Five Pages, take 1.

I sat down in a green wire chair and set down my basket of strawberries on the green wire table. It was the end of March and the air washed over me like a warm touch. The sky was unnaturally blue, the sun golden and unexpected, the breeze steady enough to make me appreciate the day’s warmth. The little piazza I sat in was a haven of lazy activity between the bustle of the mall and the battlefield of the parking lot. Women in business suits sat at a table next to me, slowly sipping sparkling lemonade and laughing easily with each other. A young father wheeled a stroller up to another table, took his baby out and held her up to the light as she kicked and giggled. Something peaceful was in the air. People are always nicer in a piazza.
I didn’t mean to end up there. I got in the car to buy stamps but somewhere along the way decided that the sun was too welcoming and the letter didn’t really need to be mailed anyway. So I drove out to the hills, looking for someplace to think, and deliberated between several green vistas before deciding that I wanted people and strawberries too. I knew I was right because a song that make me think of March sunlight came on the radio. Fate lies in music, you know. And so I sat down with three dollars and a penny and a basket of strawberries.
I loved it there. It was a little area surrounded by golden stucco buildings, restaurants, mostly, and an open-air fruit market. The colors just radiated from huge displays of oranges and plums and zucchini and people were smiling because they knew they were witnessing something beautiful, that everything they saw was a girl from Nature herself. And at the tables people drank their lemonade and smiled casually because nothing else mattered but sunlight. The whole place reminded me of Europe. I’ve never been to Europe but I should think it feels like that piazza, open and casual and beautiful in the open-air markets and smiling people.
I always went there to think, because the lull of quiet conversations and the oranges and the filtered sunlight were comforting without being imposing. I wasn’t alone but left to myself. People looked at me occasionally but didn’t usually look again. I didn’t mind. I hoped that they’d wonder. I’d always wanted people to wonder. I hoped they’d look and my hair would catch red in the sunlight and for a moment they’d wonder what this beautiful girl was doing, sitting alone and smiling quietly to herself. It was always my goal to be enigmatic.
I took the plastic off of the strawberry basket, let it drop onto the table, and carefully picked out my first small red fruit, blowing the dust off of it, then bringing it to my mouth and savoring its sweet bite. It tasted of summer coming. When I was little, we would eat dinner outside every night as the sun set, huge fresh meals with neighborhood friends, and dessert would always be an enormous bowl of strawberries, set on the table for our grubby fingers to find. I would have dozens, eating even the stems because they tasted like lettuce and I couldn’t leave part of a strawberry wasted, until my face and hands were red and stained. Then I would fall down into the grass giggling, wipe my hands on the cool green blades which laced between my fingers, and run back for more, my small bare feet padding on the lawn. I can remember running towards the table once and being scooped up by my father, who held me in his lap as I squirmed in my sundress, reaching for the berries. The memory is fuzzy but I can still recall how hard I fought, and how they all laughed at my determination.
I stayed there for quite awhile, the sunlight warming my face, the berries slowly disappearing, as I watched the people around me talk and laugh. The sun fell lower in the sky, my one reminder that it was not in fact summer. My companions of sorts came and went, finishing their sandwiches and moving onto something else. I looked out to the parking lot. I had found a space right in front of the piazza. I wasn’t sure if I liked this, because I’d wanted to walk a ways, but if Fate offered me a parking spot, who was I to refuse it? And I loved getting good parking spaces because I knew it would make someone’s day when I left. Sometimes I would wait for just the right person to drive by, the mother with a baby in the backseat, an older man who looked like he’d had one hell of a day but smiled anyway, and then wave them down and point to my spot, hurrying so they wouldn’t have to wait. I loved doing that. It was such a small thing, really, but it made their days a little easier.
A scuffle of metal on cement made me turn, just as Matt sat down in the chair opposite mine. Matt, my best friend, with an ear for obscure music and a tendency to show up unexpectedly. It was the kind of thing he’d do, find me in a tranquil mood on a sunny day. I smiled hello and offered him a strawberry.
“I thought I’d find you here,” he said, taking one from the top of the basket and examining it. “Always in search of sunlight and the charming. How are you?”
I shrugged. “Better, now. The light and the people and the market. I saw this little boy run by earlier, clutching a bag full of yogurt pretzels, and his mother chased behind him, laughing and not even mad. It’s wonderful here. But I think it’s wonderful most places today. I love March. You feel like you don’t deserve this warmth, you know? We’re spoiled by it. I love it.” He smiled. “What is it about the open sky that makes things better? The blue? It sounds ridiculous to say that things are better in the morning but they really are. They really are.” I picked up another berry. “And you?”
“Me? Fine. On a walk. I’ve been walking around the mall all day. I had to buy socks.” He held up a small Macy’s bag. “But I figured I’d stay awhile. Meet you here. Of course, I had to give you some time to enjoy yourself first.” He smiled slyly, like he always does when he’s guessed something right. He’s never stopped claiming to be clairvoyant, not since the first time he finished a sentence at the same time as I did and I stared at him in amazement. He’s downright arrogant about it, sometimes, convinced he knows everything about me. He doesn’t. But he could be impressive, calling me when I was about to pick up the phone, knowing what I was thinking far too often. Comforting in some ways, to be understood like that. Creepy in others. I never worried too much about it, though. He was too familiar to scare me. “I was right, wasn’t I? Let me guess- you’ve been here an hour.”
