What if

The slightly sweet, exotic smoke of his cigar wafts toward me, his hot pink tshirt and loud, palm tree-printed swim trunks offset the by uninterrupted blue sky behind him. There is only the sound of the waves crashing beside us, irregularly irregular, yet still soothing. The pungent smoke is also strangely comforting. There is a sensory memory behind this somehow, I’m sure of it.

A young girl toddles by with her mother, wrinkling her nose and complaining of the stink.
“Sorry,” my husband says to her mother, a confident woman in a loose linen dress and wide-brimmed hat.
“Apologise for nothing,” she says to him sternly, with a slight English accent and a wisp of a smile. “Enjoy it. Don’t apologise. I’d smoke one too if I hadn’t quit.”
They walk on.

Alphonso, our server, comes by to chat.
“This one is from me,” he says with a smile.
Another small glass of Scotch. Glenfiddich, this one. The glass sitting in front of us is Glenmorangie. I smell them both, sip them both. Hold each in my mouth for several seconds before swallowing, then gently exhaling through my mouth, like I’ve been taught to do.
I am not a Scotch person. I couldn’t tell you why. They all make me sneeze.

We’re on the last legs of our family vacation, rush-planned because I legitimately just had a vacation, but my husband *needed* one and didn’t have time to plan it. We picked a highly recommended resort and hoped for the best. If it was a bust, then at least it was only seven days?

The last time we went to a resort, we all (including my then 7 and 8 year old children) vowed never to do it again. So much chaos and noise, so many people, so much pee in the pool.

But this one?

It’s quiet. This is the public access beach. There’s a “kids’ pool” but it’s stunningly beautiful and empty. The adult pool is busier, and even then, quiet. The grounds are lush with foliage and winding paths through hacienda-style grounds. Rarely do we see other guests. The resort staff cater to our every whim before we’ve even had the chance to think of it. In the evenings, we take an Uber into town and try restaurants that show up in travel magazines.
The one where there are trees lit up on islands and water surrounds the sunken dining tables. The one that is built on to a cliffside and overlooks the ocean. The two along the seaside that allow you to watch the sun go down. The one tucked behind a dull facade and opens up to a secret courtyard with beautifully braided thatching on the roof above.

“What did I say to you, that time we broke up? Do you remember?”
He puffs thoughtfully on his cigar.
I recall vaguely his petition. He’d driven three hours to talk to me on my psych rotation in a middle of nowhere town. Something about not giving it a proper chance, when he knew. Deep in his gut, he knew, and he couldn’t just walk away unless he’d known we’d given it a good go. He can’t remember the details now either.
But here we are, sitting in the afternoon shade of a palm tree, waves crashing, punctuating the quiet, our kids nearby, noses in books and toes in the pool.
“I can’t even imagine what alternate path my life would’ve taken.” he says.
I think he would have been fine. He would have found another career path, found success, and he would have probably met someone else and built a family.
I don’t know if I would have though. I really don’t.

“Next question: If you could live 200 years in good health, but no one else around you could, would you?”
This is a harder question. My first instinct is no, because what’s the point when those you love can’t be with you? But then, that’s at least two or three different lives you could live in one lifetime, two or three more lives of people you would love eventually, potentially including relationships with your own great-great-grandchildren.
My new answer: Yes, but only if this 200 years included unlimited living and travel funds for the remaining 150 years.
He laughs.

The cigar is burned through, the scotch glasses are empty.
He holds my hand as we meander back to our room.