I was hot and my left leg and hip were stiff, I tucked my bag under my towel, pushed myself up and walked to the water’s edge. The sea was foamy where it met the sand; glassy and cool, little silver fish darted about my ankles. I walked out until the water reached my thighs, then I slid into the sea and swam out to the floating dock. The water was greenish, clear, like wine-bottle glass. A dark haired woman of about my age was drifting on a lilo. She smiled at me and I smiled back, but I swam on past her. What was the point in making friends when I’d be leaving soon?

I reached the dock and climbed up the ladder, onto the wooden planks where Joe and his friends used to gather when they were young. The dock rocked beneath me, the sea making sucking, splashing noises. Joe must have felt the same wood, warm beneath the soles of his feet and the palms of his hands, when he came here as a teenager. I could almost see Valentina sitting here wearing her red bikini, sun glistening on her wet skin, dangling her legs over the side, leaning back on her hands, long, dark hair tumbling down her back, and the boys gathered around, dive-bombing into the water, play-fighting, laughing. Twenty-five years ago, everything would have looked pretty much the same as it did now. The beach, and the billboard at the junction, just visible from here; the town on one side of the bay and the villa on the other.

Daniel would have loved it here. He’d have loved the dock and the sea and the beach. It was perfect for young people, the two headlands reaching out like protective arms, the bay a safe playground. If only he could have had some summers here! If only we could wind back the clock and change something; one small thing to change the course of events.

Oh, I missed him. I missed my boy so much. I missed all the happiness we hadn’t had; all the summer days we didn’t get to spend together; all the friends he never made; the photographs and videos we never had chance to take; the memories we didn’t make. So much love and joy and life, all of it gone, wasted, and for what?

It would have been so easy not to have lost Daniel, so, so easy.