Chapter 53

If only he’d been a girl.

But ultimately he’d found happy anyway. The night he’d left, he’d given up hope of having it all, or even a tiny slice of it. But here he was, building a sloppy sandcastle with his daughter while his boyfriend tried—he looked up, squinting—and failed to master surfing off the busy Valencian coast.

“Baba!”

Andreas jumped. “You want to go see Daddy?” he asked, sticking to his mother tongue.

Beatriz pointed out at the water.

“Baba!” she repeated.

“Daddy,” Andreas said.

“Baba!”

“Daddy,” he said, picking her up. “Daddy’s in the sea.”

She wailed in horrified mourning at the loss of her precious sand, chubby hands grasping for it. He laughed and lifted her up high to face the sea.

“Look,” he said. “Sea!”

“Sea!”

He blinked.

Slowly, he lowered her.

“Beatriz,” he said softly. “Where’s the sea?”

She pointed gleefully out at the blue.

“Sea,” he said, sounding out the Spanish word carefully and slowly. Stressing the last letter.