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Ewan doesn’t seem to think so, though, as a wide smile breaks over his face. The last fingers of sunlight streaming through the window set his eyes aglow.

“Nothing would make me happier,” he agrees.

Chapter Seven

EWAN

Idon’t spend my days hovering at the harbor, trying to catch a glimpse of Shiloh. I want to, but I don’t. Instead, my first three days back in Siren’s Point are spent in an even more fruitless manner—trying to paint. When that goes nowhere, I play hours and hours of Scrabble with Daniel, until the wasted time and embarrassment team up to come knocking on my door and chase me outside.

“Okay. I need some air,” I announce to the empty cottage, flipping off the blank canvas I pass on my way to the door.

Tugging on my boots and locking the door behind me like I promised Daniel I would, I slide into my rental Jeep and point it north. Naiad Cove was a popular haunt for me and Shiloh growing up—a place hard enough to get to that most people didn’t bother. I have to pass Shiloh’s house to get there, but Imake a pointed effort not to look. He’s not there anyway. It’s a beautiful day, with the sunlight shimmering on calm seas. If I know my friend at all, he wouldn’t be wasting weather like this, rare as it is in April. He’ll be out on the water.

I whistle along to an internal radio as I drive with the windows down, dangling an arm into the open air and resting my palm against the warm exterior of the vehicle. I can feel the heaviness of the salt in the air as I pull to the side of the road and park the Jeep. The cove doesn’t have a designated parking area, which probably goes a long way in keeping it off tourists’ radars. Nobody else is parked along the shoulder, which puts a wide smile on my face. I’m the only one here.

Before I leave the car, I slather the coconut sun cream I grabbed at the market yesterday onto my face and forearms. I’ve always been paler than most, and even though I’ve been living in a place with more abundant sunshine than here, I don’t often take advantage of it. I’m not sure if it’s because of my profession or simply the way I am, but the last seven years have turned me into a hermit. It’s been a long time since my skin has received regular vitamin D infusions.

Even with the sun burning away the chill, it’s still fairly cold. I’m grateful for it as I hike carefully down the rocks to reach the stretch of sand. Unlike during the height of summer, when the sand might burn the bottom of your feet off, when I slip my shoes off now, it’s cool against my skin. Wriggling my toes a few times, I look out over the water. It’s warm enough for me to be here, but cold enough that I’m grateful I wore jeans and a hoodie. I won’t be swimming.

Walking to the water’s edge, I stand just close enough for the ocean to kiss my toes. The foam fizzes over the backs of my feet, temperature biting. Yeah, there definitely won’t be any swimming today. Further out, I can see the outline of a boat, but it’s too far away for me to read the name without a pair of binoculars. I don’t think it’s Shiloh, anyway, and he’s the only lobsterman I’m concerned with.

Turning, I stroll toward the cove, staying close enough to the sea for my feet to get a sting of cold every time it laps around my ankles. A couple of times, I bend down and pick up a shell. Most often, I leave them where they were, although a couple catch my eye enough to be slipped into a pocket and saved. I wonder if Shiloh still has that collection of treasures we unearthed over the years of playing in the sand. Growing up, he’d had them in his windowsill—shells, sea glass, starfish, and pieces of sand dollars, all lined up in a row. I’d started giving him anything I found, too, both of us wordlessly agreeing to merge our collections. In that, as in everything, we were aligned.

When I reach the point where Shiloh and I used to hang out, I snort. As kids, the rocks had seemed to form a cave. We’d sit under the shelter, shoulder to shoulder, and play pirates. Looking at it now, I can’t help but feel a burst of fondness for the pair of us. The depression in the stone is barely a cave—certainly too shallow for me to sit in it as I am now. Just another thing that was beautiful and sacred as a kid, only for the shine to be rubbed off in adulthood.

Sighing, I settle on one of the bigger rocks that’s in full sunlight, tossing my shoes to the sand so I don’t have to holdthem. Putting my feet into the water, I gingerly rest them down on the bottom, careful not to stab myself on a rock or critter. Leaning back on my hands, I work to relax my body from my jaw down to my little toes. My therapist is always on me about “mindful eating” and “mindfully spending time” and “taking a mindful shit.” Well, it doesn’t get more mindful than this—feet slowly turning hypothermic in the cold ocean, sun on my face, and my best friend back within the same postal code. Winning.

Sheltered from the road and far from town, the only sounds I can hear in the cove are the soft rush of the waves and the call of seabirds. Watching the seagulls dip and dive over the water, I smile. It’ll be time for the puffins to begin nesting soon. I wonder how many tourists Siren’s Point sees during the nesting season these days, remembering how Shiloh and I had listened to our parents complain about the influx of new people in town before turning around and repeating everything they said.

