Florence was less charming than I remembered. The majestic coastline petered into sandy plains, and most of the town was just a long commercial strip, with all the same stores we had in the city. We found the bookstore, though, which was all right, and I bought an old atlas. Alissa stumbled across a nice collection of Carleton Watkins photos, but the price was too steep. There were no bargains anymore. With the Internet, everyone knew exactly what everything was worth.

After the bookstore we walked to the dunes, scrabbling in the beach grass. Cresting the slope we came to a view of more dunes. Far away, some kids were tooling around on buggies and recumbent beach bicycles.

“You want to do that?” I said.

“Fuck no,” she said. “Let’s go home. I’m hungry.”

After dinner we returned to Alissa’s hotel room, and to my surprise, we made love for the first time in our decades of friendship. I would have felt strange using the cottage in that way, and without my having to say anything she understood.

I had often imagined Alissa’s body over the years. I’d watched her change gradually from radiant youth to beautiful adulthood. Removing her clothes, I still remembered that young body, the graceful neck, the fine legs, but I wasn’t sorry to be arriving so late. Her small breasts were lovely. Her hips were supple. My own body was hairier and heftier than it used to be. We did all right though.

I had never cheated on Judy, and I was pretty certain she had never cheated on me. We’d always been firm in our commitment to the convenience of monogamy, if nothing else. Whether fucking Alissa while still in mourning really qualified as infidelity I wasn’t sure, and at least for the moment I decided to suspend my judgment.

Afterward, we lay in the window seat of the hotel room, watching the tide. A gang of gulls lurked on the sand, keeping themselves company. Wispy clouds skidded across the sky, fringed in moonlight.

“So strange,” I said, my hands wandering over her skin, cupping her breasts, tracing the bone of her hip. I kissed her behind the ear, smelling minerals and flowers.

“What?” she said.

“I’ve thought about you a lot over the years,” I said. “You’d be surprised how much.”

“I don’t think so,” she said. She craned her neck and I held her face as we kissed.

The wind kicked up that night, rattling the windows in their mullions. I woke up in the early-morning hours, worrying a pane might shatter, and then, fitfully, fell back to sleep.

In the morning I went back to the cottage. Alissa had a few layouts to turn in by the end of the day, and thanks to me, she had fallen behind. We kissed at the hotel room door and I left her to her laptop.