‘Mummy used to talk about the Eiffel Tower,’ he confided as they began to walk along the Seine. Santos held Cameron’s other hand in his and the three of them walked in a line.
‘What did she say?’ It was Santos who asked the question, his voice gruff.
‘That it was one of the most beautiful things she’d ever seen.’ His smile was tinged with sadness. ‘She told me there’s a very fast train that travels here and that we would take it one day.’
Sadness flooded Amelia. She glanced at Santos. His expression was steely. ‘I’m sorry she isn’t here to see it with us.’
She knew him well enough to know that he genuinely meant that. Her heart trembled a little.
‘Me too.’
They walked in silence for a few hundred metres. ‘Can I get some ice-cream?’
‘No, darling,’ Amelia murmured.
At the same time Santos said, ‘I don’t see why not.’
Cameron looked from one to the other and then leaned closer to Santos. ‘Thanks, Dad.’
Santos couldn’t help his reaction; his eyes flew to his son’s face first and then to Amelia’s. Her eyes sparked with his. They’d both heard it; they understood it. Dad.
Such a small word but the meaning... It ricocheted around them, exploding like a pinball inside Santos. Emotions he hadn’t known he possessed welled inside him.
Dad.
He was a dad.
He closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them Amelia was smiling gently, her gaze warm on Cameron’s little face. ‘I’m out-voted, then.’
‘Definitely.’ Cameron licked his lips. ‘Can I get two scoops?’
Santos laughed, a laugh that was so full of joy and pride; he was almost euphoric. Something about that moment felt utterly perfect. ‘Don’t push it.’
Santos’s penthouse wasn’t far away and, after picking up their ice-cream, they walked towards it, surrounded by the ambient noise of Paris. As they turned into his street, they were confronted by a night market. In the time they’d been out, it had been completely set up from scratch. Tents were side by side, lights had been strung from one side of a narrow walkway to the other and the stalls boasted all sorts of treasures. Jewellery, books, art, more books. She lingered at one for a moment then kept walking, reaching for Cameron’s hand.
An artist with an easel stood perched at the end of the street. Amelia smiled—he was so quintessentially what she might have imagined a Parisian street artist to look like. Silver hair at the temples, slender, dressed in corduroy trousers with braces over a loose shirt, and a beret on the top of his head, the angle of it charming and jaunty. A family sat before him, their picture being faithfully and quickly mined from the blank page.
‘Amelia, look!’ Cameron pointed at the portrait, drawing the attention of the little girl in the picture.
‘Don’t move, Angela,’ her mother instructed in a broad American accent. The girl’s eyes remained focussed on Cameron, with that curiosity children instinctively have for other children, before she turned back to the artist.
‘Can we do one?’ Cameron squeezed Amelia’s hand, looking up at her and smiling. ‘Please?’
Something stuck hard in Amelia’s throat. ‘Oh, I don’t think so.’ She bit down on her lip, because even as she issued the refusal a part of her wanted to agree. ‘It’s late.’
Santos watched, as surprised by his son’s suggestion as Amelia evidently was.
‘But please,’ Cameron insisted. ‘So I have a picture of you. For when you...go.’ The last word was little more than a whisper, but it screamed through Santos. The pleasure of a moment ago disappeared like a popped balloon.
Amelia’s eyes lifted to his and Santos held her gaze, his expression impassive even when his mind was firing. The bond between Cameron and Amelia was unmistakable. It was why he’d insisted she come to Agrios Nisi, and he’d seen evidence of that bond again and again. But hearing Cameron ask for a picture because Amelia was leaving made Santos feel two things: irresponsible, for not properly having appreciated that there was risk in this step—risk that Cameron would become too attached to a temporary part of his life; and excluded, because Cameron’s love for Amelia was so apparent. Santos didn’t know if their connection was something he’d ever have with his son. He wasn’t sure he’d ever have it with anyone.
Amelia had been trying to help him—but that wasn’t the answer. Santos had told her that repeatedly. He needed to focus on his relationship with Cameron. It was no good to feel excluded from their bond—he had to focus on being the father Cameron deserved. Fear had driven him to employ Amelia—fear of being alone with Cameron, of not being what the little boy needed, but that wasn’t acceptable. Santos had never run from a challenge and this was the most important of his life. He would conquer it—he had to.
‘What do you say, monsieur?’ the artist called, taking payment from the mother of the family he’d just drawn and giving his full attention to Santos. ‘Let me draw your beautiful family. Your wife and child should be captured on paper, no?’
‘Yes,’ Cameron agreed with a grin.
‘Another time,’ Amelia demurred gently then, to Cameron as she guided him away, ‘We have plenty of photographs together on my phone. I’ll send one to your dad to print.’