It was the time of the year when fog pulls over the outer banks like the most luxurious blanket of quiet, peace and languor. There was a time in my life when the descent of the fog along the spits of land offshore signaled the end of a season and I left my family's weather-hardened cottage on the island to return to the life I led in a city on the mainland.

But that was no more.

Now, the arrival of the fog meant the departure of others while I stayed behind, lost in the rush of the tourists and seasonal visitors abandoning this island and returning to the mainland before weather became precarious. I had never stayed behind before for the fall and winter. No one in my family ever had except for the year my grandmother did and we always used to wonder why she had.

She had told me it was because some day, you reach the point of no return and when that happens, you have to know that you will go on even if you are only capable of hanging on for when the fog lifts.

I know what she was seeking by staying behind.

She wasn't looking for answers. She simply wanted to let the world go on without her for a little while. She wanted a season in which it was only the basics that mattered. She wanted to get lost in the fog. She wanted to face whatever might be and have time.

Perhaps this was the season when she faced her own mortality and embraced the notion of living as if she were dying.

It wasn't a seminal change in her. But the next year, she did go whitewater rafting in Arkansas with Ben and me.

Not long after the fog days began, I decided to adopt a routine for the winter season. I was well-stocked with supplies, enough to last through the winter. With the help of the Wilson twins, I had prepared the house for the isolating storms that would blast over the island, probably in another month or so. There would be no real danger, just isolation caused by wind, rain and snow. I would have plenty to do to fill my time, between the writing I knew wanted doing and the projects around this old place that called to me.

With my trusty and slightly battered laptop, as well as several extra batteries in case the power went out along with a carton of writing pads and boxes of pens, I had the essential tools for capturing the words of my imagination. I even had lugged over a box of research material, dictionaries and writers' reference tomes because sometimes inspiration was not enough. Long in advance of staying over, I had stocked up on lumber, paint, spackling and other supplies to work on small remodeling projects around the beach house that I'd always said should be done... but they had never seemed important in the summers.

Summers were unstructured days; they were nights in which schedules meant so little that I could spend the entire time, from sunset to sunrise, doing nothing but writing. Somehow, winter's approach seemed to make me want to establish a routine, just as I would have if I'd left the island as normal to return home to New Haven.

The routine I established was to walk the beach every mid morning. Then I would sit before the computer to write for three hours, even if I didn't actually write. Then lunch and tending to whatever odd remodeling or repair projects needed doing on the property. Then more time before the computer. And then dinner. At night, I took the laptop in before the fireplace while I snuggled on a cushion and read a novel. If something occurred to me, some odd snippet of dialogue or descriptive passage leapt into being triggered by my mind's absorption in someone else's words, I took up the laptop for a brief time before diving back into the novel. I wasn't sure this was going to remain my routine, but it seemed a noble way to approach these months.

My favorite time of the day was walking the beach. In the morning, this was where fog met dew met ocean spray met struggling sunlight met sand. In this stew of elements, I wanted to simply bear witness to nature I had not seen before.

As I walked, I gathered whatever driftwood or shells caught my fancy. On the fifth day of doing this, I began carrying a plastic bag with me and I would pick up sea glass if it attracted my attention.

Adopting sea glass is a tradition in my family. You learn early on that to be taken from the beach, the piece of sea glass must be worthy of adoption. No picking it up just because it happens to glint in weak sunlight. No, it must have an attraction that begs to be saved from being washed back into the ocean with the next swell.

Every summer season of my youth, my grandparents would give us huge masonry jars, the kind my grandmother used to set up her pickles in, and we could fill them as full as we wished with the sea glass. In my home in New Haven, I have a window ledge upon which sits 12 of these glass jars. I don't know why I ever stopped adopting sea glass but I did for a while. And now I've started again.

Sometimes I would see other people out walking the beach as I was. We would stop and compare notes on who was staying through and who was planning to leave in advance of the first real storm. In this way, we had a rough idea of accounting for who would be our fellow travelers of the season.

Some people always stayed and they lived here year round, used to each season's rituals and challenges. The summer held seasonal visitors, day tourists, noise and sometimes-crowded beaches. The spring held charm and rain and, later, the rush of reunion with the regular summer people's arrival back. Fall was slow, easy and preparation for winter. Winter was long, white, cold and solitary.

The Wilson twins always stayed. They were a tradition. Now in their 60s, they were the unofficial caretakers of the summer people. They had their children still living with them on the northern edge of the island. I knew if one of their children got married whenever I would see a new house the first time I would walk the beach by their compound in the summer. Between the Wilson twins, they had 11 children. Three of their four married children still lived on the island, on that sprawling, weather-bitten compound of rough ease.

Josiah Parker stayed. His companion was the lovely Belle, his black lab, who never saw a person she didn't love or a duck she didn't want. Tony and Mary Accardo usually stayed. They were crotchety old people even when they were younger. It was my goal this winter to never get invited to their home.

Bill Rafferty had decided to start staying over. He was in his third year of doing this. I saw him on the beach this one morning after I'd decided I was staying. He sent me over a list of supplies that I should be sure to gather before the worst of the fog days began. This was how Bill was. He absorbed what he saw, noticed, witnessed... and you didn't realize he had until he did something gruff yet kind like that. Unlike Josiah, Bill didn't dote on me or pat my head and tell me he understood when he very well did not. Yet Bill was practical in his form of doting, sending me a list but not taking that further step to simply buy the items for me and press them upon me as if he was the king of this domain tending to one of his vassals.

