He is beautiful.
But he stands up before the moment strains us both. Breaks us.
He strides down the porch steps, walking out to the cliff edge, to the precipice of the sea—a man who looks like a ghost, a god, a thing etched into old books. I turn inside, leaving the bowl of soapy water, the cloth dripping onto the porch boards, and I retreat to the bedroom upstairs, hiding from my own thoughts.
I braid my hair in a long plait down my back.
I press my head into the pillow, I twist the diamond ring around my finger.
I try to think of home, of the café, James bringing me espresso and a bowl of sun-dried tomato pasta, some new recipe to try—a dish he’s thinking of adding to the summer menu.
But my thoughts won’t behave.
I still feel the weight of the blade in my hand, the tiny hairs flitting down to the porch. We were so close. Only inches apart. With his eyes on me, he could have lifted his hand. He could have touched the soft place at my wrist.
I would have dropped the knife, let it clatter to the porch. The air would have left my lungs. Or maybe I would have leaned closer, just a little, just enough to feel my heart race.
I’m a stupid woman. My thoughts tangle up so easily, like I’m seventeen again.
Maybe I would have even let his fingers stray along my arm. Would I have stopped him? Walked back inside?
Or maybe I’d let it last a little longer. I’d want to know—I’d want to feel what it was like, the roughness of his hands. Or the tenderness.
Would he touch me delicately, like when he tends to the garden, each flower as precious as glass?
But in truth, I’ve already imagined it, well before tonight—treacherous thoughts I don’t want to admit to myself—when we’re both asleep in our separate rooms. I’ve thought about tiptoeing down the steps, the wood creaking beneath my feet, and easing myself beneath his blanket, edging myself close to him on the couch. The warmth and comfort of another human. So I wouldn’t feel so alone, so lost. Maybe he’d think it was a dream. His hands sliding over my chilled flesh, breathing against my throat, whispering words in a language I don’t understand. Maybe he’s thought about it too. And neither of us know how to stop.
I am a stupid woman.
I’ve already gone sea-mad.
I watch him from the garden, where I’m snipping off thyme and rosemary leaves, placing them in a basket.
He’s at the shore, gathering driftwood from the rocks that we’ll use for a fire. Other things blow in from the sea too, trash mostly, unrecognizable pieces of plastic and Styrofoam, bleached by the sun.
But he moves steadily, practiced, the sun on his bare back. It’s warm today, not a hint of wind. I watch him and I can see the heartbreak he carries. The grief. It’s a heaviness that digs in; it has teeth, it’ll tear a person apart over time.
But he carries on, because he’s had to.
Because he’s strong. Because time doesn’t just let him be. It toys with him out here, makes a mess of things.
He lifts his head, hair turning even more golden in the sun. His eyes survey the ocean. There’s a coolness about the way he stands, shoulders bent but sturdy. I want to call out to him. I want to see his eyes sway back to me. But I don’t.
And after a moment, he continues up the shoreline, his arms weighted with driftwood.
I watch.
I don’t pull my eyes away even when I tell myself I should.
In the bedside drawer, I find a few loose pieces of paper—torn from a notebook, perhaps—and the short stub of a pencil rolling around at the back. In Seattle, I kept a notebook on the bedside table. Not a journal, exactly. One of my former therapists suggested I write everything down, record the details of my life, my memories, that it would help me sort through the mess. But I found it trivial, tiresome at the end of a long day. So I started writing out short lines, poems, I suppose. They felt easier, less direct.
It became a habit. Something that soothed me each evening.
Now, I sit in bed, the candlelight on the bedside table flickering across the paper while my eyes trail over the pencil marks.
I’ve forgotten who I am
right from wrong.
