“You see down there?”
Nicholas motions over the cliffside, in the direction of the beach far below. I follow his eyes toward the gorgeous cliffside, green and lush and cavernous. Homes dot the hillside—their old French architecture and Mediterranean roofs, windows looking out bright and wide over the Mediterranean Sea.
“I do…”
“Frank’s is one of the only houses closer to the water,” he says. “Can you see down that far?”
I roll down the window and lean out a bit, scanning the cliffside and the rocks far below. And I can make it out down by the water’s edge. There are train tracks, and what looks like a small station beside them, a few lone houses farther down the road, stunning and isolated. And that beachfront—the bright blue water against the sand—completely untouched. It’s so beautiful that I could forget what we are doing here. Almost.
“I can see what drew him here,” I say. “The serenity, the peace. A perfect antidote, I’d imagine, to how he was living.”
“Certainly a lot worse places to try to be a better person,” he says.
“Is that what he’s been doing here?”
“Maybe in part,” Nicholas says.
But his voice tightens as he says this, and I see it flash in his eyes before he can hide it. The anger there. The anger that, after all this time, Nicholas is forced to be here, relitigating the safety of the people that matter the most to him.
“You think that Frank has that kind of conscience?” I ask.
Nicholas doesn’t hesitate. “No,” he says. “I’m just hoping that I do.”
Eight Years Ago
Frank pulled the car over at the small train station, by the side of the road, a rocky beach visible in the distance. It was an unassuming little train station—a two-story red building. The only sign was a plaque near the front door.ÈZE-SUR-MER STATION.
“Let’s walk,” Frank said to Nicholas. “I want to show you something.”
They headed toward that rocky beach, Nicholas reluctantly following him. Frank had been in France on a family vacation for the better part of August. He was staying at that beautiful villa in Cap Ferrat—the one he’d taken Nicholas’s family to all those years ago, back when Jenny was still with them. Back when Meredith was still with them. Their wives. All their collective kids. A lifetime ago.
For this extended vacation, only Frank’s oldest daughter had joined him. Quinn and her boys. Frank had invited Nicholas to join them as well—Nicholas and Charlie and the twins.
At first, Nicholas had declined. For one thing, it was the first anniversary of Meredith’s death, and Nicholas was planning to spend it in Tuscany on the small farm where his wife’s grandmother had grown up. And where his wife was now buried.
Meredith and Nicholas had always talked about spending time there when Kate and Charlie were grown. That was always the plan. It wasn’t the plan for Meredith to be buried there before they could.
And it certainly wasn’t conceivable—not to Nicholas—that his beloved Kate was also buried there, beside her mother.
But this was what had happened. That was Nicholas’s reality. Which was partially why, at the last minute, Nicholas decided to fly over and meet Frank instead of going to the farm. To take Frank up on the invite to the South of France.
He couldn’t face that farm in Italy, not yet. He couldn’t spend his days alone with the two gravestones of the people who mattered most to him.
Was it simply that it would make him feel too sad? Maybe that was part of it. But that wasn’t all of it. How could he explain it? He felt like he didn’t deserve it yet—the respite that special farm provided. He felt like he could only spend time there when he could truly rest. But his granddaughter was still missing. His heart was still shattered. Nicholas was nowhere near rest, at least not yet.
“This is it,” Frank said.
They were at the start of the rocky beach. They crossed the road, followed the unlined crosswalk, and headed to a hiking trail—a sign beside it, naming it.SENTIER NIETZSCHE. The Nietzsche Path.
“This hike here will take us straight up into the village of Èze,” Frank said. “It’s about three miles, give or take. But you won’t feel it.”
“Looks like I’ll feel it.”
“Not at all. I can tell you that. Most gorgeous path you’ve ever walked. What do you think? You up for a walk?”
“Right now?”
“What’s better than now? There are a group of octogenarians who swear by it. They walk the path every day. The three miles up to the village, then back down. One of them is pushing ninety. It’s the path and this town and the air here. They swear that it will keep you young forever.”
