Spoiler! :
If every wave was a page, she thinks on that first day, every minute would be a book; every glint of light over wet sand a metaphor, every slow sunset a library.
There is a system to it, she thinks, but she can’t quite figure it out. Maybe it has to do with the colors of the sky, or the absence or presence of gulls, and the sideways scuttling of tiny crabs between the rocks. She makes up categories and shuffles them around; here the murmur of water and there the wear of seashells, and this here, and that over there—until a new wave rises, caracoles in the dying of the light, and tears it all down.
He is standing ten paces back, but when the first star appears she finds his hand curling into the hollow space between her collarbones. Come home, the man she could grow to love says, and his voice is like dust on old books, like weariness and the muted comfort of silent evenings. Come home, he says, and a wave is breaking. She takes the sound of it like a letter sent from somewhere far away, clutches it close to her chest; sinks against the curve of his chest, and lets him carry her away.
On the second day the wind rises. There are sails on the horizon. Perhaps today numbers will suffice, she thinks, but somewhere between eight hundred and nine-forty she is lost. How is this written, she asks herself; is it certainty, or myth, or a tome only half-written and in truth lost within the folds of rough stones and wind-smoothed sand? The man she might love walks among the dunes. He meets her eyes but once; in his there is a storm. The breeze smells of salt and rain, and its fingers gently brush over the hem of her summer dress, the way another man’s used to.
The first roar of thunder loses itself in a rush of water against stone. It is afternoon, but under the cliffs the shadows are deep. Every lightning flash casts a net of wavering white across the ceiling. They imprint themselves behind her eyes the way old texts used to, all illumination, careful print and brittle parchment.
Here there is no time. The man she loved used to hold her hand when it was dark; he is here, she tells herself, he is reaching for me. Each soft plink of dripping water makes a liar out of her, but between them the silence hangs suspended, and like a droplet on a string it stretches, and glitters softly.
On the fourth day the man she will love stands waiting at the door. She counts the lines time is carving on his face, and takes the thin books he holds out of his hands. The ocean lies waiting, and thrums like a spring coiled. The man she used to love would have translated it into some new solfège; she can but categorize it into some broader category, somewhere between physics and philosophy. Under the leaden sky she sits, and thumbs a book open; frowns, and then smiles, at the faded name written in the top right corner of the first page. When the sun sets the page is painted red; she walks home under the spreading night, and as she sets the books back on their shelves her hand lingers over their spines.
He used to smile when it was bright. Today as she walks along the shore the sea breaks into a thousand scattered tales, and all of them end on a goodbye. In the dusk every wave is an encyclopedia; the foam that fizzes under her toes looks dirty and clean all at once. There must be nuances, but the tides are sibylline, and offer no thesaurus. Somewhere far away a ship passes; sails and deck and mast in thin lines and written out only in terms of potential and distance.
The sixth dawn is pale gold and snow-white. The man she is learning to love offers her his coat, and walks by her side. There is a little tune he hums under his breath, that weaves with the slow roll of the waves. If she looks at him sideways he almost disappears. The snow fits itself against the white streaks in his hair; the sky is the same color as his smile. His thumb brushes over the rise and fall of her spine. Under the silver and the mercury the sea still telegraphs lights like greetings and farewells, like I MISS YOU STOP PLEASE COME HOME STOP I AM WAITING FULL STOP. Against the hollow of his neck her head fits perfectly, and she is rolling up all those messages and archiving them in some dimly-lit corner of her heart where the shelves overflow with sepia photographs and old newspaper issues.
On the seventh day she finds the calendars all crossed out and scribbled over in his trembling handwriting, and walks out to the sea with her eyes open and searching for the light. And the man she loved is not coming back, not until it all grows dark, and the man she loves has been waiting—and she does not ask How long?, or Why?, only takes his hand and shivers in the slow advance of twilight— and every wave is a page, and every minute is a book, and all of them are empty.
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