I swatted his hand, reaching for another strawberry. “Half an hour. So there. Not as much time as you thought, eh? Are you sure I want you here now? Another hour, maybe then I’ll be ready to talk to you...”
He looked at me intently. “I’ll leave, if you want. I know you’re perfectly content here. I just thought you might need someone to talk to-”
I held up my hand to stop him. “Don’t. Stop there.”
He nodded. “All right.”

Matt and I sat at a street corner several miles from the piazza, having given my parking space to an elderly gentleman wearing a suit. We’d parked across town and walked to this spot near the train, because I loved watching each train go by, off to somewhere else entirely. I had grabbed a few plastic chairs from an empty outdoor café and we put them on the very edge of the street corner, our toes on the curb, facing the street. We weren’t blocking traffic but we startled people anyway. They weren’t expecting to see two kids so close to them at a stop sign. We watched each driver with calm gazes, and received startled looks, suspicious glances, and wide smiles in return. It’s amazing what people are shaken by: anything remotely out of the ordinary, really. A girl with hair to her waist and a flowing brown skirt. A homeless man with a guitar. An Asian man and a white woman holding hands. Two kids watching people go by.
After one woman with excessively pinched cheeks gave us a particularly disapproving look, I turned to Matt. “You know, we’re not downtown with the protesters. We’re both wearing jeans and sweatshirts. We’re not sitting here smoking, or throwing things at cars. How is this shocking? Apparently it bothers people that we’re sitting on the curb and not by a table, but-”
“People don’t like what they can’t understand.”
I took the penny from my pocket and tossed it onto the sidewalk on the other side of the street. “Why do we need reasons for everything? Can’t I just do something without the world looking at me strangely?”
“Can you?”
I looked at him. “You’re infuriating sometimes, you know that? Don’t get into your philosopher mode. It’s extremely difficult to have a rational conversation with you when you do. There are answers, somewhere. For some things. You don’t have to pretend there aren’t.” Matt watched me levelly. “I mean, just because I have the unmitigated temerity to do something unexpected-”
He tried to hide a smile. “Unmitigated temerity?”
I blushed. “Atticus says that, in To Kill A Mockingbird. When he’s talking about Tom Robinson. It’s one of my favorite phrases. I’m always looking for moments to use it.” Matt started laughing. “Okay. Fine. I’m being stupid again. I’ll stop talking. I’ll stop talking. See? I stopped. I’m quiet.”
Matt grabbed my flailing wrist and set it in my lap. “You think too much. Has anyone ever told you that? You do. Breathe. Enjoy this. You don’t have to explain everything.” He pulled a box of candy conversation hearts from his pocket and handed it to me. “Here. Take one.”
“You have these from Valentine’s Day?”
He nodded. “Can’t live without ‘em. I buy a few dozen boxes February 15th, every year. Ten for a dollar. Last me through December, usually.”
I pulled one out and handed the box to him, not looking at my little green candy. “Here. What does yours say?”
He took the box and got a pink heart. “U R Kind. And you?”
I turned my piece over. “The ink’s smeared. It’s a red blur. It doesn’t say anything.”
Matt nodded with feigned wisdom and a sage expression. “They usually don’t.”
I snuck a look at him, not sure if he was serious. The corners of his mouth were twitching. Then we both started laughing, laughing with each other, not seeing the looks we were getting from the minivan at the stop sign. It didn’t matter, really.
Matt stood up and tossed two pennies to the other side of the sidewalk, emptying his pockets. He handed me the box of conversation hearts. “Ready?”
I nodded, smiling. We each grabbed a chair and brought it back to the table we’d taken it from. “Come on,” Matt said. “I’ll walk you home.”
I looked at him quizzically. “I drove here, you know...”
He shrugged. “Get it in the morning. It doesn’t matter. The sun’s setting. It’s beautiful out here. Why would you want to get back in a car?”
Only Matt, I thought. I looked down the street to my car, sitting squarely between the white lines, safely closed to the world. Why did I drive here again? I thought. To buy stamps. I turned back to Matt. “But I didn’t mail...” He looked at me questioningly. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter. Let’s go.”
“You sure?”
I nodded. We walked towards the tracks and under the tunnel, to the lazy sycamore streets of my neighborhood. Matt handed me the jacket over his arm, which I accepted gratefully. Our shadows stretched ahead of us, down the sidewalk. We didn’t talk, really, just breathed in the cool air and the quiet and the March night. When we got to my house, I crossed the grass and went not to the door, but to the trellis outside my window. “Hold this.” He took the jacket. I quickly moved up the wood, avoiding the budding roses, and climbed into my open window. I tossed him his candies.
Matt smiled. “Good night.”
“‘Night.”
He started off across the lawn.
“Matt?”
He turned.
“Thanks.”
He gave me a little salute, and walked over the lawn to the sidewalk, moving lightly in the twilight breeze. I smiled and closed my window.

Independence. written 05-07-02.

The grays and blues of the harborside town glinted appreciatively under the July sun. Each building, adorned with salt-faded shingles and clean white trim, stood resolutely by an uneven brick sidewalk, waiting for its admirers to arrive. The tourists were already out in force, cooing over every whaling house, every cobbled street, every cool bronze horse hitch. The town, ten square blocks with sand ground into the sidewalks and the smell of ocean everywhere, was a picture of contentment on a timetable: everywhere the sense of one more museum to see, one more low-ceilinged gift shop to visit, one more freshly caught dinner to eat before the ferry arrived. One could get to the island in other ways, of course. But the ferry made the experience complete.
