We eat at the counter, side by side. We fall asleep with his arm around me and my face against his chest.
Saturday is ours. We sleep late, eat Sheila’s biscuits on the deck, watch the sunrise over the water. Mickey is steadily improving. Steve has him at twelve steps on the parallel bars. The left leg carries real weight. The right is behind but closing the gap. Steve says if the trajectory holds, he might be using a walker by spring. Mickey has stopped needing the promise, though. The trajectory is enough.
Dante’s 30A real estate business is growing. Three listings active, two sales closed, a fourth pending. He’s in the Panhandle every other week now. He found a cheap two-bedroom apartment inland, ten minutes from the coast — no view, no charm, just a place to sleep between showings. Last month he told me over the phone, “I think I’m becoming a Panhandle person,” and I said “welcome to the cult” and he said “it’s not a cult, it’s a lifestyle adjustment” and I said “that’s exactly what cult members say.”
Saturday night, we sit outside and watch the stars come out. We go to bed early and I’m asleep before the light is fully gone.
Mickey wakes me up before sunrise the next morning.
“Hey,” he says. His hand on my shoulder. “Get up. I want to show you something.”
“What time is it?”
“Five-thirty.”
“What? No, Mickey. It’s five-thirty on a Sunday. I’m not moving this early.”
“Put on shorts and a T-shirt. It’ll be quick. Come as you are.”
I roll out of bed in Mickey’s T-shirt and slide my feet into flip-flops I keep by the bed.
We take the elevator down. The bar is dark and quiet. The chairs are up on the tables and the neon lights are off. The only light is coming from the back, through the glass doors that lead to the outdoor deck. Mickey wheels toward the glass doors and I follow him.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
“It’s out here,” he says. “Come on. Hurry, or you’ll miss it.”
I push through the glass doors onto the deck. The sky is beginning to shift from dark to the shimmering morning pink. There’s no one on the beach. Only the water and the seagulls calling. I take three steps onto the deck and stop.
The railing is wrapped in white fabric. Soft, sheer panels tied at each post, the kind I use at beach ceremonies, the fabric that catches the breeze and moves. Between the posts, strung along the railing at waist height, a line of small signs. White card stock in simple frames, each one hand-lettered in handwriting I recognize.
Mickey’s handwriting.
The blocky, slightly uneven letters of someone who writes incident reports, not love letters. A cop’s handwriting.
The first sign says:
THE FIRST TIME I SAW YOU, YOU WERE BLEEDING ON THE GROUND. YOU WERE THE MOST GORGEOUS MAN I’D EVER SEEN.
The second:
YOU BROUGHT ME PIZZA WHEN I WAS AT MY DARKEST POINT.
The third:
YOU SAT ON A TILE FLOOR AND HELD MY FEET WHEN I COULDN’T FEEL THEM.
The fourth:
YOU DROVE FOUR HOURS EVERY DAY TO LIGHT UP MY LIFE.
The fifth:
YOU SHOWED ME THAT THE BRAVEST THING I CAN DO IS STAND BESIDE YOU.
The last sign is at the far end of the railing:
I LOVE YOU, BENJI. WILL YOU MARRY ME?
