A younger girl in a red beret saw me and smiled. “They lead to your door.” She pointed behind her. “See, there’s just a few up there, and then they get thicker as we get closer to you.”

“Come see,” said the first women, her silver hair sparkling as she gestured for me to walk up the sidewalk. I stepped out carefully in bare feet, avoiding the bits of bramble and fallen acorns on the path. I saw what they were talking about. As I arrived at the street and turned around, I could see a clever progression of the butterflies in color, depth, and density.

The young girl held one close to her face. “These are all hand cut.” She glanced over at me. “Whoever did this for you spent a lot of time on it.”

I moved up the path again. White butterflies with iridescent sparkle gave way to pale blues, then pinks and gentle yellows, moving to minty greens and lavenders that shifted to plum and fuchsia and deep red and sapphire. I caught a movement at the corner of the building and we all turned to it. Gavin stepped out, as beautiful as I’d ever seen him, fresh and combed and wearing a crisp button-down shirt loose over khaki shorts.

My breath caught and the women murmured their appreciation as he came toward me, holding out his hands with another butterfly, a lovely, opulent eggshell blue. “One more,” he said and handed it to me by the slender wire. “For Finn.”

He held my hand as we both lifted it to the branch closest to the door and tied it around the slender limb. The other women moved away as I brought my palms to my hot cheeks. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Say you’ll spend the day with me.” He backed away, giving me space.

The setting was like a fairy tale, Gavin, looking so much like he had in high school, the trees and morning sun striking the glittering butterflies. A breeze wafted through, shifting the strings and making the bits of color dance among the falling leaves. I nodded; what else could I do? Each of these moments were new wonders, memories I could hold on to. Even if it all fell apart later, we would have this. 

The sand packed beneath our feet as Corabelle and I walked along the shore at La Jolla. She’d refused to ride my motorcycle over, which made me laugh, but I climbed into her car and let her drive us.

My fingers were cut up and sore from all the butterflies, but making them half the night had been bittersweet, remembering doing it years ago for Finn’s crib. Corabelle had gotten the idea from some Etsy shop. I resisted, saying we should just buy a plastic one with a battery and music. But she had this vision for the nursery, all our hopes and dreams with the drawings we’d made of the sea.

So I dutifully cut butterflies from card stock, laying them out on newspaper to be spray-painted. Served me right to be making hundreds more years later, since I was pretty sure I grumbled and complained the whole time we did it the first time.

The wind whipped Corabelle’s hair into a frenzy, and she fought it constantly, twisting it in her free hand, holding her shoes in the other. This was probably a good thing, as it kept me from reaching for her, which I knew was too much for the moment, despite the other night. She was distant and reluctant, and I had to tread carefully.

“Do you come down here much?” I asked her.

“Not this far. It’s quiet.”

We’d walked about half a mile from the parking lot, the umbrella rentals, and the beachgoers trying to get a last weekend of sun before it got any colder. Compared to New Mexico, the temperature was downright chilly, but I had gotten used to it. “I prefer to stay away from the crowds.”

“You always did,” she said.

Rocks rose to our right, brown and sparse and dotted with tide pools. The great expanse of the ocean spread to our left, blue and sparkling, occasional white crests breaking across the surface. Gulls swooped along the shore, their distinctive caw the only sound other than the roar of the waves. It seemed we were the only two people in the world.

Shouts broke the peace of the moment and we turned to the rocks, where a father and his two sons scrabbled along a path. “Wait for me!” the dad called. The boys were young, maybe seven and four. The little one tripped and skidded in a bit of sand. Before he could cry, the father had scooped him up. “Almost there, Champ, no tears.”

I realized I had stopped walking, watching the man with the boy the age Finn would be now. Corabelle slipped her hand in mine, and I knew she was thinking the same thing. The threesome continued past us back the way we’d come and I forced myself to look ahead, not to turn and see them go. The missing part of our picture was very real and all my optimism that Corabelle and I would move on together began to crumble.

She leaned her head on my shoulder. “It is always that hard for you?”

“No. I normally don’t pay any attention.”

“Then it’s me.” She tried to pull away, but I gripped her hand hard. Her hair was completely wild, blowing like a black specter, a haunting image against the backdrop of the tumultuous sea.

“I’m glad it’s you,” I said. “I didn’t know how numb I’d been until you came back.”

She nodded, her expression lost in her hair.

“Here,” I said. “I think I remember how this goes.” I dropped my shoes and let go of her hand to gather up the wild mane. She turned into the wind so it all blew back and I separated it into three sections. I learned to make a braid when we were in middle school, after she left me one weekend for a slumber party with other girls. I felt lonely and betrayed and when I asked her why she chose the girls over me, no doubt with some pathetic sulky look on my face, she said they could fix each other’s hair.

I stole one of my sister’s dolls to practice this, working out the pattern. The dolls were easier than the real thing, though, as the layers and head shape made the lengths inconsistent, and I never quite knew what to do with the ends. But I wanted to learn. I wanted Corabelle to never find me lacking in any way.

My fingers felt fumbly and uncoordinated as I tugged her hair into a braid. When I got to the end, I told her, “Hold this,” and reached for my boot, swiftly removing the lace. I tied her hair down, weaving the lace back and forth across the bottom half of the braid so that it wouldn’t come out easily.

When I let go, she ran her fingers along its length. “Not too bad.”

I scooped up all our shoes, lashing them together with the ends of the other lace, and didn’t hesitate, but took her hand again. She accepted this, more relaxed than before. It wasn’t until we resumed walking, this time with our feet in the water, that I realized we’d gotten past that hard moment together, and I felt sorrow for all the other times we could have shared those hardships instead of bearing them alone.

“So are you going to feed me or do I get to walk for hours on an empty stomach?” Corabelle asked. She looked so young with the braid, her face so innocent, a few stray tendrils curling along her forehead.

“We’ll have to turn back to La Jolla for food,” I said. “Ahead is Black’s Beach and there’s nothing there but naked sunbathers.”

Her eyes grew wide. “I’ve heard about that beach. I’ve never been.”

Just the idea of her there, her body laid out in the sand, made my blood start jumping. “Go with me and I’ll be your slave forever.”

“You’re already my slave forever.” She cracked the smallest smile, but still it was a smile.

“We’d get arrested. I couldn’t possibly keep my hands off your delectable body.” I pulled her toward me, letting the shoes drop again.

She didn’t resist, tilting her head up so that I could kiss her. She tasted like sand and salt, and her cheek beneath my thumb was gritty. I pictured her skin drenched by the sun, and I could scarcely keep myself in check, pulling her in so tight that she fitted against me, my mouth feverish over hers, tongue sliding between her lips into her warm waiting mouth.