I open my eyes and try to judge how close to the edge I can go. I stop a couple of yards shy of the edge and look over into the waves. From my bed it didn’t sound this bad. I almost managed to pretend that I had dreamt it. No such luck. Another few feet of the cliff are gone. The end of the yard is a booby trap, something out of a cartoon. There’s no ground under the grass, nothing underneath to support your weight, just a drop into the constant traffic of the waves against the rocks. Fresh rock and soil and dangling roots like the nerves of an extracted tooth are exposed along the C-shaped underside of the cliff face. The clothesline and the few things I had left to wear in this weather are long gone. One of the trees, a dogwood, clings to the cliff side at a desperate angle, four-petaled blossoms shivering in the wind. It looks like it’s still falling. I can’t see the other one at all. My dogwood tree at the bottom of the sea.

One, two, three, four. A few more steps and I could end this. Five, six, seven, the end.

Shit. Oh, shit, Mom, where are you?

Staring out toward the ocean makes my heart beat hard, like it’s being punched by someone I can’t see, someone who really hates me. But it’s also hard to pull myself back from the edge. I’m trying to figure this out, trying to get my head around how to retrieve the trees and the land and my clothes. How to make this process change its mind. It’s upsetting, and stupid. Confusing in a different way from anything else. Confusing down into my bones.

I pad back through the house and take the stairs two at a time. In my room (the guest room actually) there’s nothing on the walls except the watercolors Lolly used to do at an evening class in the chapel. When I told her I liked them, she just rolled her eyes. She was right, of course, they’re no great shakes, and it was good to have someone who didn’t need to be lied to all the time. I always thought I could be like her if only I studied her carefully enough, watched her closely and memorized her, but she always seemed too far away to see clearly.

Wool pants, a thermal hoodie, some sweaters spreading across the floor. Winter stuff. Nothing I can wear today. But they’ll be back soon. Probably tomorrow, even. They’ll have to.