“Yes,” she said. “I do.”

He stood then, coming up smoothly but he did not come to her, turning to stand instead at the screened side of the porch, his back to her. He stayed like that some time. No longer shivering. Finally he turned. She had not been waiting for him but watching him, knowing he was sifting and sorting, allowing all things to align within him—she sure his answer was known sometime before to him as well as her. He said, “It’s awful pretty, isn’t it? The times I imagined the ocean wasn’t ever anything like this. I guess you couldn’t imagine a thing like this, not really. You think?”

“Not until I saw it I couldn’t.”

“You want to take a walk down along there? As long as I’m here, I’d like to see it some.”

“You lose your shoes?”

“No. They’re out the front of the house. But I’d go barefoot to walk the beach.”

She came up then, off the daybed and stretched herself, her arms up over her head. Then brought them down and hugged herself. “Let’s go walk.”

He took a step toward her. “You’re sure it’s all right? For you?”

“To walk?”

“Don’t laugh at me.”

“Jamie, I’ve been swimming naked out there every night until this one. I can’t see a walk would hurt a thing.”

“Swimming in the dark?”

“Swim out and ride the waves in.”

“All that water,” he said. “It’s fearful.”

She went toward him then, did not touch him but went past to the door and opened it and stopped and turned. “It’s delicious. It’s fear and everything else all at once. You’ll love it. Come on.”

“You want to swim out there?”

“I want to swim out there. With you. I want you to see what it’s like.”

“Go swim naked out in all that?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Aw, Joey,” he said.

“It’s not dark out there. You won’t believe how much you can see. And what you can’t see you don’t care about. See the moon? Come on.”

He stepped toward her then and she turned and went down the steps into the swells of sand atop the dunes and turned and looked back at where he stood on the top step, his hands in his trouser pockets as he looked down at her. He said, “So you called yourself Pelham.”

“I did.”

He nodded, his head in the moonlight a dipping luster of face then salt-torn hair. He said, “People hate a French Canadian, don’t they?”

“I was trying to be smart.”

“Pelham’s a stout old name.”

“I wasn’t trying to take anything from you.”

“Oh no,” he said. “Whatever good it did you, you’re welcome to the use of it.” He came down to stand beside her in the sand. She could smell him again, an odor she couldn’t recall away from it but couldn’t place herself apart from when he was there. “Mostly,” he said, “people are cruel, given the chance.”