeal.

When he gets like that, I would gladly fry him some bacon and French fries, and salt his tomatoes until they turn white if it meant he’d eat something.

But whatever I make, he just pushes the plate away and goes back to his room.

It’s scary how small and depthless his eyes are, like a very old person’s at the end of their life.

He is stoic about his agony, but when he goes to his room some of it lingers in his wake, and I just sit there basting in it, unable to cry.

The administrative work of closing Dad’s company is almost a full-time job.

Everyone I know advises me not to pay off some of the debts and let the company go bankrupt, as liquidating it is a more complex, costly, and time-consuming process.

But I would go against everything I believe, everything my father stands for, if I didn’t do things the proper way, so I make sure I attend meetings with attorneys and court dates, and pay fees, and submit all the documents needed to shut the company down.

Asier finds this hilarious. One more of Croatia’s quirks.

He calls me most evenings from his apartment in London, or a hotel room in Greece, or Portugal.

We talk for hours. When I’m done droning on about the horrors of Croatian bureaucracy, he tells me that he bought a couple of mini olive and lemon trees for his apartment and asked his neighbor, the older woman who has that dog he always sees when he’s on his balcony, to water them when he’s gone.

“She’d do that?” I ask. I can’t even make my brother come and take care of our dad so that I can visit Asier in London.

But Asier is so good at connecting with people.

He does it with such ease. “She was happy to do it.” A warmth wraps around me, because I ribbed him for not committing to anything, not even to a houseplant, and this is his way of showing me he’s doing just that.

But then I feel like I’m cheating, because I’m in a relationship with this man—that’s what this is, a relationship, even if we haven’t called it that—and it might be going somewhere, and I like where it’s going, but I’m withholding a crucial part of myself from him, I’m not in this completely, the way I ought to be.

“Guess where I am?” he asks me when he video-calls one day. It looks like he’s in a gym. He has some sort of harness over his T-shirt, and his forehead is beaded in sweat.

“No idea, but I’m sure you’ll tell me.”

“I’m in Bristol.” He turns the camera toward a gray wall peppered with colorful handholds. “Taking my son and his friends rock climbing. They made me do it too.”

“I didn’t know you were susceptible to peer pressure,” I taunt, but my lungs tingle with warmth.

Asier told me heights make him uneasy. We were on Zadar’s bedem, the city wall, overlooking the entry to the old town, with only a thigh-high barrier protecting us from a ten-meter drop, and I told him drunk tourists have been known to take a plunge.

He couldn’t go near and look down. It wasn’t a phobia, he said, but being high up made his hands sweat and his vision swim.

And here he is rock climbing to get closer with his son, all because I made that comment in his hotel room months ago.

“I’d love to introduce you to him,” he says.

“What? Right now?”

He nods. He’s naughty that way, likes to keep me on my toes.

“Are you sure?” My pulse beats in my temples. Meeting his son would level us up to a type of seriousness we haven’t acknowledged yet. That I’m not sure I want to acknowledge, given the circumstances.

“I’ve met his friends. It’s only fair to let him meet one of mine.”

I swallow, steady myself inside my body. “So, is that what I am, a friend?”

Asier focuses his gaze on the screen, the look of a man who knows what he wants, and I’m it.

“A very good friend. The best.” He calls Iker over.

My palms sweat as if I’ve climbed the rock myself.

Iker appears on the screen, his dark hair swept onto one side, his eyes the same pallid green as his father’s.

“Hi, Iker,” I say, too aware of my accent. “Your dad told me a lot about you.” A cliché if there ever was one, but also the truth.

“Hiya,” he says. “Nice to meet you.” Despite having dark hair, he has the typical British complexion, fair and prone to blushing. His cheeks are pitted with acne, and I have the urge to tell him, I know it looks bad now, but I promise one day some girl will find it very sexy .

“So I see you got your dad to climb up the wall,” I say.

“Yeah, suppose I did.” His British accent is nothing like his dad’s untraceable one. “It took a while to talk him into it.”

“I’ll bet. He told me he was afraid of heights.”

“Not afraid,” Asier intervenes from behind. “Just… not a fan.”

Iker and I laugh. A couple of Iker’s friends yell for him to come over, and he excuses himself.

“He’s nice,” I say. “And handsome, like his father.”

“He’s a good boy,” Asier says, looking after him. “His mother did a good job.” He focuses back on me. “Thank you, Ivona. I know I sort of sprang this on you. But I don’t only want to insert myself into his life. I want to make him a part of mine as well, you know?”

“I know,” I say.

After we hang up, these are the words that stay with me.

I am a part of Asier’s life. Important enough to be introduced to his son.

A month ago, this would’ve made me happy.

Proud to have the attention—affection—of a man like him.

But now, I’m not sure what I want, and that seems unfair to Asier, even if he’s in the dark about it.

As if on cue, a text fires on my phone. It’s from Vlaho. The first one since we made love three weeks ago. It says, “Fali? mi.”

I miss you too , I think. But I don’t get to type it before the next text arrives. “Can I see you tonight?”