While Hadley was in my arms, I imagined him there, hovering over us, wearing the clothes he died in, a flickering form pushing, pushing into my heart all the things he would never say and do for his daughter.

After some moments, the biology teacher, Mr. Cummings, appeared and shouted at us to stop whatever “disgusting things” we were up to.

I waited for Hadley after school and walked with her back to the blue bungalow she had grown up in. Her mother was home but still asleep. Hadley made me a Marmite sandwich and a cup of tea. Then we went into her bedroom and sat with our backs against the wardrobe listening to Joy Division and New Order. We weren’t really talking, but I felt she wanted me there. I remember my socks were gray and Hadley had on green school tights.

It’s not that we fell in love⁠—more like we had always loved each other and were then just remembering.

14.

What I needed in those early days was time alone to get past the swirling waste of my emotions, play over the many scenarios in my mind for what happens next, then decide the best course of action.

Mercifully, Hadley was unable to drive out to the cottage that first weekend. A friend was in town from Atlanta, and they were trying to organize brunch at a trendy bistro.

I can’t remember everything I did then, but didn’t go out much.

I do vaguely recall hours spent staring at objects I had never really looked at before, such as my wife’s running shoes and the short socks stuffed into them. I realized that for most of my life I had been distracted by the administration of my desires, which I had never truly allowed myself to evaluate. It was as though I had been a bystander, a voyeur who contributes ideas but who has no real hand in governance. That person was gone now.

Ironic how the fleeting nature of time compels us to act, yet is indifferent to our chronic inaction.

I was eating small meals, sandwiches, bowls of cereal, soup, fruit, and drinking herbal infusions⁠—anything to comfort my nerves. I also understood how at heart I was a coward, unable to accept my coming death without panic, nausea, and wild fits of crying.

I believe it was the third day I took a long walk on the beach. After a mile or so it began to rain. At first I was annoyed, but then stood at the water’s edge and stared at all the thousands of drops melting into the sea.

It happened quickly, the realization.