The charm of the town was undeniable, but to stay would be unthinkable. It was acceptable to linger on South Water Street, perhaps, spending a moment on a wooden bench watching the stunted waves of the inlet-in-a-harbor-in-a-sound nudge the wall of the dock. But to keep the quaint picture in mind, one must move on. Mustn’t look too closely. Charm resides in the corner of one’s eye.
A wide, crunchy road composed entirely of clamshells stretched off of South Water Street, extending in a rather large dock into the harbor, and lined with miniature cottages. A sign hung loosely from the side of one. Old North Wharf. Private Property. Residents Only.
Here stood Independence. A name which made sense only in the context of the other cottages neighboring it: Constitution, Lexington, American. The crowd here was still recovering from the Revolution. Independence enough.
Its back was turned from this blindingly white street: Independence had one door, and it faced the water. A worn teak walkway led in from the street and opened into a patio. A patio which became a dock and ran up against the water, where its slippery black wood met the slippery black of the harbor. A patio which saw everything from South Water Street to the ferry, and even farther, out to the Sound itself. A patio which was the only outdoors the cottage had, two feet of faded summer wood between the pale blue wooden door and the water.
And a patio on which Laura sat. She had draped herself over the worn wooden deck chair and looked over at the people on South Water Street, sitting on benches like hamsters on a wheel. By mid-July, every day looked the same: the ferries emptied their human cargo, the sun shone lazily all day, and by late afternoon, every person was back on a boat.
Eight, nine times a day, the huge ship blared its horn, a noise to scare its passengers overboard, and pulled into the huge slip across from Independence. A hundred feet away, by water. Six or seven blocks by land. Each time the ferry pulled in, Laura looked intently at its windows, trying to see through, into the belly of the monstrous thing. She had never been inside. No, she thought, that’s not true. I have. But not that ferry. And not this year.
She thought of her own journey here. It certainly hadn’t been this scenic, anticipatory cruise, not the calm passage the ferry seemed to be. More like blind flight. She could recall it only in pieces. The night, cloudless but with no moon, a dizzying spiral of stars pointing nowhere. The boat, the picnicking boat of her childhood, the spare key under the cupholder, the navigation system which made sense of the thirty miles of blackness, the rhythm of the slicing of the waves and the rushing of the jet intake steering the boat for her. The boat which she had docked in the inlet outside Independence. The boat which she had somehow tied off with a bolon and a rigger’s hitch. The boat which still lay in the water, right in front of her. It did look out of place, its thirty foot streamlined hull shaming the wooden catboats and dinghies the inlet held.
Laura hated the boat.
In the water in front of her, a dinghy was moving quietly through the inlet, moving aside each bump in the sea. She took note of its captain, rowing smoothly and steadily through the harbor. Strong, rhythmic arms. Long hair tied carelessly back in the manner of a sailor. Bare feet sitting comfortably in the pool of sun-warmed salt water at the bottom of the tiny, plastic boat. Tanned skin, khaki shorts, the reductionist muscularity of legs which spend their days climbing masts and running on decks. Eyes gazing into the water as the boat glided out to sea and the dock slipped away from detail. Never turning around, as if this sailor knew every boat in the veritable minefield ahead, between instinct, experience, and wind direction.
The boat proceeded until the edge of the channel. Its captain’s arms deftly turned the dinghy with one firm stroke of the paddle, and one arm reached out and took hold of the small wooden sailboat awaiting. The boats were brought together, effortlessly, and with a twist of the rope were secured. The sailor, less clear at a distance, leaped aboard and in an instant swung below deck.
Laura realized that she had forgotten how to breathe.
In an instant the sailor appeared again, striding onto the worn and faded deck, unaware of the rocking of the boat below, this time accompanied by a scrubbrush and a plastic bucket filled with water. And those strong arms, so skilled in the rowing of a dinghy, played the same rhythm on the deck, stroke, stroke, wet the brush, move to the right, methodically cleaning the deck one plank at a time, the work continuous, musical, and uninterrupted.
Laura sat unmoving on her teak chair, watching this labor, mesmerized by the rhythm, the motion, the flow of it. The patient determination with which the floor was cleaned. The gentle, unwavering focus. The indifference to the rocking of the boat. The absolute comfort so atypical on one’s hands and knees.
She continued to observe all this, in a state between transfixion and prayer, with an effort so intense as to be exhausting. As the late afternoon sun began to glint painfully off the water, and the ferry loomed large in the distance, Laura entered the open door of Independence, closing but never locking the pale blue door behind her.

Monday night. The air sat lightly in the sky, color-tinged clouds painted on it; a picture, not a presence. People moved down South Water Street, sat on a bench for a moment, and faded away again.
Laura sat in her teak chair looking out over the water, a salt breeze gently brushing back her hair. A notebook rested on her knees and a pen hung loosely in her left hand. A sailboat had just gone trough the channel, and its wake moved through the channel, stirring the moored boats nudging the dock. An unusually tranquil night. She could hear only the water. Even the breezes were silent.
She sighed and resumed writing.