I'd been walking the beach in the fog banks for over two weeks when I saw a form take shape into a man before me. He strode the beach with his head turned toward the sound of the lapping waves, his hands clasped behind the small of his back, his long hair billowing about his head as if it wanted free of this earth.

He was new to the island. I had seen him during the season. He rented the grey clapboard three-story two houses down from mine. He kept resolutely to himself. All we knew about him was that he was kindly when directly approached and that he was British. Amy Wilkins' daughter told us one day over the summer that he had scars. I remember thinking, "Don't we all." Her mother Beth told her to not be so nosy and then asked me what I made of the scars.

Sunny Jurgens' son had said he spent a lot of time on the widow's walk at the top of his rented home. That he had a telescope he lugged up there most days and he simply stared off into the sea, as if he enjoyed studying the clouds and swells and changing currents of weather as the days rolled on.

Beth heard through Josiah when he bought one of Josiah's sailboats, one of the 30-foot Voyager sloops, in June. Josiah said he was a "right smart sailor," which is, in Josiah's book, about the finest thing a man can be. I rolled my eyes when Beth told me that. Apparently, there were not many days that went by when he was not out sailing, even in foul weather. Even in the smothering closeness of the boat harbor, he apparently retained an aloof air that was not mean by any fashion, but that people down east instinctively took to mean he wished to not be bothered by others intruding on him when he preferred to be alone. There were lots of codgers down east; I figured he was one more.

He was the mystery of the summer season on an island where families came for so many generations that you became as identified with the house that was passed down to you as for the tragedies that people spoke of in hushed tones when the first days of spreading blankets upon the sand began. It was a small town compressed even tighter by the time frame of only months out of the year to live together here among sea oats and dunes and tiny roads you traveled on bicycles rather than cars.

I am like the rest in that I had wondered about him, had listened to others' speculation, had even joined in conversation about what his story could be and how he came alone to this place to stay in the Bennett homestead when all their kith and kin had stopped coming to the island three seasons hence.

When we passed on the beach that day of fog, he smiled at me and I smiled back. We assured each other that, yes, we were staying and, yes, there was a beauty in every season, even the one of fog.

That afternoon, snug in the comfort of the living room before a fire, I wrote in my journal of seeing this man of great bearing and that I was glad I was curious about him.

In the time that followed that first meeting, every so often, he would walk out of the fog when I paced the beach. We did barely more than struggle past the observations about the weather of the day. One day, he told me he had noted a change in the tide and a subtle shift in the approaching wind's direction. In the morrow, he said, there would come a storm from the south.

The storm came as he predicted. I thought this was a rather cool thing to learn about him. He could predict the future. He could predict a sea change.

The morning after the storm, which lasted all one day and into the next, I took my normal beach walk before checking out my property. It seemed prudent to me to see if there were any weaknesses to the house that might have been exposed in the first storm. If so, I would contract with the Wilson twins to do repairs so that when the bad storms began, the house would be better able to face them.

The house seemed fine, though I did wonder when the last time was that anyone had really gotten up to examine the shingles on the roof. However, there were two trees that had snapped and those were of concern. One lay clear across the small entry lane leading through shrubs, trees and overgrowth from the blacktopped lane to the house. The other was not an obstacle, but it leaned precariously on other trees and I worried it might weaken them. I decided that I needed to chop and clear both trees.

The storm had momentarily stirred up the fog so by midmorning, a bit of sunlight began an earnest fight to claim the sky above me.

I was about an hour into chopping the tree over the path. I am not the world's best chopper but I do know how to wield the axe for splitting logs for the fireplace. It was difficult work; I relished the sweat and the strain on my muscles in my back and arms.

"Pardon me, ma'am," I heard the cultured British voice of my nearest neighbor come from behind me. He cleared his throat noisily until I had time to lower the axe and turn to greet him. "I heard the unmistakable sounds of an axe in play as I strode the ocean side and thought to investigate in case it may be that you'd suffered some unfortunate damage in the storm. I see my concerns were justified. Here, allow me to be of service to you."

He was already extending his hand, walking over to claim the axe. "Oh, but... well, I don't want to put you out... I think I'd be able to do this and..."

"Nonsense, dear lady. No gentleman would ever stand by and allow a mere slip of a girl such as you to toil in such a manner when he may very well make quick work of it," he said.

It wasn't that I didn't know my share of gentlemen... and I did appreciate when men did generous gestures not out of obligation but because they were bred that way... but I was still taken aback by this. He had been so reserved each time we'd chanced across each other on the beach. I suppose I had simply begun to think of him as only that... the grey ghost of a man I might see every so often take shape from within the fog.

And yet here he was... it was the first time I'd seen him in real sunlight other than catching glimpses of him in the summer as he studied the sea through his telescope. As I stepped back and watched, he simply braced his body and took a swing with the axe. The tree shook with the force of the blow. In no time, he had shed the heavy jacket he was wearing. As he continued to hack away until the tree was reduced to chunks large enough to be used later in my fireplace, he worked up a sweat even wearing nothing but a thin knit sweater.

