Author: admin

“Don’t get too close to them, okay, they have a special defense mechanism you don’t even want to know about.” “Roger that.” “They spew fish vomit on you!” he cries gleefully. My nose crinkles. “I thought I didn’t want to know.” I’ve been building to something but I’m not sure how to frame it, Dom’s…

She says, “It’s perfect.” Then she adds, “But if you build it by the sea, that house will be underwater in no time.” I give her a lift back to the lighthouse on the back of the quad bike because she is bleeding a lot and I’m not sure she’d make the walk. The ridiculous…

I stare at her with the creeping realization that I have underestimated her. Beyond my wariness there is a tinge of admiration. My mind darts ahead to all the things I have been putting off, things I could accomplish with the help of someone who knows her way around a tool. I am also aware…

But she ruins it anyway by adding, “And not even one peep! What a gentleman!” Because we both know I looked. I wake in the night to the sound of crying. It is not unusual but it kills me just the same. I sit up and put my arms around my oldest son, let him…

I wait, unsure if he expects me to answer. “We didn’t want to waste time. Life seemed so short.” “It is, I guess,” I murmur. “It doesn’t feel that way anymore,” Dom says. “It feels very long.” “You lost a partner.” He looks at me and I am surprised to see something gentle come into…

“So it’s shit either way.” Fen smiles. “We’ll be okay. There’ll be somewhere else.” But will there ever be, he thinks, another home for the four of them to share? The second they leave Shearwater, Fen, who is younger than Raff but who has finished school years ahead of him, is going to leave them…

They don’t understand what I’m trying to do. They fear what I have realized and they fear me for knowing it. And then this. I am in danger. Send help. I don’t sleep. I let the words turn over in my mind. I let them stir some dormant part of me. A little after dawn…

It’s an albatross. Close enough that I can see the soft, snowy plumage of its neck and face and head, the speckled gray on its wings, its pink hooked bill and dark eyes. It is sitting on a nest, I think, and it’s huge. I have seen David Attenborough. I know what they look like….

I shake my head. “You’re fine. You’ll be fine.” We are quiet a moment, and I think about her question. “The world’s not a good place for a child.” She frowns. “That’s not true. Look around.” I do. And wonder what she can see that I can’t. What I can see is an ocean rising…

“Things affect people in different ways.” I wait for him to find the words to tell me what’s wrong, or to decide he is sleepy after all. “This morning,” he says haltingly, “before we went to the boat.” “Yeah.” “Rowan was asking me about Hank.” My stomach plummets and I am back to despising her,…