Don’t you remember that day? I saw you at the A&P. I remember it so clearly. You can’t have forgotten. I had just put the sixth tomato in my bag, and I was weighing it to make sure it was less than three pounds, and the hand swung around on the scale between three pounds and four pounds and I was about to take one tomato out when I felt a breeze on the back of my neck and I turned and you were there. You were right behind me, scooping arugala into a bag, and I remember thinking how your beautiful unscuffled shoes looked so out of place on the cold linoleum. And you turned around and saw me standing there, and you smiled, and you didn’t look surprised like I was, you didn’t look like you couldn’t breathe, like I couldn’t, you turned and you smiled calmly and you said my name like no one says it. You landed on it. You pronounced it like a truth. “Laura.” And it was simple and it was beautiful and it was me. And you nodded to punctuate it. And you asked me how my day was, and I answered you without choking, and we walked together to the checkout line, and you walked me out to my car. And I was on the driver’s side, about to turn the key and open the door, but you folded your arms on top of my roof and kept talking, and I left my keys in the door and rested my arms on the car too, and you gazed into my eyes and nodded and said “Goodbye, Laura.” And I watched you go. And I slowly unlocked my car and I opened the door and I sat in the driver’s seat and held onto the steering wheel and lowered my head and felt as if I could disappear.
I imagine you’re either laughing or appalled right now- this sentimental crap coming from me. You thought I was beyond that, didn’t you. You thought we were beyond that. But if this is the only way I can reach you- so be it. I have to tell you everything. And this is part of everything.
Laura glanced over the letter once and signed her name at the bottom. She slowly stood up, bring her half torn-out notebook with her, and walked to the edge of the dock. After opening the tiny white gate, the only thing which stood between her and the sea, she sat on the very edge of the wood, dangling her bare feet over the water, touching the surface when a wave passed by. (Just off high tide, going out.) Laura took the notebook, ripped out the page she had just filled, and held it lightly in her two hands.
Slowly and deliberately, she tore the page in half. Then into long, thin strips. Then into soft-edged, uniform, half-inch squares, her practiced hands amassing the paper in the palm of her left hand while using the fingers of her right to transform the letter. When she had only strangely marked white bits remaining, she pulled her feet from the water and let the paper fall. She watched it leave her hands, watched it quickly come to the water, the air suddenly breathlessly still.
Laura turned before she could see whether the paper sank into the water. She stood upon the dock and walked to the pale blue door, leaving footprints of salt water on the faded teak.
She shut the door firmly behind her.

My sailor will be named Mar, Laura decided.
Tuesday afternoon. The sun was unusually bright, the tide unusually low, the crowds unusually dense. Laura sat on the rail of the dock in faded jean shorts, her legs swinging like a child’s, her hands braced on the painted wood. She gazed out to the wooden sailboat. Every day, she had watched those strong arms row out to the boat, watched those skilled fingers tie up the dinghy, watched that determined body work. The sailor had become a person, a visual acquaintance of sorts, and thus needed a name. And the name, Laura decided, would be Mar.
Mar had rowed out to the boat every day, in that rhythm of familiarity, and had proceeded to work in the same way. The floor had been squeezed of salt. Every brass cleat, rivet, and rail had been polished, a trained thumb and an old rag removing every trace of green rust. Each rope had been unwound, untangled, and beautifully coiled, leaving stiff spirals sitting atop the deck. But Mar had never taken the boat off the mooring, or even raised the sail. Just came to the boat and worked with a quiet resolution which Laura had never seen anywhere else, and found entrancing beyond anything.
Laura scanned the minefield of boats, the docks, the water but found no sign of Mar or the familiar dinghy. Nor did she see any sign of life in the sailboat, still and weightless out by the channel. In the distance, the presence of the ferry was appearing on the horizon.
With only a glance over to the channel, Laura swung her legs out, pushed off from the rail, and plunged into the water. She let herself sink, the cool welcome weight of the water on her shoulders, until she changed course and with one kick shot to the surface. With another kick she brought herself to the side of her boat, and with another heaved herself onto the boat’s side, disregarding the metal ladder off the wooden platform on the back of the boat. Water cascaded off of her, her denim shorts three times their weight, her shirt holding itself out like a stiff sail. Bent at the waist over the boat’s side, her feet still in the water, Laura pulled her legs to the side and rolled into the bottom of the hull, landing in a heap of wet cloth and seawater on the beautiful smooth wood.
As the sun beat down and warmed the water running in streams off of her, Laura closed her eyes and lay herself flat. Her arms stretched out and touched the polished fiberglass sides of the hull. And she smiled. She smiled and bared her teeth and scrunched her eyes shut and laughed, laughed at the uniform blue sky overhead, laughed at the crowds on South Water Street who must have seen her awkward entrance, laughed at her father and the puddle of ocean and daughter soaking into the precious wood of his precious boat.
And when Laura had stopped laughing she sank into the sides of the hull. She lay there in perfect peace, moving slightly with the current, until she heard the blast of the ferry as it came through the channel and swayed the boat.

Late afternoon. The sun glinted low in the sky, skipping off the water and bathing Independence in gold. As boat after boat came through the channel, returning from a day of sunbathing or fishing, their wakes moved through the inlet and hit each other, producing a curious pattern of waves and making the boats rock in the water. The air was warm and soft, a memory of the day’s intense heat. Laura sat again in the chair with her notebook, writing slowly and carefully.
But your presence didn’t thrill me to the point of awkwardness. And I know you saw that. It was never strange to be around you. Just wonderful. You carried this sense of peace with you, always. It was addictive, in a strange way. I was addicted to that happiness. You became an instinct.