When he was finished, I handed him the cloth I'd brought along to wipe my own sweat. He mopped his brow and I saw a relaxed face upon him that I'd not seen before. In fact, until seeing this, I believe I hadn't realized how closed his facial expressions had been each other time I'd seen him.

"There now. All better for both of us, you see. You've done me the honor of allowing me to perform a service and I have kept you from hurting yourself," he said.

"I hesitate to even ask..." But when he tilted his head and looked expectantly at me, I said, "There's another tree that came down. Would you look at it for me and give me your opinion? I am not sure if I should leave it or cut it up and..."

It only took that one gentle suggestion and within minutes, he was again chopping away.

I watched him work. I catalogued a few details. It was not a prurient gaze; it was more professional than that. His hair was loose again; it was blonde and slightly wavy, falling just above his shoulders, an almost blunt cut but not quite. As he worked, sweat caused tendrils to cling to his neck and brow. He had a few light scars on his face, nothing too serious. I wondered what Amy had seen that made her remark on his scars.

He had a broad, sturdy chest and back. Under the light sweater, I could see the shape of them as he worked. His arms were strong; his grip sure; he was comfortable with this type of labor. He had thick thighs; I imagined they were probably more muscle than fat, based only on the strength he exhibited elsewhere in his large frame.

His manner was courteous; he never intruded. In fact, he seemed to be tightly contained within himself. Yet, I never sensed he was trying to be off-putting. It was more like there was a distance he was placing between him and the world because he wasn't particularly wanting to be a part of the rest of us sharing the planet with him.

"I am so grateful to you," I told him when he finished and we were both carrying logs to the area where I stored the wood that needed to still dry before it was aged well enough to be of use in my fireplace. "It's nearly lunchtime and I bet you've worked up an appetite. I was going to make myself a sandwich and some chili. Won't you join me? It seems the least I can do to thank you. I'd have been at this all day and maybe even tomorrow if not for you."

"I should be enchanted... if I am not too much trouble?"

Over lunch, I learned his name was Jack; he learned that my name was Katie. We probably didn't learn anything else of real detail about the other. But I did gather a sense of him. I imagined that he was a man inside self-imposed isolation who was stubbornly staying there not because he wanted it, but because he felt he should.

I wondered if he realized how seldom he allowed me to hold his eyes. 

Yet there was an ease between us from the beginning.

Perhaps it is because we felt no need to rush. There was no outside party watching over us, insisting we run along and play... that we become chums on the spot only because we were among the few souls remaining on this beautiful, forested island off the coast of Massachusetts. But whatever it was, we had easy conversation as I fixed a simple lunch. We ate in companionable silence for the most part. When we talked, it was as much about the island as about anything.

I told him that my great-great-grandparents had built the first structure on this land. That when I was a kid, my cousins and I discovered the foundation for that original stone dwelling. He laughed softly and looked down at his plate, nodding along at what it's like as a child to make such discoveries.

"I wanted to be an archeologist after that," I told Jack. He glanced my way and raised his eyebrows. "Nope. I changed my mind quite frequently in the years that followed. I can't even begin to tell you how many callings I heard. It's funny how life intrudes and changes your dreams and your expectations, isn't it? But I suppose that's life's job, isn't it?"

"Aye, and therein lies its harsh rub," he said, his voice suddenly gruff. "It is not only children to whom that happens, is it?"

"No. When you're a child, it's so much easier to forget the lost dreams because you have so many of them that when you lose one, another takes its place. But as an adult... well, by then we're not quite so affable when we're forced to give up a dream, are we?"

"Assuredly not."

Our eyes met and an understanding passed between us. I felt the breadth of his dream that had been taken from him; I saw the emptiness it had left in its wake. And yet... I didn't know a thing about what that dream might have been.

The next day, I baked cookies and brownies. Anything as an excuse to not be in front of the computer.

I took a second stroll along the beach that afternoon. I walked down past Jack's house. I could see him up on his widow's walk, watching out to sea with his telescope. When I passed back on my way home, he was still up there. I walked quietly up to his back deck. There was a bound book upon the arm of one of the Adirondack chairs. I laid the small bag of cookies there atop the book. I pictured his face when he found them. I hoped they gave him a smile and the sense that I enjoyed knowing he was close in case I needed help this winter.

A week later, I returned from walking on the beach to find a carved piece of driftwood upon my back deck. It sat boldly at the top of the stairs, so I couldn't avoid it if I'd tried.

I picked it up, turned and scanned the foggy beach down in the direction of Jack's house. But I could see nothing moving.

Inside my house, I turned on a desk lamp and looked at the wood. He'd carved a relief design into the driftwood. It was intricate, delicate and ethereal. It was a pine tree; just like the kind he'd chopped up for me. It had the initials "J.A." carved in. I wondered what the "A" stood for. I wondered if he wanted me to ask him that.

The snows began to tease us about two weeks later; with their arrival, the fog seemed to lift more quickly most mornings. Flakes would drift in the air that was hardly hazy anymore. I had never in my life walked a beach in the winter with snowflakes floating around me like the tiniest sentinels of winter's close arrival.

I saw his form a long way off. He was up the beach from me and I watched as he removed his shoes, rolled up his pants and went wading out into the low tide.

"Whatever are you up to, Jack?" I called out to him when I neared.

