I want to ask why, but the words jam up. Instead, I focus on the tide line, where the sand is dense and studded with chips of shell.
We walk for a bit, letting the questions hang unasked. It’s comfortable, interrupted only by Cassie’s intermittent yelps as she discovers a fossilized shark tooth, or a fragment of sea glass polished to an improbable sheen.
The sky has gone full Technicolor now, streaks of orange and pink smeared above the black edge of the ocean. Cassie slows, then stops, crouching in the sand to build a miniature fortress of shells and driftwood. Nathan and I linger nearby, both of us watching her in that way parents do when they’re not sure if they’re supposed to intervene or just let the magic happen.
“She’s lucky,” Nathan says, after a while.
“Who? Cassie?”
He nods. “To have you. Most kids don’t get a mom who listens.”
“I don’t always. Sometimes I just fake it.”
“We all fake it. That’s half of being alive.” He digs the toe of his sneaker into the sand, drawing a slow, deliberate line. “Mymom used to say you can’t teach someone to care. You can only show them and hope they catch on.”
Before I can respond, Cassie pops up, holding two identical shells in her palms. “Match!” she says, then shoves them toward Nathan. “You get one.”
He accepts, turning the shell over in his hand. “You know what this is called?”
Cassie shakes her head, already invested in the answer.
“It’s an angel wing. They’re rare. Usually you only find one, but never a perfect pair.”
She holds hers up, examining it with new reverence. “Angel wing,” she repeats, then slips it into her jacket pocket like a talisman.
I watch them, feeling the shift in the air. We keep walking, now and then stooping to collect more shells, our hands brushing as we pass them back and forth. The light fades, and the breeze returns, but it’s gentle now, a nudge instead of a shove.
When we reach the old pier, Cassie is exhausted, her eyelids heavy despite her protests that she’s “not even tired.” Nathan offers to carry her, and she accepts without hesitation, looping her arms around his neck and resting her chin on his shoulder. He lifts her with an ease that surprises me, and I feel a pang—part gratitude, part longing, part something else I can’t name.
We walk the last stretch together, Cassie half asleep, Nathan silent. At the dune that leads to our cottage, he sets her down, and she trudges the rest of the way under her own power.
“Thank you,” I say, as we stand at the foot of the porch, the house behind me glowing with the promise of warmth and rest.
Nathan smiles, and for a second, it’s just us.
“Anytime,” he says. “Seriously. I mean that.” He turns to go, hands shoved in his pockets, shoulders relaxed in a way I haven’t seen before. I watch until he disappears down the path, thenshepherd Cassie and the dog inside. She drops her treasures on the kitchen counter, then vanishes to her room.
I linger, taking the angel wing and tracing its ridged surface with my thumb. I set it on the windowsill, a placeholder for all the things I don’t have words for yet. I stare at it until the house is quiet, and for once, the silence is something I want to keep.
12
Diane
There’s a moment just before dawn when the world is suspended, as if the ocean, the sky, the waking earth have all agreed to hold their breath for a single heartbeat. I’m at my writing desk for it, hunched in my chair, feet bare and cold on the planks, laptop screen a pale blue rectangle in the gray. The house is silent except for the hiccup of the fridge and the muffled tick of the stove clock, whose digits advance with a stubborn optimism I can’t seem to muster.
My hands hover above the keys. I flex my fingers, crack my knuckles, and type the first sentence:
It is a truth universally acknowledged?—
No. I’m not clever enough for parody today.
Backspace, backspace, backspace.
Try again.
Sometimes, the future arrives like a storm—implacable, uninvited, intent on reshaping the coastline of your life whether you’re ready or not.
Ugh. Too on-the-nose, and besides, there’s something desperate about invoking meteorology when you live onewindstorm from obsolescence. I hit delete and watch the words recede into oblivion, leaving only the blinking cursor.