beach, come back and start a fire so I can enjoy it once the snow starts to fall.
I love you,
Eli
Oh, P.S. I met Abra Walsh. She’s interesting. I can’t remember if I thanked her for saving the love of my life. I’ll make sure I do when she comes back.
After he sent the e-mail, it occurred to him that while he couldn’t remember if he’d thanked her, he did remember he hadn’t paid her for the groceries.
He wrote himself a note on the pack of Post-its he found in the desk drawer, stuck it to the computer monitor. He forgot too easily these days.
No point in putting off unpacking, he told himself. If nothing else, he needed to change the clothes he’d worn two days straight. He couldn’t let himself go down that road again.
He used the lift writing had given him, dragged on his coat, remembered he’d yet to put on shoes, then went out for his bags.
In the unpacking he discovered he hadn’t packed sensibly. He hardly needed a suit, much less three of them, or four pairs of dress shoes, fifteen (Jesus Christ!) ties. Just habit, he told himself. Just packing on autopilot.
He hung, folded in drawers, stacked up books, found his phone charger, his iPod. Once some of his things worked their way into the room, he found it did make him feel more settled in.
So he unpacked his laptop case, tucked his checkbook—had to pay the neighbor when she cleaned—in the desk drawer along with his obsessive supply of pens.
He’d go for a walk now. Stretch his legs, get some exercise, some fresh air. Those were healthy, productive things to do. Because he didn’t want to make the effort, he forced himself as he’d promised himself he would. Get out every day, even if it’s just a walk on the beach. Don’t wallow, don’t brood.
He pulled on his parka, shoved the keys in his pocket and went out the terrace doors before he changed his mind.
He forced himself to cross the pavers against the maniacal bluster of wind. Fifteen minutes, he decided as he headed for the beach steps with his head down and his shoulders hunched. That qualified as getting out of the house. He’d walk down, head in one direction for seven and a half minutes, then walk back.
Then he’d build a fire, and sit and brood in front of it with a glass of whiskey if he wanted to.
Sand swirled up from the dunes to dance while the wind sweeping in from the sea kicked at the sea grass like a bully. The white horses he’d told his grandmother about reared and galloped over water of hard, icy gray. The air scored his throat on each breath like crushed glass.
Winter clung to Whiskey Beach like frozen burrs, reminding him he’d forgotten gloves, a hat.
He could walk thirty minutes tomorrow, he bargained with himself. Or pick one day of the week for an hour. Who said it had to be every day? Who made the rules? It was freaking cold out there, and even an idiot could look at that bloated sky and know those smug, swirling clouds were just waiting to dump a boatload of snow.
And only an idiot walked on the beach during a snowstorm.
He reached the bottom of the sand-strewn steps with his own thoughts all but drowned out in the roar of water and wind. No point in this, he convinced himself, and on the edge of turning around and climbing up again, lifted his head.
Waves rolled out of that steel-gray world to hurl themselves at the shore like battering rams, full of force and fury. Battle cry after battle cry echoed in their unrelenting advance and retreat. Against the shifting sand rose the juts and jumble of rock it attacked, regrouped, attacked again in a war neither side would ever win.
Above the battle that bulging sky waited, watched, as if calculating when to unleash its own weapons.
So Eli stood, struck by the terrible power and beauty. The sheer magnificence of energy.
Then, while the war raged, he began to walk.
He saw not another soul along the long beach, heard only the sound of the bitter wind and angry surf. Above the dunes the homes and cottages stood with windows shut tight against the cold. No one moved up or down the beach steps or stood on bluff or cliff as far as he could see. No one looked out to sea from the pier where the turbulent surf hammered