"Clams!" he shouted back to me, not bothering to straighten up as he stooped over digging into the shallow layer of water over the muddy flats. "Mr. Parker has told me that when I shall see evidence, I must pounce or lose the chance in this weather."

"And do you see such evidence?"

He held up a hard clam, triumphantly. I told him to hold on and I'd get a pail and tongs. By the time I got back, he had worked his way a short space; there was a neat pile of about six clams on the beach. I rolled up my pants, shed my shoes and walked out to him. I showed him how to use the tongs to dig out clams and then wished him the glory of the hunt.

I was shivering cold by the time I got home. I rinsed my feet off with warm water and then sighed to put them into thick, dry socks. I sat before my computer with a cup of coffee and felt a rush of words.

It had been coming over me again. The wish to write had never been elusive before and I had really not known how to deal with its absence. I had hoped a strong work ethic would restore the flow. It was among the most satisfying things of the last few weeks to have been right about that. Hard work, nose to the grindstone, knowing what must be done... watchwords of my family.

When he pounded on my back door, I was so far inside my words that I let out a startled yelp as I jumped at the intrusion.

He stood upon my deck, ruddy cheeked, grinning, excited and wanting nothing more than another person to witness his triumph. I looked inside his pail; it was full of quahogs. I oohed and ahhed... he preened for me.

As he gravely handed me over the tongs with a small bow and thanked me for their use, he said he'd bring the pail back in the morning. And then he asked me about cooking the clams; if I had any advice. I said I would consider it my great honor to teach him how my family steamed clams if he would share his bounty with me.

So we reached our bargain.

While I started the clams purging, he excused himself to go home and rid himself of some of the evidence of the hard work he'd done. I forbade him. I showed him my bathroom, gave him towels and clean, warm clothes that had belonged to Ben... and while he was gone, I brewed more coffee. Inside the warmth of my kitchen, he relaxed at the table with a steaming mug and pronounced it "just the thing."

When I had the potatoes on and the other vegetables started, the real lunch preparation began. He watched my every step, asking me questions and making comments. By the time the meal was ready, we were breezy and familiar with each other.

It was as if we'd known each other in another life. Once we got past the reserve, we found new things to discuss. He wanted to know all about my family's experiences here on the island; I was dying to ask him what the heck he was doing here on this out of the way island but I didn't. Instead, I asked him how he'd come to carve wood as well as he did. He said it was a skill his cousin had taught him when he was a boy.

"I've had many years to perfect it," he said with a slight grin.

"Nonsense. Jack, you're still a young man."

"My dear, flattery of a man such as I goes a long way indeed," he responded quickly.

"Don't you find it goes a long way with about anyone?"

"Indeed. True words, Katie, true words. But tell me this then, how old do I appear to you?"

"Oh, you can't trap me that easily. My answer is... old enough to know how to carve very well and now old enough to know all about clamming in New England."

Our meal done, we didn't mind lingering. That's the thing I was beginning to adjust to that winter. There was no need to rush as nothing was really pressing unless I made it pressing. I decided that I could give up my afternoon's writing session with no problem.

I invited Jack to play a game of chess with me. I had not had anyone to play with in months. So I was incredibly pleased he not only knew how but enjoyed the game enough to be equally happy for an opponent.

While we played, we sipped mulled wine and let the afternoon turn to evening. At one point, I waited on him for what seemed an inordinate amount of time to move. With his permission, I rose from the table and lit the fire. I didn't always keep a fire going, but in the evenings, I almost always did. This used to be Ben's job, I thought suddenly; he's the one who liked fires on winter evenings.

I turned to look back at Jack, clad now in Ben's nondescript sweat pants and heavy jersey. I don't even know why I had those around anymore. But there you go. The oddest things linger in the name of love.

Perhaps it was the way the wine mellowed the day; perhaps it was Ben's clothes on a person who made me enjoy just being near him; perhaps it was the fire. Who knows why you finally say the one thing that makes an acquaintance become a friend?

"Do you know that everyone on the island was curious about you this summer?" I told him as I considered a new move.

"Why ever for? An old, weathered man such as me? Why, I believed I was blending right into the background," he told me, surprise in his voice.

"It's such a small island, Jack. And most of us have been coming forever. If a new person comes, it's usually as the guest of someone else. So new people... especially unaccompanied and unexplained... well, they are the source of much speculation."

"Well, I would prove a grave disappointment, I am sure."

"So, no deep, dark secrets of family scandal? No romantic tales of broken hearts and bitter rivalry for a fair lady's hand? Nothing salacious? How disappointing!" I said with a laugh.

His eyes were on my face when I looked up. For once, he truly appeared to be appraising me. And in this time, I had the chance to really study his eyes.

"Forgive me. I didn't mean that to come out so flip. Of course, your reasons for being here are yours alone. It isn't my business."

"I left my home under sad circumstances," he said firmly.

"And I have no need to know the whys."

"I simply came to roost here upon this island because I was tired after spending a few months trying to understand that I must go forward with life. I can explain it no better than that. There was no real rhyme nor reason for how I chose where I would stop to rest except I was in New England and I saw a picture of this island and it reminded me of a place I knew when I was a boy. I liked it here and thought it made a good place to stake my ground anew."

He studied me, perhaps for signs that I would not accept that explanation. I shrugged my shoulders. "Your reasons are yours. I'm sorry for whatever sad circumstances led you to leave home. That's never easy, is it?"

