I can almost believe that somewhere is the person who could look across the street and see a vision of perfect peace, the resting place of someone who, unlike the rest of us, was only encouraged and adored.

When sunlight hits the headstone so, it flashes through the branches of the copper beech we planted to obscure it. If I stare long enough, it will burn a hole through my head.

For the rest of my habitation in this house, in this marriage, her baby will be buried in my life unless I can make my way to back behind the stacks of shingles and to back behind the row of storm doors and to back behind the rolled hammock—and maybe find the goddamn shovel.

One of the locals said at the bar, “I hear you’ve got a new lodger.” I thought, Word travels fast—I only got here last night.

In a corner booth of the Soggy Dollar, an old beach bar that also serves food, I can listen to other customers without seeming to eavesdrop; I’ve got postcards fanned out on the table. I’m trying not to say the same thing on every one.

The best is an aerial view of the road you take to get here. Seeing this ahead of time, you would choose to go somewhere else. Hugging the inside curves of the road, taking steady deep breaths, I can drive myself here, but not back. I hire one of the locals to drive my car down to the junction of the road where I can take over. I arrange for a taxi to meet us there, and I cover the large fare back.

“It’s imported,” the bartender says, and pours a glass for the guy at the bar who meant lager.

“What do you think?” the bartender says. “Should I order more?”

It is not easy to get to this beach. The one road is dangerous even in good weather, even during the day. It winds around the hills on the edge of a cliff, climbing above the ocean until it suddenly grades down. People have lost their lives on the way to this beach, or on their way home from it. Heading home puts you in the outer lane where there is no guard rail, not that it would help. There is only the occasional turnout for a scenic lookout point, and people mindful of others pull over to let them pass.

It’s a moody beach, more often foggy than bright. It is rarely warm enough to take a swim. It is pretty to look at, the cove a perfect C, and there’s the haunted house tour if you’re that hard up. For excitement: the peril of a storm that washes away a residence, fire in the dry hills, a fight that breaks out among bikers passing through. The new lager.

I hadn’t been to this town since the time, years before, when I nearly drowned. I credit the pancakes I’d had that morning for giving me something to draw on to fight the current, until I remembered not to fight the current, but to swim parallel to land until I had swum past the current and could then turn in toward shore.