By October you had become a permanent fixture in my life. A day without you was an opportunity lost. And it would get to the point where I’d miss you when you went to get another cup of coffee. But by then, it wasn’t that I was attracted to you. It was that I doubled in size whenever you were around.
You must’ve sensed how much I respected you. But it went beyond respect. I admired you so much. I had never met anyone who could be so completely composed, so stabilizing; but at the same time, you had this flame in you. You didn’t often show it. But you could manifest this determination, this pure energy and light that would just radiate out from you, when you talked passionately or did something you loved. And I would just be spellbound. I’d watch you move and be transfixed.
And then, that one day, you said that you saw the same thing in me. You told me that my quiet self could transform into something... you couldn’t say it, and you tried to explain but you didn’t need to. And then you read me that poem. And you told me that ‘the voice of my eyes is deeper than all roses.’ And you found your voice and said that I could become inflamed and lyrical at once and the world would have to stop and watch me. That’s what you said. The world would have to stop and watch me.
So was I wrong to believe we had this special connection? Did I just imagine this mutual regard? Did I completely misread you? Did you think of me as just an interesting specimen, something to behold and analyze, a firefly in a child’s jar, but nothing to befriend, no one to care about and even less someone to love?
I still don’t know. Maybe. But I don’t think so.
And I don’t see how you could either.
Laura looked up from the letter. Tears stung at her eyes, but she blinked them back and, with a trembling hand, tore the page out of her notebook. She looked out over the water. The boats had stopped coming in through the channel, but a slight cold breeze rippled the calm and set the boats in the harbor in motion. She held the letter to her chest and watched the sun glint silver off the moving water. Stop it, she thought firmly, jerking her arm back. You aren’t doing this so that you can cry.
Laura stood up with a resolution she didn’t actually have, and walked to the edge of the dock. She looked down. The water did not glint from above. It was dark blue and deep. Breathing a silent prayer to something, Laura composed herself and tore the letter in half. And she tore it in half again, and her hands took over the familiar rhythm, and the sound of the paper tearing flooded through her and she no longer had to think.
But something caught the corner of Laura’s eye, and she looked over, and Mar had come out of the cabin and was scanning the horizon with binoculars, and, as she watched, made a note on a wooden clipboard and then went back to the binoculars.
Laura’s resolve shattered in an instant. She felt her breath come up to her throat, felt her knees buckle, felt her hands forget. She could think of only one thing.
Mar can’t see me like this.
She stared out at the boat, thoughts running though her head frantically and dizzily.
Mar can’t see me like this.
She looked down at the suddenly dangerous paper scraps in her hands.
Mar can’t see me like this.
And, without finishing the transformation, without her mandatory forced composure, without any thought at all, Laura flung the paper into the sea as if it were burning her. The scraps tossed about in the breeze and did not disappear quickly enough. And when she could watch them no longer, Laura turned her back and ran into Independence. She slammed the aged pale blue door behind her, and sank down to the floor on the inside.
An array of matching embroidered pillows and shiny antique ship models smiled sardonically back at her.
Laura rolled over, fell back, clutched at the warped wooden floor and buried her forehead in it, staining the salted wood with tears of her own. She stared through a veil of water at the holes in the wood, the cracks between boards, stared at it and tried to dig her fingers into it, braced her grip against it, tried to hide in it. And eventually, from sheer exhaustion, she lay her cheek against the floor and slid into unconsciousness.

Wednesday morning. A summer rainstorm beat down on Independence, drumming on the roof above Laura’s head. Independence wasn’t winterized, but it was watertight. Laura moved happily around the tiny cottage, climbing up the ladder to make her tiny loft bed, carefully washing and rewashing the single dish and single glass in the sink. She straightened the pale blue shag rug and wiped down the little table, and she looked around approvingly. Not much housekeeping to do in one and a half rooms, she thought. One and a half rooms and a loft. Walking over to clean the tiny bathroom, she carefully averted her eyes from the other doorway. Independence had a master bedroom. A master bedroom with a queen sized sleigh bed and a wooden dresser and a television which probably worked. But Laura had never gone into that room.
Humming contentedly, she checked each of the three windows in the main room. None of them were leaking. She checked the door, and ran her fingers over the edge. The lock had been so easy to get past, that night. More of a latch than a lock, really. She had just slipped it with a library card, lifting the tiny metal bar up, and then she was in. It’s so unlike them, she thought, to leave it so vulnerable.
Laura sat down, facing the window and watching the rain streak across the gray and make the water ripple. She held a needlepoint pillow on her lap, a picture of the cottage on it, and stroked the stiff thread idly.
She had been twelve years old when her parents had bought Independence, shelling out half a million dollars for four hundred square feet of oceanfront property and a piece of the island’s history. The interior decorator had promptly dressed it up like a nautically themed dollhouse, to an extent Laura had found nauseating even then. Her parents had served many a cocktail there, laughing with their yachting friends out on the patio over red wine and bluefish pate. But they had never once spent the night.
They didn’t name Independence.
Gazing out the window, Laura was suddenly stunned to see a red-slickered figure in a dinghy rowing out to the channel, the small boat moved by strong arms and a steady stroke.
That couldn’t be...