"No, my dear, it is not. In this case..."

"You don't have to tell me, Jack. I don't need to know. We're friends, right? As such, we simply accept the other as a companion of the first sort." I tried to adopt a cheery voice. I looked blindly down at the board; made the first move that came to me; patted his hand and rose to fill our glasses with bourbon.

His fingers were lightly drumming on the table as he contemplated the plum move he had available to him. I was checked if he made it; instead, he made another move. I wondered if he did it on purpose and if it was because he wished to not have it appear he was rushing to run away in the wake of that exchange.

As I sank back down into my seat and studied the chess pieces, I heard him sigh. He was looking off into a darkening day outside my windows.

"Do you believe that there are some circumstances from which one is not meant to recover?" he asked me suddenly.

"I don't know. I'm not a good judge of such things."

"Do you remember telling me that you believed that adults found it harder to replace the dreams that are robbed of them? I have thought on those words of yours, Katie. I believe you are in the right of it. My dreams... they were taken from me, you see. I have not found the will to dream again."

"I'm sorry, Jack. That's a tough place to be. I haven't known you long, but I sense you are a man of deep feelings. I'm sorry that something has happened to wound you as deeply as I now fear you must be."

"Thank you most kindly. You must forgive me. It is unconscionable that I burden you with such sour words and foul mood."

"Nothing you've said has been sour, Jack. And I wish you would know... I am here if you feel the need to talk it out. I am a good listener."

He smiled but it was suddenly so sad that it nearly made me cry. I do know that tears formed in my eyes. He shook his head and reached to place his hand softly, reassuringly, on mine. Without another word, he rose from the table, threw on his coat and left my home. I stood at my window and watched a proud, noble man stride down the beach.

Whatever his burden was, his broken heart invoked nothing but commiseration within me.

Two days later, I found another carving upon my deck when I went out for my morning walk. It was another piece of driftwood and it was carved in the shape of a seagull. I smiled sadly at the gesture even as I turned on my heel to go back in the house. I placed the seagull prominently upon the mantle. I wondered about this man who was enveloped in a shroud of pain and yet had the kind of spirit who could make note of my collection of seagulls... and would then create one for me from an offering of the sea.

My hand clutched at the front of my shirt as I let that thought evaporate.

An offering of the sea?

Like the sea glass I collected. Driftwood. My mind drifted with the word association... 

I didn't walk on the beach that day. Instead, I studied the titles in the massive bookshelves that had drawn Jack's attention when he'd been here for our clam lunch. He loved to read, he told me. He liked textbooks on astronomy every bit as much as he liked some of the mystery novels he'd found inside the Bennett house.

After several hours, I had a box full of books I thought he might enjoy. Every one was by a regional writer and they ranged from crime to mystery to humor to fantasy.

My foot was on the top stair of his back deck when the door swung open. He rushed out and grabbed up the box, apologizing for not getting there sooner to unburden me of the load I carried.

It flustered me. I had thought to simply leave them there as an offering, like we'd been doing between us. He brought me carvings; I brought him cookies. When I waved and made to leave, he insisted I come inside. When I hesitated, he put his hand on my elbow and drew me gently inside with him.

We sipped coffee; Jack made the fire leap to life and we both backed up from the seats we'd taken on the couch before the fireplace. It amused us both.

I watched him over my mug of coffee as he sat on the floor and began to go through the box of books. He studied each title carefully; looked over the jacket notes and pronounced each one welcome.

He was nervous, I realized. So was I, it dawned on me.

But of course we were! We both feared that we'd somehow let each other down in that last encounter. Jack probably worried that he'd embarrassed himself by suddenly alluding to his past difficulties; I felt like perhaps if I'd been a bit more welcoming, he would have told me of his problems. I suspected he simply needed that; men are that way, I think. They fight it, they don't want to... but eventually, they can't feel better if they don't at least say something to acknowledge anything that is causing them grief.

Grief.

Oh.

That's when I think I knew. My mouth opened; I think I even let out a soft moan at the realization as I watched him.

I should have recognized it in him. That wasn't like me not to.

When he looked up at me, I think he knew I had guessed... at last. He sighed and put the book he held down, being so gentle and careful with his movement.

"Would you like to walk on the beach with me, Jack?" I said, hoping to take away the sting I might have just delivered with that look he'd seen. "It's so much warmer today and the Wilson twins told me this morning that they heard on their radio that a weather front will bring the real bad cold snap we've been expecting for the last week. It may be the last really good day for a while."

"I should be honored to take a turn down the shore with you, Katie."

We walked in silence, each lost with our own thoughts. In front of Beth's house, I stopped and looked indulgingly at the shuttered structure. I told Jack that of everyone on the island I'd known growing up, it had been Beth who'd shared some of my best adventures.

We walked up at my request just to check on the old house. I had taken to keeping an eye on it, walking around the house at least once a week just to make sure nothing bad happened that I couldn't fix or help.

When we finished, we paused at the top of the dune and looked off into a slate grey sea. Without a word, we simply sank down to take a seat where we were and kept watching the sea.

"My family has come here for generations," I told him, glancing over at him before turning back toward the ocean. "I have such firm roots here, Jack, that even when I wish to never return, a part of me cannot help but come back. You have made me wonder what could ever happen to me that would be bad enough that I would finally gain the will to leave home, go to another country and find my answers there."