“Can’t stand the tourists,” Shiloh would say stoutly, and then we’d burst into laughter. Nothing was so hilarious to us as our parents’ problems, which, as boys, had seemed worthy of ridicule.

“Sorry, Mom,” I whisper into the salty air.

I never once heard her complain about me growing up, but looking back on those memories as an adult makes me question. I doubt being a single mother is easy in any respect, but a single mother to a teenage boy? To two teenage boys, really, because Shiloh spent more time at my house than his own. After a while, I’d stopped asking if Shiloh could come over and just assumed it was okay. And it was. Not once, when he darkenedour doorstep, was he turned away.

“Big Shrimp and Little Shrimp,” Mom would joke, which always made me scowl. I was the little shrimp, which outwardly annoyed the teenage boy who wanted to be a man but inwardly pleased the teenage boy who’d developed a crush on the bigger shrimp.

“Shi is still the big shrimp,” I tell Mom now, moving my feet back and forth, enjoying the tickle of the water over my skin. “He’s running his dad’s old boat.”

My cheeks burn as I say this, somehow feeling more embarrassed that I found that information out by snooping down at the harbor than I am about having a conversation with my dead mother.

“He looks good, too,” I add softly, wishing I could attribute the weight of the sun on my shoulders to my mom. We weren’t particularly spiritual or religious, and before she died, she’d only asked that her ashes be scattered into the water.

“That way, you can visit me anytime you want, anywhere in the world,” she’d said, as though untethering me from a gravestone was a gift. I’m grateful for it now. I can’t imagine sitting in a graveyard, surrounded by stone and corpses, and feeling my mother’s warm, steady presence. She wouldn’t have been there, that much I know. But she’s here, in the tang of the salt water spraying my face and the heat of the sun on my scalp. She’s here in the zip of silverfish swimming bravely next to my feet and the pelican bobbing out amongst the waves.

I stay until the numbness spreads from my feet up my calves before shaking the water off and carefully walking over therocks to the beach. After rolling my damp pant legs back down, I pick up my shoes and head back the way I came. I’ve come to the conclusion in the few days I’ve been here that I’m a bit of a wimp, these days. I vividly rememberswimmingwith Shiloh on the sunny days in April and May. Now, just the slight bite in the breeze is enough to have me shivering inside my hoodie and wishing for a warmer jacket. It’s as though my tough lobster shell sloughed off during the years I spent in California and left me naked.

Back in the car, I crank the heat and rub my hands together dramatically. My feet feel less like feet and more like blocks of ice, but I can’t regret the afternoon. It felt good to just sit and enjoy the rolling rumble of the waves, to talk to my mom and feel connected with something beautiful. Maybe my therapist is onto something with this mindfulness shit.

I intuitively slow the vehicle down as I reach Shiloh’s house, as though I’m going to turn down the drive and meet him for dinner. Ridiculous. Noticing the dark windows and carless drive, it’s clear he’s not yet home anyway. Not that it would matter because I’ve used up my one and only time to drop in unannounced.

A selfish, greedy part of me had hoped our conversation the other day might break the glass a little bit. Might be enough to get Shiloh back where I want him—close enough to see and smell and touch. Friends. But the realistic part of me knows that an awkward half apology isn’t going to be enough. What the hell did I expect, anyway? For him to greet me with open arms, possibly tell me he’s in love with me, maybe ask me to move inand get married? There’s a difference between daydreams and insanity, and it’s a line that’s a little too blurred for me right now.

I just want to be his friend again. Driving past the Welcome to Siren’s Point sign had popped whatever delusional bubble I’d crafted around myself, and every feeling I’d spent the last seven years beating into submission came rushing back. It had been hard to leave, harder to stay gone, and as easy as anything to come back. It feels as though I’ve dug through my closet and found a beloved sweatshirt, soft with age, and still the perfect fit after so many years of neglect.

I glance up in the rearview, subconsciously reaching for another piece of him. The house remains dark and still, empty of Shiloh. Feeling a little maudlin all of a sudden, I laugh bitterly when I realize that’s also a pretty good metaphor for my life right now. Dark, still, and empty of Shiloh.

On my eighth day in Siren’s Point, I slip out of the Kelpie Kottage at 3:30 a.m. and walk down to the harbor. It’s dark and cold and too fucking early to be awake. It’s the same thing I’ve done the last few days, though, and already it feels like more of a routine than anything I had going in LA. I can even sort of see why people like starting work this early. There’s very little traffic, pedestrian or vehicular, and everything is just so…quiet. Peaceful. The rock of the ocean against the pier is calm—barely a lapping of the water, as though even the sea takes a little rest during the night.