The dinghy steadily approached the sailboat, and after one swift final stroke, a red-clad arm brought the boats together and secured the dinghy with a twist of the rope. And Mar stepped aboard the wooden sailboat, and disappeared below deck.
Laura, now standing at the window, her hands on the cold pane of glass, smiled and squinted through the driving rain. Mar appeared on the deck again, and began taking off the canvas sail cover.
Must be exchanging it for something more waterproof.
Mar untied the stiff fabric loops which held the sail into itself and onto the long wooden boom.
Must be letting the collected water out of the sail.
Mar moved forward to the mast, untied one beautifully coiled line, and began heaving on it with long, firm strokes, raising the sail.
Must be...
Mar ran to the bow, cast off the line holding the sailboat to the mooring, and moved quickly back, immediately taking a firm grip on the tiller and trimming the main sheat, moving the sail in to adjust for the wind angle.
Must be-
Laura ran outside and up against the edge of the railing, leaning farther out, as if the extra inches would bring her onto the boat. She watched it move out into the channel, gathering speed immediately. The sail filled out and the bow cut cleanly through the water. And as Mar brought the boat away from the wind, and the stern swung around, Laura saw for the first time the name stenciled on the transom.
Independence.
The boat kept moving beautifully through the water. Laura climbed onto the dock’s rail and leaned against the fence separating the cottages. She sat perched on the railing, her legs drawn to her chest, not noticing the rain and held up by some force beyond her. And she watched Mar sail and maneuver and move gracefully until the boat finally returned to its mooring.

Thursday night. Loomed large and overwhelming. Clouds hung in the sky like sculpture. There were no creamy pinks and oranges of sunset, but purple. Everywhere purple. The sky darkened, the sky towered, clouds were maroon and shadowed in navys and plums were tucked into the corners. And the last vestiges of sunlight strode from the horizon streaking silver through the picture. Overpowering.
Laura sat on her teak chair, her eyes searching the sky for something. The night felt like a stone in her chest, heavy and overwhelmingly present and commandingly huge. It had a feeling and a sound of its own. Nothing else came through.
She looked back down and continued writing, intensely and quickly.
And- of course- something changed. To the point that all I can do now is write to you. And as I try to explain myself, I know it doesn’t come across. It’s so damn FRUSTRATING. Especially with you. That I’ve been reduced to words, and I don’t know what you’re thinking, how you’re reacting. That I can’t SEE you.
It didn’t used to be like this. Which is why writing to you seems so ridiculous. I never talked to you in words. You know how it was. Silences weren’t awkward because we were thinking the same thing. Words were chosen in threes, and each had a symphony of undertone. And a glance or a nod meant more than a run-on sentence. We’d stand in silence, eyes searching, and somehow know, and know completely, the other. And we’d look up and there’d be this virtual beam of light. You WERE me. You were thinking what I did. And we never worried about anyone listening because we didn’t have to. They wouldn’t understand. The words we exchanged were merely a structure of syllables. But really- really, no one else was there. They didn’t have to be. You listened to me and I knew you understood and you were holding my soul for safekeeping.
And I’m inherently and completely and ridiculously contradicting myself here. Because I shouldn’t need to say this to you. Because at one point you felt every bit of this too. Because I know you did, and the point was that I didn’t have to tell you and the point was that it wasn’t something to be discussed or remarked on and it just WAS.
So what am I doing here? Am I reminding you? I think I must be. Because you’ve obviously forgotten. Because at some point you decided that your other half wasn’t worth holding onto. You decided to give up without a fight, without ceremony, without an incident. And I know that your life changed. But that doesn’t justify it. That doesn’t fucking justify anything. You don’t throw something out like that. But you did. And suddenly we were strangers. And suddenly that connection which meant everything was reduced to small talk and chance encounters. But one thing didn’t change. I could still read you. I could read you and when you talked about nothing, nothing that I’d ever care about, you weren’t happy. I’d look at you incredulously, and you’d be ashamed. Don’t try to deny it. It didn’t mean anything to you either. And I’d get that back from you. After you’d spouted nonsense you’d look over at me, and I’d see what you were doing and you would know. But I’ve still never understood why. How you could pretend that it meant nothing. How you could resign yourself to circumstance. How you could let go without a fight. How you could let the greatest connection of my life- and I would bet of yours- fade away into obscurity, into memory, into irrelevance.
And I wish that I could hate you for it.
I wish that I could utterly destroy you and any regard I had for you and any emotion I invested on you.
But I can’t.
Laura violently tore the letter out of the notebook, leaving a white corner near the top clinging to the spiral. She stood up and faced the impossibly huge sky, daring it to challenge her, to defy her now.
And a sudden gust of wind took the letter, still intact, out of Laura’s grip.
A gasp ripped through Laura’s body like a knife. She stood, acid coursing through her veins, as the white sheet snapped around and then fell to the water.
And then she tore open the white wooden gate with an unequaled violence, clawing madly at the flaking paint, and threw herself into the water. The jolt of the cold shocked her and weighed on her heart but she paddled furiously until she reached the floating letter. As she grabbed for it, it draped softly over her hand, the fibers loose and pulling away.
And Laura saw that the ink was smeared.
Her breathing, already frantic, became hysterical, and she stared at the black-smeared page with incomprehension and panic. And could think of nothing but how to destroy it.
