Though it’s just after breakfast in Myanmar, Caleb’s still in bed, propped up bare-chested against the headboard. He gave me a little virtual tour when they first arrived a few weeks ago—his room is wood-paneled, with a view of the hotel swimming pool, the tips of the temple spires just visible over the treetops beyond. I like to imagine him there sometimes, as I’m falling asleep—going over his photographs, updating his blog, sending messages to friends and loved ones.
“Hey,” I say. “I miss you.”
“Hello, you.” He seems to get more handsome every time we speak. His eyes are sparkling with the thrill of adventure. Even his teeth look brighter than I remember, whitened by the depth of his new tan. I want to reach into my phone, touch his skin, kiss his face. “Miss you, too. What’s the weather like there?”
I smile. “Still pretty cold. You?”
He laughs. “Roasting.” His hotel is basic, no air conditioning, so he relies on a ceiling fan, which he tells me has a highly lackadaisical approach to whirring.
He asks how my parents are doing. After they lobbed their breakup bombshell at us, Mum moved in with Tash and Simon while she and Dad decided what to do with their money and the cottage and their thirty-plus years’ worth of stuff. It’s so weird now, to think of them astwo separate people. They were always Mum and Dad. Now they’re Mum, and Dad.
What I haven’t told anyone—not even Caleb—is that I’m harboring a private belief that they can get over this. That this isn’t the end of their story—merely a detour along the way.
“Dad had a date,” I tell Caleb.
His eyes go wide. “Wow.”
“I know.”
“Who with?”
“Didn’t ask.”
“Did it... go well?”
I shake my head. “Apparently she was only looking to make a friend.”
Caleb winces sympathy. “Your dad okay?”
I smile. “He’ll survive. He said she wasn’t his type anyway.”
“God, dating at their age must be brutal.”
I nod, not quite ready to share my secret theory that none of my dad’s dates—or my mum’s, come to that—will result in anything meaningful, because their love story isn’t actually over yet. I’m well aware how ridiculously naïve this sounds, and yet... I just can’t shake the sense that they’ll get through this somehow.
Caleb slings a hand behind his head. His chest is as tanned as his face. I miss that chest, its taut contours. I miss lying on it, kissing it, running a finger along it. I miss listening to the drum of his heartbeat.
We chat for a bit longer. He tells me he’s heading out with the team in an hour or so to photograph a local monastery. I try to conjure up the heat-laden air, the lushness of the vegetation, the gilded temples. They’re just approaching the wet season, and temperatures have been in the high thirties. They’re a long way inland, and—believe it or not—Caleb says he’s missing swimming in the Channel.
So I carry our call outside, into the inky night and onto the shingle. The air is blunt with cold. I feel the salt hit my skin and coat my lips, mingling with the sugar from my tea.
I walk him down to the shoreline so he can see the water, passing a clutch of night fishermen in pop-up tents as I go. I hold up the phone and let him listen to the sea as it shifts and heaves, its surface spangled with moonlight. I wonder if we see the same patch of sky when we look up, from our distant time zones on faraway spots of the earth.
Caleb groans thirstily. “What I’d give to jump into that.” His pupils look larger, greedy for cold water. “Swimming in a pool out here doesn’t even come close. I never feel properly refreshed.”
“Well, I wouldn’t mind a bit of sultry weather right now,” I admit. “Winter’s felt long without you. Mind you, there’s something to be said for living in a place with all four seasons. I like knowing change is always somewhere on the horizon.” I sit down on the shingle and finger some chilly pebbles, wishing his hand were holding mine.
On the screen, our eyes meet, and I am riveted with the desire to feel his skin next to my own, to be kissing him, undressing him. I breathe in, secretly hoping to catch the scent of sun cream and Caleb and frangipani flowers. But all I get is the faint pungency of fish and seaweed.
“Twelve weeks tomorrow,” I whisper.
“Twelve weeks,” he whispers back. “Can’t wait.”
“What’s the first thing we’ll do together?”
“Go back to the beach hut and I’ll tell you.”
So I do. Holding Caleb in my hand, I go back to the beach hut and close the doors and switch off the lights, and let him talk me throughexactlywhat we’ll do together, the first night he’s home. And afterward, as we whisper about laughing and kissing and loving each other, I know there’s no other person I’d rather be thinking of as winter seguesinto spring. No one else I’d want to love over the longest of distances, as I dream of a future I can’t wait to begin.
