I sit and stare at the envelope for five minutes before touching it. Even then, I use the tip of my palette knife to nudge it off the stack. It flips, lands facedown, the seal a perfect triangle of expensive paper. I remember the way she used to buy stationery, never the cheap stuff, always with a watermark or a heavy linen finish that left ridges in your fingers. I wonder, briefly, how many details like this I’ve been hoarding in the attic of my head.
When I finally pick it up, my hands are stained blue and raw, nails ragged from tearing open tubes of oil paint. The contrast is absurd. I break the seal with my thumb, inhaling that faint perfume of ink and memory, and unfold the sheet inside. Her writing slants right, aggressive, almost falling forward:
Nathan,
I don’t know if you want to hear from me, but I couldn’t stop myself. There are so many things I didn’t say, and even more I wish I hadn’t. I hope you’re well. I hope the new coast feels like home. I’m sorry for all the mess—mine, yours, ours. If you ever want to talk, I’m here, day or night. I think about you. Sometimes I think about us.
Melissa
That’s it. No “love,” no “sincerely,” not even a postscript. Just the raw-boned fact of her in my mailbox, sudden as a thunderclap.
I read it three times, each pass more surreal than the last. The words slide around, refuse to sit still. I want to believe the message is simple—she’s sorry, she’s moved on, she’s releasing us both into the wild. But I know her better than that. Every apology is a loaded gun. Every “I hope you’re well” a dare.
My hands are trembling, so I set the letter down and wipe my palms on the thighs of my jeans. A faint blue streak trails after, smearing her signature. I curse, then try to dab it with a rag, but it only spreads. Now her name is a smear across the page.
I turn my attention to the painting. The lighthouse stands center canvas, thick with underpaint, the palette still blocked out in heavy strokes of white and cobalt. I squint at it, trying to see what Sara saw, but all I can see is an empty tower, a warning. I pick up a brush, dip it in linseed, then set it down again. The thought of painting is suddenly suffocating, as if the smell of oil has turned toxic overnight.
I circle the studio, inventorying tubes, knives, balled-up paper towels, sketches of the same coastline at different hours of the day. I stop at the window and peer out. There are a couple of gulls fighting over a crab shell, their shrieks hollow and victorious. Past them, the ocean rolls on, gray and ugly and stubborn.
I think about Diane. The way she watched me on the beach, like she was trying to memorize the exact temperature of my voice. The way she said “thank you” when I handed her the sketch of the horizon, as if I’d given her a key instead of a piece of paper. I think about the way she never tries to finish my sentences, or correct my jokes, or make me feel small in the name of efficiency.
Is it fair, I wonder, to start something new when the old thing is still bleeding out? Is that what Melissa’s letter is, an invitation to wrap a tourniquet around our history, to see if there’s anything left to save?
I rub my eyes, hard, as if I can erase the memory of the envelope. I wish I could call my mother. She’d know what to say. But she’s gone, and besides, I’m too old to need a referee for my own feelings.
I grab the letter and fold it, deliberately creasing the blue smear. I set it in the drawer with the other things I’ve kept—ticket stubs, a single earring, a photo booth strip from a wedding neither of us remembered past the third drink. I close the drawer gently, as if the contents might spill out if I’m not careful.
Back at the easel, I force myself to mix the paints. White, Prussian blue, a dab of ochre for the light. I load the brush and bring it to the canvas, but at the last second, my hand falters. The stroke goes crooked, cutting a diagonal through the horizon. I stand back, brush limp in my grip, and wonder if this is what all my art has been, a series of interrupted lines, never quite reaching the shore.
I think about Diane, again, and how she’s probably sitting at her own desk, wrestling with ghosts of her own. I picture her in the morning light, hair still damp from the shower, eyes narrowed at her screen as if the force of her focus might will a story into being. I remember the way she smiled, like maybe she, too, wanted to believe in something unfinished.
The heater sputters, clicks off. I pick up my phone, hesitate, finger hovering over the numbers. I put the phone down, then pick it up again, the urge to connect almost physical.
Maybe I’ll call. Maybe I won’t.
I turn back to the lighthouse, and with a deliberate hand, add another layer to the sky. The horizon line is ruined, but it doesn’t matter. Sometimes you have to let the mistakes stand. Sometimes you even paint over them, let the old color bleed through.
I work until my arms ache, and when I finally step back, the lighthouse isn’t finished, but it feels truer than before. It’s battered, off-kilter, but still upright. Still holding the line against the weather.
I wipe the brush clean, set it aside, and walk out onto the boardwalk. The air is sharp, the wind restless. I breathe in, let the sting of it clear my head.
The ocean isn’t going anywhere, and neither am I.
14
Diane
MAY
It’s the last week before summer, the kind of morning that can’t decide between rain or sweat, and the backseat is dominated by a box bigger than my daughter. Cassie is wedged in beside it, knees up, eyes flickering between the window and her hands. The box—her science project—is swaddled in towels, buckled in with both seatbelts and the kind of maternal hope that expects the universe to spare this one small, precious thing.
I merge onto the causeway, first in a parade of minivans and golf carts, each one loaded with poster boards, paper-mâché planets, neon trifolds sprouting with motivational stickers. The science fair is today. Technically it’s the “Coastal Ecology and Innovation Expo,” but everyone just calls it the science fair because that’s what it is, a bloodsport for overachieving eighth-graders, a panic attack for their parents.
Cassie leans forward, craning to see if her project’s still upright. “Can you go slower? You hit that bump like we were on the moon.”
“We’re at fifteen miles an hour, sweetheart.” I glance in the rearview. “Is it tipping?”
She lifts the edge of the towel, a surgeon prepping for a high-stakes reveal. “I don’t think so, but if the coral shifts, the whole reef will collapse. I glued it three times, and it’s still not stable.”