"I had similar roots in Portsmouth, England," he said.

"That's what I suspected. Not that I knew what city you were from, but just that there was a place where you have your roots. And yet... you are here, not there. I don't want to pry and you may tell me to be quiet. But I think you want to tell someone... I will listen to you, Jack. I would consider it an honor. I truly would."

He started to say something, then stopped. I turned to look at him; he narrowed his eyes and looked hard at me. Then opened his mouth, shook his head, sighed in frustration.

"Only if it helps, Jack. Otherwise, I'll never bring it up again."

"It is a hard tale, Katie. I do not know that the telling of it will make it easier to bear. But in answer to your question, there are things that can make one desert the place you held dearest. It happens when you lose those who made the place your heart's home. When the idea of staying there without them wounds you more than abandoning it."

"You lost someone? Someone died?"

"Yes, dear lady, I lost my wife as well as my children."

"Surely not all at once? When was this?"

"Almost a year hence. And, most assuredly, all at once. Indeed. I lost everything, everyone who mattered to me in one fell swoop." His voice was suddenly sated with bitterness.

"I am so sorry for you, Jack."

He looked off to the sea, perhaps unwilling in that moment to see if there was pity for him in my eyes. There was not.

"The first year, I thought, was the worst," I said into that space of windy silence. The words started hesitantly and then gathered speed as they seemed to simply feel the need to be given to him... an offering of sorts, I suppose. "The second year, you may find that you may even have days in which you don't have their loss as the first thought upon waking, the last thought before sleep takes you. The third year... you begin to see that it's okay to be happy again even if it still feels odd. At least, that has been my experience."

His chin lowered. I knew he was crying. He could not speak. His hand reached out and grasped my shoulder. Just this tiny squeeze. A way to communicate.

"You must give yourself time, Jack. And give yourself permission to feel whatever you feel. That's what someone told me and I found it of comfort to know," I said.

He cleared his throat. His voice sounded hollow to me as he asked, "You lost someone? A child perhaps?"

"Three years ago this summer, my husband and son were killed in a boating accident... out there," I said, pointing ahead of us. He nodded solemnly.

For a while, we stayed where we were. We did not dishonor this time between us, these revelations, by giving away details just then. Instead, it was enough to know we were in the presence of another person who understood. And I know that Jack realized in me, he'd found someone who'd walked the road before him and might have been proof that, like it or not, the journey of life continues.

With or without a dream to replace the one that life took from you.

Days later, snow began falling with that mean spirit it can have in the winter. I'd never quite seen it this way... all wet and suffocating. I trudged over to Jack's place after the second day of the real snow to check on him. I felt that perhaps I should be there for him, just in case he needed someone to talk to. I hated the idea of him grieving alone in that old house while snow made him a prisoner.

I accepted coffee and sunk gratefully before the fire that he stoked to roaring life. He could be the most companionable person, I had learned. He neither needed to be entertained nor needed to be entertaining. He had no qualms at all about simply sitting and staring into the fire if he could see I was content to do so myself.

"Did you stay here this winter to face your loss or because you could not deal with it?" he asked me softly, much later, and only after I asked him if he ever thought he might wish to tell me about his family.

I looked in his eyes. Such kind eyes. "Neither, Jack. This was the first summer I came back. I came because this was where I used to do my best writing. But I've had writer's block since they died. I want to write, I have so much to write, I have so much to get out. But every time I tried, it was... it just wasn't the same. I would write three pages and rip up two and would have torn up the third except I felt I needed proof I did something."

"Are you writing then?"

"I couldn't this summer. Too many family around... all being way too kindly to me. You know?"

We smiled at each other. "People believe that helps. You hate to be the one to tell them it doesn't."

"Exactly, yes." We stared into the fire again. "But I wanted to write again so badly and I know I absolutely need to. It's why I stayed for the winter. I figured with no distractions, no interference, no kindly people... well, I thought it might help me focus on what I wanted to get out."

"Is it?"

"Yes. But...Jack? I must tell you something and hope you will not be offended."

"You could never offend me, my dear."

"Well, I have found that I am writing quite a lot now. Ever since I first met you. I was fascinated by your sudden appearance on this island... and meeting you that day in the fog made me want to write the sense I got from you."

"And what sense was that?"

"That you harbored secrets. That you kept them within you because you feel it's honorable to carry your own burden. And as I've come to know you, I still get that sense but more than that, I get the pain and the anguish and the loss. You fascinate me."

"Me? Nonsense. I am nothing but an old washed up man childishly whimpering that life has not been kind to him. It is unworthy of me, but so it turns out in the end to be how I am, you see? That cannot possibly be fascinating."

"It's true. You are a contradiction. You are brave and yet here you hide, licking your wounds... what loss brings a man such as you to his knees?"

I paused when he turned from me, color suddenly high in his cheeks.

"I'm sorry. That was a compliment. I suppose I know now what the loss was... She must have been an extraordinary woman."

"I loved her above all things."

"That would make her happy to hear."

"I had three children with her. She really raised them herself. I was at sea most of our life together. She was a remarkable, gentle woman who loved me, in good times and bad."

"You were at sea? Do you mean you were a sailor?"

"Yes. I was in the British Navy. A ship's captain."

