He met me at the Pacific Ocean that night.
I was trying to keep a candle lit against the wind, cupping my hand around it. As it sputtered and bent, I thought about December. About snow piling up on the driveway, banks folding over themselves in the fields. The river would be frozen over. The pipes would freeze, rickety houses huddled against the cold. I shivered, moving my hand closer to the wick, bowed over it like I kept the holy flame itself. I regretted not bringing a coat, knowing the spray and chill would numb me as ever. As it did when I’d take myself out into the black, walking into the ocean dark as an abyss. Waiting for its tide to swallow me and floating, sometimes in jeans, sometimes in a dress, seldom in bathing attire. Throwing aside the weight of the world, and I miss those endless moments spent wading out alone. The candle almost went out, and my heart remembered to forget a beat.
I couldn’t hear him as he walked. The sand muffled his bare feet. Weathered, calloused feet, tired from stress and work. Not like his hands. Despite the heavy lifting, despite below freezing temperatures, despite nicks and scrapes and a rough life, his hands were always soft. Gentle as he’d pet the coat of his dog. Careful as he’d hold a bottle of wine, or hold me. As perfect as the silt constantly smoothed by the salty sea, which ebbed and swept in my ears.
When he was close enough, he stood before me, blocking out the moon. I never looked up. Eyes dancing in the fire, daring myself to cry and **** it early. I felt the warmth off him like a hot spring pool at Yellowstone. The overwhelming sense of safety, of relief, overridden by fear.
The light had to go out. I told him, that by all accounts, he was late. Ever late. 9, we’d said. I wished he would say sorry. I wished he’d take my hands and put his forehead to mine. Oh, but he wouldn’t say or do anything. Perhaps he was sad, in those last moments. While I thought about summer, careless laughter and harmless dares and then, then I did let the tears flow. Maybe if I’d looked at his face, maybe then I would have seen in his eyes. The reason. Always the reason.
I was trying to turn into a shadow against the moonlight, pulling my knees to my chest. As he took the candle from me. As he blew it out, I thought, but I never looked. I could hear his footsteps, then, plodding away from me. Loud in my head, quiet acceptance in my heart. As I sniffled and coughed, I thought about spring. I took my thoughts away, somewhere new. Where flowers were starting to bud, where a newborn bird hopped around my feet. I thought about wine, and plane tickets, and Christmases that would never come. About lights, and time, and faulty wiring.
It would never have survived.