Down at the promenade they stood for a while and looked at the sea. The waves curled over and crashed, one after another, an endless succession. All that water: it was a wonder it didn’t swallow them up. The day was overcast and the wind had a bite to it. Seagulls hovered overhead, shrieking.

“It’s so weird,” Effie said. “In the summer this place is teeming.” She pointed to a pier that jutted out from the promenade, at the end of which stood an arcade where there had been games and music, she said, where she and her friends would spend entire afternoons, until the lights came on. Acrobats and strongmen performed on the promenade, there were stands of cotton candy and saltwater taffy, and boys surfed in the waves.

“We’ll just have to come back in the summer, then,” Henry said.

She took his hand again and they continued on down the promenade toward town. All along Beach Avenue, to their right, the shops were shuttered and dark, signs posted in the windows: CLOSED FOR THE SEASON. SEE YOU IN MAY!

At last they found a diner that was open and sat at a booth by the window. Their waiter was a boy with the kind of accent Henry had only ever heard on the radio. He wondered if he could tell that they’d recently had sex.

“If you’re from all the way down there,” the boy said, “why didn’t you just go to Florida?”

“Because it’s beautiful here,” Effie said.

Henry ordered the meat loaf, she ordered the fish and chips, and as the boy slipped his notepad into his back pocket he said, “Well, if you came to get away from it all, you came to the right place.”

They ate in silence. “I’m so glad to be here,” Henry said.

That evening, they called it an early night and went up to the attic room. It was not quite eight o’clock.

She prayed the way his grandmother did: on her knees beside the bed, hands clasped, muttering to herself. Henry looked away. She wore a nightgown and her breasts were loose inside of it, but after her praying, a pious aura surrounded her that stunted his arousal. She kissed him and said, “Is it all right if we just go to sleep now?” The look of pity on her face was annoying.

“Yes,” he said. “That’s all I want to do too.”

In the dark he clasped his hands over his chest and prayed silently. He thanked God for the day. He prayed for their happiness and future. He prayed that he would be a good husband. Then he lay rigid on his side of the bed, listening to the wind and the waves through the open windows—feeling gassy, worrying he’d pass it in the night, wishing he could be alone for a little while.