Laura plunged underwater, the paper clutched in her fist, and kicked furiously, her feet above her head, spiraling down to the harbor floor. She reached the bottom, her hands slamming into the thick mud which she couldn’t see, and shoved the letter into it. And when it threatened to float back up she smashed it down again, grinding it into the ocean bottom and holding it there, as her mind screamed for air and lights flashed around her mind. And when she could hold it no longer she turned upright, dug her toes into the mud and shot upwards, emerging on the surface gasping and crying and clutching at the metal ladder which extended from Independence’s dock. She hung in the water, one ankle looped in the metal holding her in, and sobbed convulsively, her screams tearing through her, sending waves back through the harbor. And when she couldn’t control herself she plunged her head back into the water, taming herself with its weight and its salt, and came up again, crying anew. The sky hung above the scene and watched as she grew weaker and quieter, drifting in the water. The ladder never relaxed its steel grip.

Saturday morning. Cool and slightly breezy, but very bright. The nearly empty ferry sounded its horn and pulled out of the slip. And Laura sat by the railing of the ferry and watched Independence recede from sight.
She stood up and leaned on the cold sticky metal, looking at the harbor. The imposingly large boat she had arrived on still sat by Independence. Laura smiled. They’ll have to come on the ferry next time.
Only one boat was missing from the harbor, she realized. The familiar wooden sailboat was gone and the mooring was empty: no dinghy in sight. Mar must have left at last.
The idyllic town grew smaller and smaller behind her.

Well, I think I’ve bitched you out sufficiently. So I’ll refrain this time.
What I never did say is thank you. Thank you for opening my eyes. Thank you for the coffee and the conversation. Thank you for the hope you gave me. Thank you for the closest friendship, the deepest understanding I’ve ever felt. And thank you for spending five months of your life with me.
I love you. And I’ll never forget you.
Laura tore the last page out of her notebook and walked to the ferry’s stern. The ship was now in the open ocean, and when she came to the back she was immediately met by a wall of solid wind and salty humidity. She forced her way to the back railing, watching the deafening rush of water of the ferry’s wake. She slowly and carefully tore the letter into soft-edged squares, gathering them carefully in her hand, holding them tightly from the wind. And as her hair was blown around wildly and her face was sprayed with mist, Laura cast the paper into the air. It was immediately seized by the flowing force of water and air, and the tiny scraps glinted like sparks before they disappeared entirely.
Laura smiled and watched them go.

Revival. written 05-07-01.

It was a Thursday, late afternoon, but she had been on the train since early Wednesday. She leaned her head against the window, her right hand resting on her small, hastily packed suitcase, and looked out over the vast expanses of trees, silhouetted against the heavy gray sky. I thought it was supposed to be spring by now, she thought, watching the blustery day outside and feeling the soft rhythm of the train tracks under her. She had never really been this far north, but she found it terribly monotonous; there had been nothing but trees since Redding, with hardly a dirt road for variation.
Rummaging through her suitcase for her schedule, she was bothered by the disarray of her clothing. Having consulted the timetable- forty more minutes, then half an hour in Procida- she set about folding her blouses and carefully rolling her socks into equally sized balls. Taking out a worn sweater, she uncovered the pictures- well, she didn’t even want to think about those at the moment. She set them aside. The warmer shirts went on the bottom, the thinner ones above that, and the socks had a place of their own. She gently smoothed the fabric, her fingers exploring the cloth like a child, folding and straightening again. Her notebook was placed on top. She glanced at the pictures, the only things which didn’t fit into the arrangement she had created. After considering the snapshots’ pale backs, she tucked them under her vile green shirt- of course she didn’t want to wear it, but is was clean and she had no time to wash anything else- and paused, leaving her suitcase open. She allowed herself a small smile, her first in days, at the order of it all, then shut the top tenderly and placed the suitcase next to her.
She sat back into her seat again, staring out the window, her thoughts her companions. Surely she hadn’t been wrong to leave it with him? He had found it, and would take care of it, would he not? After all, she thought bitterly, he was the one who wanted it. He made the decision for her, even though that should have been left to her, even if nothing ever was. And she wouldn’t have kept it, and now she wasn’t keeping it, and if he wanted it he could have it, he deserved it! ... But it didn’t deserve it. And what if he hadn’t found it, and someone had seen her leave it, and by the time he got to it it was- no, she wasn’t going to worry, she had promised herself that, she had left her worries behind her. That was why she had to leave.
Her stomach spoke out in its hunger, but she ignored it; she could wait until the next stop. After all, she had been traveling for many hours, and she couldn’t eat on the train, as she had very little money. The money was with him- no, she wouldn’t think about that. She had enough to get by, until she found a job. Though she was trained for nothing, having never worked before, she felt confident that she could find some work, as a cashier or waitress or something of the sort. Just so long as it didn’t involve children-
The train began to slow. She looked up, and taking her suitcase firmly by the handle, rose from her seat and strode purposefully down the stairs and onto the platform, where she was met by a comforting breeze, relief from the suffocating monotony of the train. Glancing at the restaurants near the station, she walked into the less crowded of the two. She took a seat at a small table in the corner, with a window nearby, and placed her suitcase beside her.
She leaned forward onto the table and looked out at the little town beyond the station. This wouldn’t be so bad, she thought, taking notice of the quiet, narrow streets, with the uniform houses lined up evenly among them. She liked the way that everything was right there where one would least expect it, amid miles and miles of trees on all sides. It seemed so independent; all the houses and stores and roads right there together, with no other civilization in sight. Yes, she decided, I could live here. I could come back.
