I nod, not trusting myself to answer. My chest is tight, the words I want to say compressed into something small and sharp.
Cassie returns, her hands still wet. Sara pretends not to notice as she reaches for another cookie, and the moment passes.
Later, when Sara gets up to refill the mugs, she sways slightly, just enough for me to notice the edge of her hand gripping the back of the chair. The tremor is a flicker, a warning shot. She waits, then straightens, smiling as if nothing is out of place. Cassie is oblivious, but I feel the gravity of it all the way down.
We finish our tea, the kitchen heavy with the smell of cookies and ocean air. Cassie asks if she and Rolo can go back to the beach, and I say yes, watching as she bolts out the door, peanut butter jar in tow.
Sara and I stand in the empty kitchen, the residue of our conversation settling around us. I reach for the thermos, pouring the last of the tea into my mug. The steam rises, curling into the space between us. For a moment, I imagine us years from now, older, maybe braver, the past less urgent. I imagine Sara still here, still herself, and Cassie grown and strong.
But for now, it’s enough to stand in this kitchen, the shells on the counter, the air tinged with salt and sugar, the present holding steady.
3
Diane
The porch faces east, which means by late afternoon the sun is behind us, making the air soft and gold. Days like this make me glad we decided to stay in Kitty Hawk, even though we could have easily gone back to Albemarle, left Sara and the coast behind. But here we are, still testing our roots in sandy soil, waiting to see how far down they’ll go before the water table or the wind knocks us sideways. My mother would call it sentimental. She would use that word with a little breath, a faint shake of the head, as if it were an affliction particular to me, as if she didn’t cry at every dog commercial or the sound of “Blue River.”
Sara says I just have an affinity for nostalgia. I haven’t told her that’s what I’m most afraid of. Not that we’ll get stuck, or bored, or that we’ll lose ourselves in the repetition of this life. Those are risks, sure. But I’m scared that if I set the past down and turn away, even for a minute, it will dissolve behind me like a sandcastle in a high tide, and I’ll never remember how Kyle used to burn dinner at least once a month, or how Cassie once fell off her bike and said, “It was worth it, Mom,” because the wind felt faster than her fear. That if I don’t keep an inventoryat the ready, measuring out the days in teaspoons, bundling the years into small storable containers, there won’t be anything left between the leaving and the version of myself that waits at the next threshold.
Cassie is first to claim her seat, knees tucked beneath her chin, the peanut butter jar of shells rattling every time she shifts. She has named the porch chairs. Hers is officially the Queen’s Throne, though the only thing regal about it is the way she insists I announce her presence. “Her Majesty requests more lemonade,” she declares, and I am both butler and loyal subject, fetching the sweating pitcher from the kitchen while she and Sara negotiate the best vantage point for birdwatching.
Sara settles into the rocker nearest the railing. Her hands are steady now, but I notice the effort it takes, the subtle drag of muscle memory over muscle reality. She’s dressed in a faded T-shirt and old jeans, looking as much a part of the cottage as the peeling paint or the creaking steps. The ocean stretches out in a long, undisturbed plane, brown pelicans skimming just above the water line, their shadows flickering over the glassy surface.
I set the lemonade on the little wicker table and pour for everyone, ignoring Cassie’s exaggerated sighs of anticipation. My laptop is open but dormant on the porch rail, next to a yellow legal pad weighted down by a conch shell. I keep telling myself that writing out here will feel less like work and more like breathing, but I haven’t typed a word since breakfast.
Sara notices. She always notices.
“No luck?” she asks, chin nodding at the computer.
Cassie answers for me, voice muffled by her glass. “Mom’s stuck.”
Sara’s laugh is dry but kind. “Stuck is sometimes just a detour. You’ll get there.”
I look at the paper, the half-baked sentences and circled metaphors. “I’m starting to think the only thing I can write about is not writing.”
“You’d be surprised how many people would pay for that,” Sara says, and her smile is lopsided and irresistible.
Cassie laughs, then launches into an animated story about a gull that stole a french fry from her hand at lunch yesterday. I listen with half an ear, my attention caught by the way the light outlines every movement on the porch. Sara’s fingers tapping the armrest, Cassie’s bare feet swinging over the boards, the invisible boundary where the screen door separates indoors from out.
There is a peace to this moment, but also an undercurrent of urgency. I feel it in the way Sara steers conversation to the here and now.
When Cassie darts down the steps to investigate a ghost crab near the dunes, Sara leans closer. “She’s growing up fast, isn’t she?”
“Yes, she is,” I reply, tracking Cassie as she crouches down in the sand, her sun-streaked hair falling over her face as she giggles at the crab’s sideways scuttle.“Sometimes I wish time could stand still just for a bit. Let her be this age, right on the cusp of childhood and growing up, a little longer."
Sara hums beside me, her blue eyes rimmed with the same melancholy that’s been coloring my own thoughts. “It’s a precious age. Full of wonder, curiosity…innocence. I remember when I was that age, exploring the woods with Jack, thinking the summers would last forever.”
Looking out at the shifting dunes, the ceaseless dance of the ocean, I feel that innocence spread out before us. Yet just as these grains of sand slip through our fingers without pause, I realize time is relentless, always moving forward. And the ebb and flow of the ocean reminds me that change is inevitable.
"Perhaps that's the beauty of it," I say. "The fleetingness. It makes these moments even more precious."
"There's wisdom in that, you know," Sara says, the corners of her mouth tugging upward in a wistful smile. "You're right, of course. We must cherish these moments because they are ever so fleeting."
The moment hangs in the air between us, a shared sentiment that wraps around our hearts, as delicate and as substantial as a sea breeze. Her words feel like a nudge, a gentle push to reminder that there's writing to be done.
“I was thinking,” says Sara, her gaze shifting to the lighthouse in the distance, “of commissioning a painting. One of that old lighthouse I love so much. Maybe you could even write it into your novel. To give it life beyond the canvas.”
The suggestion takes me by surprise, but as I look at the lighthouse, gleaming white in the afternoon sun, a spark of inspiration flickers within me. Yes, I could do that. Slowly, the gears of my mind start to turn again, the rusty edges of writer’s block beginning to grind away.