The morning light catches in the salt crust on the glass. It blurs the world, turns the shrubbery into watercolor smudges, renders the ocean a single band of silver. I could lie and say I find this inspiring, but mostly it makes me want to crawl back into bed and cocoon myself in the scent of yesterday’s shampoo and the faint, improbable hope that I’ll wake up with a finished novel.
Instead, I push back from the desk and wander the little cottage, tracing the seam where the ceiling slopes, avoiding the board in the living room that shrieks like a murder victim when you step on it. I do a circuit, from my room to the kitchen, to the half-bath, then upstairs to Cassie’s nest at the end of the hall. The girl sleeps like she means it, face mashed into her pillow, mouth slightly open, the outline of her shoulder rising and falling beneath the comforter. Rolo is beside her, stretched out on his side, tiny paws twitching as if chasing squirrels in his dreams.
I tiptoe past, then go downstairs and stop at the fridge. On it, Cassie has arranged an army of construction-paper sea creatures, every one of them with googly eyes and a personality. Some have dialogue bubbles—“I’m a cool clam!” or “Beware the crab!” or, my favorite, a narwhal with a speech balloon that just says “WHY?” There are two recent sketches, taped side by side: one is a pencil lighthouse, stark and monolithic against a scribbled sky; the other is a freehand drawing of me, holding a steaming mug, withSuperMomwritten in comic-book font across my chest. The rendering is not technically accurate (I have never in my life possessed visible biceps), but it’s accurate enough in spirit to pinch at the base of my throat.
I take down the lighthouse drawing, running my thumb over the graphite, remembering the day she brought it home. She’dbeen so excited—“It’s for your desk, so you don’t get lost,” she’d said. I told her I loved it, but in truth, I envied how she could set down an entire universe in half an hour, while I spent days circling a blank screen, unable to even begin.
Coffee. That’s what I need. I fill the old kettle, strike a match, and hold it to the gas burner. The flame blazes up, blue and hungry. I watch the water come to a slow boil, savoring the microsecond of peace before the day's first obligations muscle in. While I wait, I run my hands over the countertops, smooth and cool beneath the tips of my fingers, then press my forehead to the window above the sink. The ocean is still out there, just past the dunes, invisible but vast. I remember the first night we arrived, how I’d stood at this very window, half-dazed with exhaustion, and tried to imagine a future here. Tried and failed. Some days, I still do.
The coffee is harsh, but it kicks my neurons into sufficient motion. I return to the desk, set the mug on the surface, and open a fresh document. I stare at it, the way you might stare at a wound you’re not sure is healing.
I type:
If there is a difference between loneliness and solitude, I have yet to discover it.
Not bad. I leave it. I add:
Three years is a long time to live in the shadow of an absence, and longer still to convince yourself it’s not your own fault.
I pause, breathing shallow. The words are true, but I can feel the old reflex, a surge of guilt, as if naming the pain might conjure it back. This is the pitfall of writing. You risk making the imaginary real, or worse, making the real even more inescapable.
I notice the picture of Cassie at the corner of my desk—grinning, hair windblown, the tip of her tongue poking outbetween missing teeth. The photo was taken the last time we were at the zoo, just after we’d fed the giraffes. We’d shared a cotton candy larger than her head. The candy is long gone, but the image lingers, a reminder of small victories, of a time when my biggest worry was making sure she didn’t get a sugar high before dinner. I wonder if this whole exile was a colossal misjudgment, an overcorrection for a tragedy I couldn’t control. But the past is a locked door, and regret is a key that turns in circles without ever catching.
I shut the laptop and walk to the porch, coffee in hand. The boards are slick with dew and sea film, and a low fog hugs the dunes. There’s a rocking chair that I’ve claimed as my own. I sink into it and let my head loll back, closing my eyes.
I think about Nathan.
This is a new habit, and one I haven’t quite learned to control. He appears in my mind as if summoned, standing at the water’s edge with his sketch pad, or hunched over a canvas in that oversized shirt, hair a mass, lips pursed in concentration. Sometimes I recall the way his fingers curled around the wine glass at the gallery, or the way his voice dropped when he said my name, like he was testing its flavor, not quite trusting it to be real.
I remember the first time I noticed him watching me. No one’s looked at me like that in years. I’m equal parts drawn and terrified, a dangerous chemistry that would have thrilled me at eighteen but now feels like a fire hazard.
What am I supposed to do with this? Cassie is only just starting to adapt. She still wakes at night, sometimes, and calls out for her father before remembering he’s gone. Am I supposed to graft someone new into her life? Into mine? Would it even be fair, to either of us? The thought makes my stomach fizz.
I remember a conversation with Sara on her porch. “You don’t owe the world your misery,” she’d said, pouring me teaas if it were a secret potion. “You’re allowed to want things.” I’d nodded, but the wanting was the hardest part. It felt like a betrayal, even in the best light.
And then there’s the writing. Or, more precisely, the failure to write. Is Nathan a distraction, or an excuse? A reason to defer confronting the possibility that I have, in fact, lost the one true thing I was ever good at?
I think of the lighthouse, the way it stands, inert and patient, waiting for a reason to light up. Maybe I’m the same, waiting for permission. Maybe there’s no such thing.
I sit with my coffee until the chill sets in, then return inside, back to the page. I stare at the screen, hands poised. The words hang just beyond reach, quivering with possibility.
If there is a difference between loneliness and solitude, I have yet to discover it.
I type it again, slower this time. I let it linger.
I wonder if that’s what I want, someone to share the silence, not just fill it. The thought is so raw it almost glows.
I save the file, close the laptop, and lay my forehead on the cool, closed lid. The world tilts. I am neither more nor less certain than when I started, but the simple act of naming the problem is a step in the right direction.
Maybe tomorrow, I’ll know what to do with it.
13
Nathan
The studio smells like old turpentine, wet canvas, and metal I only now realize is coming from the rusted heater in the corner. Morning seeps in through the bank of windows, the pale light bending around the cheap paper shades and puddling across the hardwood. There’s a half-eaten granola bar next to my mug, a dried paintbrush stabbed into the empty sleeve like a flag of surrender.
I’m supposed to be painting the lighthouse, but what I am doing instead is staring at the mail. It’s scattered across the drafting table, bills and junk and a single envelope addressed in a familiar, tight script. My name, full and formal. No return address, but I know the handwriting. I’d know it in the dark.