“Yes,” she says but she doesn’t elaborate.
“You didn't want to be married to him anymore?”
“No, I didn’t. He was,is, a good man. He took great care of me and supported me in lots of different ways. But...” She stops. Shaking her head, Jenna finally puts the watermelon slice in her mouth and sucks so hard I can hear the juice get pulled out of the fruit.
“But...” I prompt her after a few seconds.
She nods as she quickly chews. “I wanted things he didn’t want.”
“The sex things? The kink?”
“Not only that, but also...” Jenna looks up at me then as if remembering something she forgot. “Oh, Marty, this is not a great first-date conversation.”
“Who said this was afirstdate? I think when you've shagged like rabbits like we did last night and done some excellent wet-humping in the sea together, well, then we've already moved on from that. Also, we've had two sunset dates together,” I point out. “I would therefore say this is at least a fourth or fifth date.”
“Sometimes I feel like you just say more words than is really necessary so your accent distracts me from thinking up counter-arguments,” she says, with more head shakes.
“That wasn't what I was doing, but I can't promise you I won't in the future.” I wink at her. “You like my accent, huh? I like yours too. All those prim and proper English sounds.”
“You're doing it again.” She points the watermelon rind at me.
“And you're hoping I forget my question, but I haven't. Tell me.”
She narrows her eyes on me. “You really want to know?”
“I do.” I nod.
She puts her sunglasses back on then but stays looking at me. “It wasn’t just the kink.” She sighs, and it sounds almost guttural. “I changed my mind about children. I decided Ididwant to have children with him.”
I don't mean to fall silent. I'm just noticing how her body is different, her torso bent forward over her legs, her shoulders sloped and her hands stroking her shins, almost as if to comfort herself.
“And he didn't?”
“No,” she says and stares out at the blue sea again. “We always said no to children. From one of our first dates, actually. And that's how I felt then, and it was how I felt for a long time. But a few years ago, I changed my mind.”
“Why?”
“Why did I change my mind?” She scoffs, looking at me. “All the usual reasons. My friends started having kids, and my goodness they were cute. Well, some of them were. Some were ugly little buggers, but others... I mean, have you ever cuddled a helpless little newborn baby, or heard them sneeze, or sniffed the top of their head? You probably haven't, actually. But it will happen, and you better be ready for how that makes you feel. So yeah, I guess my ovaries woke up. I also found myself looking at my life and realising the only thing I had to focus on was my career and that was getting harder and more conflicted as my own relationship – and specifically, our sex life - stagnated quite a bit. Also, at the time, I still loved Robert. He was a good partner for a long time, so I thought he'd be a brilliant father. And stupidly, stupidly, part of me even thought that having a child might bring us closer together... but he was firm and resolute about not wanting children, no matter how I felt.”
I swallow and have to ask the only question that seems to matter after all that new information. “Do you still love him?”
Jenna looks back to the sea when she speaks again. “A part of me will always love him. In the same way part of me will always be in love with Jonathan Kennet and Tomas Dobrowski, the first and second boys I fell in love with. In the sameway I'll always be the eleven-year-old girl sitting in the corner of a library learning about erections for the first time in a Judy Blume book. And I will always be the fifteen-year-old who read a Christina Rosetti poem at her mother’s funeral. I'll always be the sixteen-year-old losing her virginity in the back of Liam Crowe's VW Polo. So yes, I'll always be the woman who fell in love with Robert. But right now, I am not his, and he is not mine, and my heart...” Jenna lies back then, stretches her hands above her head and turns her head to look at me. “My heart has never felt as free as it does now, which is so bloody exciting but also, utterly, utterly terrifying.”
I clear some of the plates and then lie down on my side next to her. I have every intention of lying back and staring up at the few clouds that decorate the blue sky but before I do I realise there is another question I am curious about. It's nowhere near as important, but I feel like I need to ask. “And... kids? How do you feel about them now?”
Again, Jenna takes her time to answer. “Can I say that I really don't know? Because that is my honest answer. I think maybe I do still want them, but I'm definitely not ready to do that alone. I'm also not ready to rush into another relationship and get pregnant immediately. So, yeah, I just don't know.”
I wait a moment before responding. I suddenly don't want to say a single thing that could make me sound so much younger than her wise and informed years, but I also want to be honest, and I think what I have to say could help her. “I think not knowing is okay. I don't know how I feel most of the time.” I smile down at her.
“You know more than you realise,” Jenna says and her hands come up to comb my hair. “And you're right, not knowing is totally okay.”
I lean over to kiss her lips, tasting champagne, watermelon and strawberries - all the sweetest, juiciest things in life.
Then I turn and lie down on my back, my head touching the side of hers, and I close my eyes. The calm that washes over me as I feel the sun's heat tightening the skin on my body is enough that I feel almost like I could fall asleep. Just after I remind myself that I probably shouldn't because then I'll burn as red as a boiled lobster, a very clear thought slices into my mind waking me up.
Startled and alert, I can't let go of it, but nor do I want to hold on to it too tight because it unsettles me as much as it soothes me. Because if Jenna hadn't got divorced and Arnie hadn't died, I wouldn't be lying where I'm lying now, beside someone I want to know for much, much longer than the days we are going to share on this island in the sunshine.
Chapter Twenty-Six
