Eileen jumped and turned toward a pair of hairy man legs. Leaning back, she quickly shoved her rings into her pants pocket as her eyes rose up past a pair of wet board shorts and a large striped beach towel wrapped around Simon’s shoulders and arms. “Jesus Christ!”

“Sorry…sorry,” he added quickly as he crouched before her and shook his wet head of hair. “I didn’t mean to scare you.” He turned slightly and indicated with his head the place on the darkened beach farther down where he’d come from. “I saw you come down. I tried calling to you, but the surf was too loud.”

Eileen lowered her shoulders and took another drink from her bottle as Simon plopped down onto the damp sand beside her. “You scared the crap out of me.” She handed him her bottle without him asking and watched as he inspected the label then took a long drink himself. “You’re swimming?” she asked, unable to keep the incredulous tone from her voice. “At night?”

Simon shrugged and handed the bottle back to her. “Not really.”

She turned her head sideways and watched his profile, uncertain about whether or not she knew her brother-in-law well enough to ask what she was now thinking.

“And no.” He turned and met her gaze. “I wasn’t trying to drown myself, if that’s what you were thinking. But I can’t sleep, eat, even drinking hurts. It’s like I don’t even know what to do with myself, how to function…if I even should be functioning.” He took a breath, held it for a moment, then let it go. “I wanted to stand in the waves. Let them roll over me, crash on top of my head, fill my ears. I don’t why. I guess I just needed to feel the ocean beating against my body.”

Eileen nodded, not needing any further explanation. She wondered if maybe she could use the same sort of beating right now. “Are you cold?” she asked him.

“Yes, but it’s hard to care. Like all my nerves are numb. I hardly feel anything.”

Eileen handed him the bottle for another drink, watched him swallow, and then settle the base of the glass bottle into the sand between them. “Can I ask you something?”

He didn’t look at her but nodded, like he was waiting and bracing himself for something horrible.

“Where was she?” Eileen asked.

Simon lifted his head and gazed out at the water before them. “Right there,” he said. “In the water. Her body was found on the beach the next morning, but the investigators said she shot herself in the ocean. It was the only way to explain…” His voice caught on his words, and he stopped for a moment.