Page 84 of The Sculptor

And I promised her a future without a bargain.

I’d like to think a love as pure as ours deserved the blessing of a child.

And I thought we got that.

But that wasn’t the case.

Even now, after everything we’ve been through, we still don’t have the happily ever after we deserve.

And maybe having a child isn’t our future.

Maybe our purpose is something other than being a good partner and parent.

I hope not.

Because I’m not prepared to be anything else.

I’m lost just like I was before.

Before I found Ray again.

Before I knew my son survived.

My life before a couple of months ago was nonexistent. It wasn’t full of anything but repetition. I was a ghost drifting in and out of each day, doing what I was supposed to do.

Working.

Breathing.

Eating.

Sleeping.

I was a man without a purpose. Ray was on a mission. And now both of us are right back where we started.

In pain.

Sighing, I leave my phone on the sofa, walk outside to the dock, and find Ray trying to skip rocks on the water, just like I taught her years ago.

“You’re still holding it wrong,” I tell her when I get within earshot. “Lay it sideways between your fingers.”

Ray holds up the rock between her thumb and pointer finger, showing me. “Like this?”

“Yep. Now turn to the side.” I move behind her and press my front to her back. “Curl your wrist like I showed you and sling it.”

She mimics the hand motion and throws. The rock skips over the water twice, and she grins, her voice raspy from crying as she says, “I did it. It’s not as good as when you do it, but—”

I turn her and kiss her mouth, offering her comfort in my arms. Which she takes gratefully, burying her face in my shirt as the tears overtake her again. “Did Vance say anything we could use?”

I tuck her head under my chin. “Don’t you give up yet,” I threaten. “He’s out there, and there’s not an inch of this earth that I wouldn’t tear through to find him.”

She nods, seemingly growing stronger as the seconds tick by, and she finally steps out of my arms, wiping the tears along her face. “How many times did you try teaching me to skip rocks the last time we were here?”

I chuckle, remembering all the rocks she just chucked into the lake. She could never quite master the angle. “More than I can count.”

“I told you it was the belly throwing my balance off,” she argues.

I flash her this look of bullshit. There’s no way that happened. “Or maybe you spent all those years in France chucking stones in the Mediterranean.”

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