Exasperated, I go out onto the porch, half wondering if I could somehow persuade Nathan to make me some without having to come right out and ask.

I find, sitting on the porch in front of my door, a large green thermos, like my dad used to take hunting on the weekends. There’s no note, but it’s full of Nathan’s amazing coffee.

Anyone can make coffee, but there is, as he said, an art to making good coffee. And this? It’s the best coffee I’ve ever had. I’ve had Italian espresso pulled by master baristas in world-famous coffeehouses, and this is just…magnificent. Bold, but not overpowering. I add a little sweetener, stir it up, sit on the porch and sip.

His truck is gone.

I refuse to let myself wonder where he is—it’s no business of mine.

I leave my coffee to cool—it always drove Adrian nuts that I like to let my coffee cool off of scalding. I head up to the loft and peruse the books; I choose a Lee Child thriller. Something different—I usually read romances or something similar, easy beach sort of reads. My job is stressful enough that I don’t want to be stressed by my pleasure reading.

But now, everything is different. So maybe it’s time to change things up a bit.

I sit on the front porch and dive into the world of Jack Reacher, and find myself enjoying it way more than I thought I would. And just like that, hours have passed, and my stomach is rumbling.

I’m feeling too lazy to prepare anything involved, so I make a smorgasbord of snacks, and keep reading.

The sun shifts, and now it’s beating directly onto the porch, and I get hot. Sweaty. The inside of the cabin would be cooler, but I’ve spent nearly every minute of the past year inside, and I just…I want to be outside.

The water looks cool, inviting. Why not?

I change into a bathing suit, a plain one-piece that I tend to wear for real swimming rather just lounging on the beach. I don’t think any of my bikinis would fit at the moment anyway—the one-piece is all but hanging off me as it is. My ass is flat as a post, and my tits, never large on my best day, have shrunk to mosquito bites. But, I’m not here to impress anyone.

I’m thankful there’s no full-length mirror here. I don’t think I’d be very pleased with my reflection. I need to eat, get back to a healthy weight.

I bring a towel and head to the dock. The water ripples, reflects the sunlight like a million diamonds in the sun. When was the last time I went swimming? A hotel pool with Adrian, in NYC for a signing, a year before I found out about his diagnosis.