Chapter 1 #2
The small beach is perfect for relaxing.
I will lay out on my towel at least for today, at least until I can find a cute lounger with a small, portable table.
Another thing I would like to have for the house would be a hammock for the patio.
I take in the scenery and quickly realize it isn't as private as I remembered. I forgot that I have neighbors to my right, less than a thousand feet away. I wonder who lives there now. It is a smaller house than this one, but it still has amazing New England architecture and a small widow’s walk too.
Many of the older, shore-side homes do. They were known better in the early 1900’s for the wives of seamen who would go up to watch for their husband’s boat to return to port.
It wasn’t unusual for fishermen to be lost to the sea back then, rendering many a widow.
Like how my Grandpa left Nana Mabel. Decades later, and the sea still takes them from us.
The lighthouses at least lessened the rate of shipwrecks when fishermen couldn’t clearly see the shoreline upon return.
I make a mental list of groceries and to-do’s, with looking for a job being toward the top of the list. I’ve already been scanning for any openings at the middle or high school for an English teaching position, but I don’t really love that idea yet.
I really just want to write, which is why I pursued my B.A.
in Literature. Now I’m wondering if that was a mistake, seeing as I don’t really want to teach.
I’ll have to find something small in the mean-time.
My student loans were almost taken care of, since I mostly rode through on scholarships, so money wasn’t that big of an issue.
I still have a decent amount saved up, plus a gracious portion left from Nana.
Bless her soul. The house is paid off, so I have time to settle in.
Thinking of all this makes me feel pretty blessed.
With the current economy, there’s so many people much worse off.
The only other immediate thing I need to do today is go into town to get some groceries for the week.
Down the beach near the water, I hear a dog barking impatiently.
Raising a hand to block the sun, I peer hard and see a man bringing his boat up to the dock.
Interesting… Observing, I see the stranger throw something into the water, and the dog jumps exuberantly off the side of the boat to swim and retrieve it.
I wish I were closer to see them better, but then, he’d see me watching.
It’s at that moment that I know I want a companion, so a pet gets pushed to the very top of my list. A cat wouldn’t make much fuss compared to a dog, and I’d always loved having one curled up next to me purring when I was little.
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Colin
I love days like this. Getting the chance to go out on my boat and having Amy curled up beside me while watching the waves roll by always makes it even better.
Amy has always had me wrapped around her little paws, ever since the day Jenna found her lying in a cold box with her litter mates on the side of the road.
She had come sweeping into the veterinary clinic, where I was training to take over for the owner, with a mission that day.
We had been able to save three of the little labs while two others struggled for several days before passing.
The three pups left had been two black male labs and Amy, the runt, this little brown bundle of fur.
She sure was a little fighter and didn’t take any flack from her brothers.
The two males were adopted shortly after, and Jenna hadn’t had to do much persuading to bring that puppy home.
Jenna…
A pang of longing slashes through my heart every time she enters my mind…
Damn, I miss her still, even after five long years.
Some days it feels fresh, like I just lost her yesterday, and other days it feels like the years it actually has been.
I’ll never forget the night the sheriff showed up on our doorstep to inform me that she had been in a fatal accident on her way home on our third wedding anniversary.
While I had been cooking a nice dinner and lighting candles to set the mood for a surprise, she had been pinned in her car, bleeding to death, because of a stupid, drunk teenager who decided to get behind the wheel.
He had just been released earlier this spring on parole for good behavior after serving five good, long years.
The kid had only been nineteen at the time of the accident.
I could only hope the boy would never pick up another drink.
He should live with that awful mistake forever in the back of his mind.
Amy’s impatient barking brings me back to reality.
We’re almost to the private dock, so I pick up and launch her ball out into the water just to watch her enthusiastically leap out of the boat and swim to get it.
I jump out to secure the boat’s ropes. Amy swims to the shoreline only to come bounding back at full speed to show me her prize.
“Good girl, Amy!” I praise, rubbing her soggy head.
She shows her joy by shaking all of that salty water on me before running toward the back deck leading up to our humble abode.
If you could call it that. It’s neither too large nor too small.
It’s an old original that Jenna and I worked hard to fix up.
She had been so excited to paint and had sent me into town on errands with instructions to bring back sample swatches in every color under the sun.
I had grumbled, but I did it anyway, just to see the smile on her face when I returned.
She had a killer smile, that one, and it had been the first of many attributes to reel me in.
I sigh, shaking the thoughts from my head.
I have to stop thinking like this. At this rate, I will never find happiness again, if it even exists, and I sure as hell can’t bring her back, so there’s that.
Five long years… I think, strolling into the kitchen to retrieve a beer from the fridge.
Five years since I’ve touched a woman or felt the comfort of soft skin next to mine in the morning.
Nobody to drink coffee with and make small talk.
Thankfully, my two best friends, Trystan and Mark, are still around to kick back and relax with.
They have tried time and time again, to no avail, to set me up on a date over the past couple of years.
Only recently though have I started to contemplate the idea of dinner with a new woman.
It’s not that I don’t want to get back out there.
I really do. I just don’t know if I could ever love anyone again the way that I loved Jenna.
Face it, I throw back the last of my sweet-tasting brew, you’re scared shitless.
Pretty much.