The Topsail Accord Read Free

didn’t work out, because he didn’t love me, or didn’t understand my love, or for some other reason I don’t know. It had to be more than just that he wanted a family and that we could not have that family naturally. We could have adopted, could have done many things. So I try not to think about it so much anymore. In fact, I only think about it now when someone else brings it up, or when he sends me yet another email or text or letter. He needs to learn to leave me alone. If he had learned to leave me alone while we were married, then we might still be married. I loved him, but I wanted to be left alone. Well, left alone to be with my family, or with my lab, or out here on the beach. He never got that. I like being alone, for long periods of time, weeks, even months. I like to think things all the way through, and that takes time.
    I am alone out here in the fog. I like it. I can hear the waves whispering against the shore, and some gulls making their gull sounds somewhere. I can feel the fog against my cheek, against my skin, against my breasts. It is cool, not cold, not uncomfortable. And different from the nearly constant string of warm and hot days I have spent here on Topsail.
    I raise my third mug of coffee to my lips and sip. I will be jittery later from this third mug. I still don’t know why I poured it, but I know why I brought it out to the beach, so that if he saw me he would know where I am staying. And then what? This is a silly plan, and I can’t believe I have done it.
    I hear him before I see him. Hear his footsteps in the sand, and his breath. He is breathing hard. I can tell he is down closer to the water on the firm sand. It is easier to run down there. He limps less when he is down there. I noticed that he limped in the deeper, finer sand that has been carried up near the dunes by the wind. What caused that limp? Is it just being older? He must be nearly fifty. Or was he injured somewhere? In a wreck? In the war? I wonder about him. And I wonder why I am wondering. What is this ridiculous curiosity?
    His footsteps come closer. His breathing is louder. I take another sip from my coffee, listen more intently, and take a few steps closer to the waves. A few more steps, and I hear his footsteps retreating, heading away from me, up towards the pier.
    I missed him, if it was him, but who else could it have been? I do not believe in destiny, but I believe in patterns, and he has been the most regular jogger on this beach, at this place and time on the shore. So it was likely him, and he was heading towards the pier in the heavier, denser sand that is not blown so easily by the wind but is moved back and forth by the long shore current. I will wait here, by the gentle waves whose tiny sounds reach out from under the fog to search for the sun. I will wait for him to come back. Wait by the rill marks that delineate where the freshwater underground meets the saltwater beyond. Yes, I am waiting for a man, in my bathing suit, in the fog, in North Carolina. I have never waited for a man in my entire life. It is absurd.

Jo e
     
    We don’t get to choose who we love, but we do get to choose how we love them. We choose, either consciously through activity, or unconsciously through inactivity. But we always choose, whether we know it or not.
    Love, it is fragile thing, and we can be thoughtless, reckless caretakers who disrespect this precious thing. No we don’t get to choose who we love. We rarely even get to choose who we meet. But this morning, in the fog, I promise myself that if I see her I will say hello. I have chosen to meet her, and therefore I will meet her. I am not avoiding her. But I am likely invisible to her. Just a local. I have decided to meet her on this, the first foggy morning of the summer.
    I must have gone past her house by now. It is hard to tell in the fog. I thought I felt something just a few yards ago, but I did not see her. Is it possible to feel someone like that? To feel someone