Page 1 of Ebbing Tides
CHAPTER ONE
TEN YEARS LATER
SUNDAY
For as long as I could remember, I’d been a sunrise guy.
Watching those stripes of purple, orange, blue, and rose stretch across the sky, peeking between the clouds as the sun lifted from the darkness of night … it felt like a hug, like somewhere out there, someone was telling me that everything would one day, eventually, be okay. Because it was a new day and I was somehow still here.
But Laura had loved sunsets.
It was funny, thinking about that now.
She had always made time to watch the sunrise with me. Not every single day, no. Sometimes, she was too busy getting Lizzie and Jane—her daughters from her first marriage—ready for school or too tired from being up all night because someone couldn’t sleep or someone was sick. Sometimes, it was just that she needed the extra rest from worrying about everything for everyone else.
But the fact was, she made the time when she was able to. She made aneffort.
She’d come out here on the deck and stare out over the water with me nearly every morning during our short time of living in this house together. She didn’t like coffee, so she drank her tea—something else I’d always teased her about—and we’d sit quietly, listening as the world came alive around us. The birdssang. The water rippled. The girls chattered softly inside the house behind us, eating their breakfast and watching their TV shows.
Then she’d say something about how she wished we’d gotten a house with a better view of the sunset. I’d say something like,Ha-ha, maybe in our next life, and she’d kiss the top of my head, getting as close as her pregnant belly allowed, before going inside to get the kids ready for the day.
I’d sit here, in this chair, finishing the dregs of coffee in my cup. Not thinking about much, not even wanting to because there’d be enough to think about later on.
“I should’ve thought more about her sunsets and tea,” I muttered to the morning, too tired for my words to come out in anything more than a dull murmur.
My black Labrador, Lido, sat up, suddenly alert at the sound of my voice. His nails scrabbled against the deck boards as he stretched—first his hind legs, then his front—and he walked over to rest his chin on my knee.
I scrubbed my palm against the top of his head, scratching behind his floppy ears.
“Come on, boy,” I said as I stood from the old creaking chair. “Let’s go to bed.”
But before I went in, I made sure to touch the chair beside it, as I always did.
Forever empty, forever waiting.
***
I woke up a little after three in the afternoon.Too late. I was only supposed to take a quick nap in the comfort of my own home before going about my day.
It’s okay, I told myself. I still had plenty of time to take the dog for a quick walk, grab something for dinner, and tend to Dad for a while before heading to work for the night, where I would make sure to acknowledge the sunset, even if just in passing.
“Come on, Lido,” I said to my roommate and best friend as I headed down the hall from my bedroom to the front door, where his leash was hanging.
I didn’t need to tell him what we were doing. Our life together had been forged on routine, and he already knew what was coming, tail wagging and tongue lolling out of his mouth as he bounded past me to the door. I chuckled and shook my head. Thank God for dogs. Thank God for their ability to make even the simplest of things a reason to wake up and smile.
Like sunrises and sunsets.
With his leash clipped to his collar, I grabbed my baseball cap from the hook I always kept it on, beside the empty ones once used by the family I had shared my home with.
A good woman. Her two little girls, who, at one point, had called me Papa, and I’d had the privilege of calling them mine.
It had been nine years, eleven months, and twenty-six days since I’d lost them all. Some days, it felt like yesterday, and others, a lifetime. I wasn’t sure which I preferred, if you could prefer such a thing. Fresh, open, throbbing wounds or a dull, persistent, annoying ache. But right now, as I looked at their picture beside the door—the only one we had taken as a family in this house, the only picture we’d managed to get while Laura was pregnant with our son—the grief came as a heavy fullness,flooding my chest and crowding my heart and lungs until I was sure I’d lose the ability to breathe altogether.
I would be okay. I was always okay, eventually. I made sure of it because I had made a promise to never find myself on the edge of that proverbial cliff again. But it had been such a long time since that terrible day in late February, and through the years, I’d learned the best thing was to allow myself to ride the waves. To let the sadness steamroll over me until I was wrung out and ready to push past it.
So, I pressed my forehead to the door, blew out a shaky breath, and let my eyes close as a tear fell from my eye to the floor as I imagined her smile. The way she’d laughed. The way she’d smelled after a shower. I played her voice in my head, ensuring that I hadn’t forgotten, grateful that time hadn’t stolen that from me yet.
Lido waited at my feet, nudging his wet nose into my palm. I smoothed my hand over his square head and ruffled his soft, smooth ears.