After she had ordered her meal- a glass of water and a small green salad- she stood up, lifted her suitcase, and walked outside. It was quite cold, but she didn’t mind, as she had hardly stepped out of the train for days. And the town seemed to greet her, even though there was no one in sight. The wind cut through her thin skirt and sweater. She shivered as her hair was blown about, then quickly straightened it; she hated looking disheveled. She sat down on a wooden bench, breathing deeply. The air, she thought, that’s one thing that’s better up north. So cool and clear, like you could almost drink it. It tasted of freedom, like she could go out and do anything, and the world would wait for her. Freedom, with no one making her decisions for her, or telling her what she could do with her life, or what she could do with someone else’s-
A sudden spasm of cold shook her and she walked back inside. At her table once more, she slowly chewed the wilted greens, willing herself to believe that her meal was more filling than it really was. After checking her bill- $2.68, at that rate she could eat for several days once she got there- she carefully wrapped her stale slice of bread in a napkin and placed it amid the socks in her suitcase. She checked her watch. Ten minutes left, but what else was there for her to do? She left her money on the table, and suitcase firmly in hand, she walked back onto the train and to the same seat, three rows back on the left. In the warm captivity of her seat once more, she looked out the window longingly at the town again, feeling an abrupt sense of nostalgia. No, you can’t stay here, she told herself firmly. It wouldn’t work, you couldn’t get a job, I don’t care how much you like it. It’s not yours. You can’t stay in every place you like, you have to leave some things behind... She gave the sleepy town one last glance, then tore herself away and closed her eyes.
She had left it at his house, but he wasn’t there to find it-- It had suffered a long day, shrieking into the silence, awaiting something which never came-- When he came home, it was to death on his doorstep, the stench of it permeating his home-- It had risen from its tiny grave and found her-- It was laughing at her, taunting her with its vengeful eyes-- She ran from it-- It was there in front of her-- It was always there-- always there-- always-
A bump in the train tracks awoke her with a jolt. Trembling, she pulled back into her seat, her suitcase in her lap. It hadn’t happened, she thought to herself with a shudder. It didn’t happen, he had it and it was safe- no, she wouldn’t worry about that. You did the right thing, she told herself. You had to take control, you had to stand up for yourself, you had to leave it behind, you never wanted it at all, it was his and it should be with him, you can’t let yourself be tied down be his decision, you have to move on! But for the first time she wasn’t so sure that she was right. What about it, and if he didn’t find it, and he didn’t suffer but it did, and it didn’t deserve that, of course, even less than she did, it didn’t have a choice at all... had she done the wrong thing? There’s nothing you can do about it, she thought to herself, nothing at all. Either he found it or he didn’t, and either way you’ll never see it again, like you wanted.
She looked out the window into the rapidly darkening twilight. They were into the trees again, the endless trees with no order to their placement. She wouldn’t have minded them if they hadn’t been so big, and so interminable, and with nothing to divide them, as if anything which was brave enough to rise up out of the lifeless soil was immediately removed by the powers above them. Isn’t there a place in the world for something besides trees, she thought. Why did the trees control everything? Was there really no room for even a flower?
She had managed to stop worrying about where she had come from, but couldn’t help but worry about where she was going. She had never lived on her own before. She was forcing herself to be independent; well, she thought, this trip is certainly a start. Fleeing nearly a thousand miles, alone, unplanned. She was pleased with her own daring. But daring doesn’t give me a roof over my head, she argued; if I can’t find a job, I’m living on the streets. and even if I do, I won’t know anyone, or where to find an apartment, or anything else...
Leaning her head against the window, the first tear fell from the corner of her eye. Stop it, stop it, she thought. You haven’t cried since it happened, you can’t cry now; but she couldn’t stop it, the tears kept falling, from exhaustion, from guilt, from apprehension, from the feelings of inadequacy and desperation she couldn’t suppress, no matter how hard she tried...
It was the early morning sunlight flooding her car which woke her. Opening her suitcase, she gently removed her schedule; they had crossed the state line during the night and there were only several minutes to go. Her stomach began to knot itself. She didn’t want to get off of the train, she didn’t want to leave her seat at the moment, even. As long as she stayed where she was, she had control over her life. Outside the train was another world, one in which she didn’t know if she could survive.
They were passing small towns more frequently now, none of which appealed to her as much as the first. It wasn’t the same, she thought; these towns had each other for support and reliance. They weren’t surrounded by the encroaching trees. They weren’t isolated from everything good in the world. What accomplishment was there to stay standing when there were so many to hold you up? It wasn’t the same...
The train was definitely slowing now. She sighed, nervously opening the lid of her suitcase and placing the schedule on top, checking to be sure that her possessions were still orderly, and nodding in approval. Closing the top, and staring at its secured lid, she felt her heart swell suddenly as if punctured by the golden sunlight streaming into the train and warming her face. With her suitcase, she stood up determinedly and strode to the exit, onto the platform, down the street.
She paused at the first turn she was to make, onto a street of small houses with flowers just emerging from their downtrodden lawns. Not a block from the station, she turned around and cast one final glance upon her train, still waiting resolutely by the platform. She broke into a smile, a real one. She walked down that street, into the early morning sun streaming through the golden and grazing the side of her face, into a town with a renaissance of flowers arising from the recently melted snow, into a new life and into a new beginning. She never looked back.