"Oh." I sighed. "The sea was your calling then."

"A bitter choice in the end. Had I not been at sea, perhaps...I shall never know. All I really do know is that had I been at home more, I would have had more time with them... with her."

And then he simply told me about Sophie. About how they'd met, how her mother had opposed the union, how blessed he'd felt to marry her, how fulfilled he'd felt to be a father. His children... one boy, two girls... the pain of their loss made him stop speaking. My heart broke for him.

He is a man who carries himself with such pride. I was beginning to get a glimpse of the depths of his despair. Although I did not ruthlessly push him, I did and I did do it on purpose. I felt so strongly that he needed the catharsis of releasing the reason for his grief and that once he did, he could begin to address how he might move beyond grief. He said it had been nearly a year since he had lost his family. In all that time, he seemed to have addressed the loss only by withdrawing from the world. This can never really be the answer to such a loss.

"How did they die, Jack?" His eyes came to mine; he frowned and cleared his throat, obviously unhappy that I would ask that. "Were they in an accident?"

"Suffice to say, I returned from a voyage and found they were no longer... they were simply alive no longer."

"How did that feel? To come home and what? You got that news only when you landed? That must have been the most awful shock."

"It was the most bitter thing of all. I found myself home... but not home. As if I had maybe never existed before. Every touchstone of my life was gone. And yet... there was someone there to greet me and it was made known to me that I should not look upon it as a loss so much as that a new life was open to me..."

"What? But that's... why that's horrible that someone would expect you to..." I was shocked that anyone would be so insensitive to not have realized that the loss of one's family would devastate your ability to continue in life as you had known it.

"No, no, my dear, you are too quick to jump to my defense. No, they were right in many ways. One must accept the hand dealt and learn to stack whatever chips may be in front of you at the table. The sad truth must be faced head on, you see? And I do try to be strong about it. After all, I spent more years at sea than I ever did with my family. Still..."

"But you loved them. Didn't you? So much."

"So very much."

"And you didn't get to say goodbye."

His mouth opened, as if to say something... but then this look of the deepest grief came over him... and this was when I knew... I understood... it is the part of losing someone you love, when you're not there when it happens... and you spend so much energy imagining their final moments... were they scared? Cold? Crying out for you to come save them and you weren't there when they needed you? Did they struggle mightily or did they succumb easily? Did they suffer?

What must it be like for a man if a woman feels that way? It must be worse, I think. A man spends his life protecting his family; to not be there when they need him most and are ripped from his life?

I went to him. He looked unable to even function now that this issue was out between us. It was as if he'd hidden from it by hiding within himself... but now, I'd brought this out between us and he did not want to face it but he was anyway.

My arms went around his stiff shoulders; he tried to nudge me off, he made noises to dissuade me. But I silently hugged him in to me and stroked his long hair.

I gave him comfort because I had it in me to do so and he needed it.

Eventually, I felt his arms come around me and we held each other in a soft hug. He cried, but it was not the kind that racks your entire frame until you feel your guts will come out and that you can no longer function for the pain inside. I felt the trembles in his body; I heard him sniffling and the jerky breathing. I held him as tightly as I could.

Someone had done that for me when I was at my lowest point. It was the one thing that made me see that I could go on, that others cared about me, that I was not as alone as I felt in the wake of losing my family.

About a week later, Josiah trudged to my home to insist that I would come to his place for Thanksgiving.

"You know how to make mincemeat pie, don't you, missus?" he said as he drank coffee in my kitchen.

"Yes, I do. Shall I take care of the dessert then? How about a pumpkin pie as well?"

"Bring a cherry, too. You make good crusts," he said.

I only agreed to go to Josiah's because I was pretty sure that this was where all the odds and ends people of the island would be ending up for Thanksgiving. The Wilson's are nice people but they've already got all the people they can handle around their table for such a holiday.

So that meant that the rest of us would either fend for ourselves or gather in a communal celebration. In some ways, it seemed to me, this was in the spirit of the first such holiday upon our shores. I rather liked the idea of each of us contributing what we did best and that, all together, we would have a feast.

Jack was less hesitant about the gathering than I thought he might be. I thought he'd still be feeling reticent about being with lots of people. But the day before, he hiked over to tell me that he would be by at 2 p.m. sharp to escort me to Josiah's place.

I was outside shoveling snow off the back deck and salting down the steps. Without asking, he just gracefully took the shovel from my hand and completed the task while he told me he had been busy all morning making biscuits and felt sure we should all enjoy them very much. He said Josiah had turned down his offer to make a stew of turnips and squash; instead, he was making pumpkin soup as his other offering.

"Katie, did you ever think of building a greenhouse here? That little snip of land where the tree fell... it seems to me that if you were willing to sacrifice a few of those trees, you might very well clear the necessary land and you could thus use the wood from the trees to frame a simple structure," he said.

"A greenhouse?"

"Oh, yes. Imagine starting seedlings each spring, long before you could ever hope to coax them to grow out of doors. I had noticed your plants inside your home and how you seem to enjoy them... a greenhouse would allow you to expand that interest... you might even wish to grow wondrous flowers deep in the winter."

His suggestion was almost a blow... as if he'd read my mind. It was the eeriest thing. "I do love plants, Jack. I had even thought of such a thing. But if I'm only here in the summer... well, it would seem a waste."

"I see. Perhaps you are right. It is something to imagine, though, is it not?"

"It is."

"I often find myself thinking of improvements I would make to the house I am renting... but alas, I would not offend the owners in that way, you see?"

"Well, Jack, if you're simply looking for odd jobs to keep you busy, I could likely come up with a list!" I laughed at him.

But he didn't laugh. Instead, he straightened to say, "I am at your service to command, Katie. But give the word, it shall be done quick time. What needs doing? I swear, my dear, it would be most welcome to feel of use to a friend in some measure again. I have begun to grow weary of my own small meanness in the face of what has happened."

"Oh, Jack. Don't feel that way about yourself. All of us need to grieve in our own way but I imagine most of us do draw within ourselves for a while until we feel we can begin to heal."

"I am ready to move ahead, I believe, Katie. Or rather, I am ready to believe it is possible. It has become apparent to me only in these last few weeks, since you and I have shared stories of our losses, that it is a choice, is it not?"

"When you're ready to make the choice, you really already have, I imagine."

"Wise words indeed, Katie. I am forever in your debt. Though I am perhaps not clear and free of this burden, I have begun to feel its weight is a bit easier to carry about my heart."

He had the most amazing way with words. Sometimes, he would use an expression that would seem nonsensical to me; but other times, he would utter something that could break my heart or bring a smile to my face.

We trudged through snow that was about mid-calf. I hadn't been sure how we'd cart all the food we'd be bringing. I was to learn a bit of Jack's resourcefulness and his ability to plan ahead.

He took two of the pies from my hands. It left me free to hoist one pie while my other hand could pull the door firmly shut behind me. When I turned around, he stood at the bottom of my front porch, gesturing down to the small toboggan resting atop the snow. On top of it, he had bundles of blankets to shelter the food and keep it upright for the journey.

I handed him my last pie and accepted his hand to help me down the final steps.

"Jack, you're a genius! What a great idea. We don't have to carry anything."

"I am pleased you approve of my rather simple idea. But I did not wish to spill any of my soup and I was sure I did not wish to see any of your pies damaged. I am most partial to sweets, you see, Katie. Most partial."

"Yes, I remember you saying how much you liked the cookies I brought you. I should do that for you more often. I really do like to bake. But it seems like a bother just for me."

He picked up the sled's rope and we started off. "You may consider me always welcome to any treats you may wish to bring my way. Perhaps we could have an exchange of sorts? I will come tend to your odd jobs you spoke of and you can greet me with cookies?"

"You don't want to come handle things like plumbing and the roof! Not in this weather."

"I should be honored, Katie. We're friends." We walked on for a little while before he said softly, "You are the first real friend I have made in a very long time. When I first realized I was alone in the world, there was a guide... rather, a benefactor, who helped me find a way to move to the United States and who has been most patient with my desire to remain on this island for so long. But you, Katie, you are my friend for no reason other than we get along."

I looked over at him; he was smiling at me in that soft, almost unsure way he has. I wondered about the mysteries of this man. I knew much about him but I knew little about him. I liked him; he was pretty remarkable, really. And I enjoyed watching him beginning to raise his head up and look about him again. I figured this side of him was probably the truer side of the kind of person he'd been before losing his family had shoved him into a pit of blackness.

"I like having you for a friend, Jack." 

And I did. He just made me feel grateful to have met him.

We were probably two city blocks from Josiah's house when Belle, his black lab, barreled down toward us. I saw her in time to warn Jack. He stayed with the sled to guard it while I ran ahead to intercept Belle. We ended up rolling in the snow together.

She is a marvelous dog. If only for her, I am unfailingly polite to Josiah. I figure there must be more good in Josiah than I have been able to find if he's capable of raising a dog such as Belle from a puppy.

After our little romp, Belle calmed appreciably. She approached Jack as if they were old buddies. Jack said she'd even come sailing with him a time or two over the summer. At the sound of Jack's voice, she dropped into an easy trot next to him, her face constantly swiveling up to look at him as we walked on.

Tony and Mary Accardo were already at Josiah's house when we arrived, red cheeked and stamping out feet to get snow off our boots and feeling into our cold toes. Mary looked like she was already three or more sheets to the wind. Tony was his usual bumbling self, but I'd always liked that about him. I just hated taking them on together. If you were alone with them, Mary would grill you about all sorts of personal things and then she would proceed to tell you all about your mistakes, the ones she'd been cataloging since before you were born because she never had thought my mother good enough for my father.

Bill Rafferty arrived after we did. I heard him shove the door open and went to help him with the business of unraveling all the winter gear we were all wearing already. We talked of nothing of consequence but I like that about Bill. He's not shy; he's simply partial to not saying much.

I hadn't realized that Tina and Will Cummings would be there. I had heard that there had been a bit of a scandal involving Will and young Marie Spinosa two summers before; everyone had assumed that Tina would divorce Will. About all that happened was that Tina and Will rarely joined in the community get-togethers at the fire station during the summer anymore. That they would come join the rest of us for Thanksgiving made me think that perhaps there really was something about Josiah.

For dinner, Jack was on one side of me and Bill was on the other. Across from us were Tina, Will and Mary. Josiah and Tony sat at the opposing heads of the table. I was surprised by just how much I felt comfortable here. I had never once spent a Thanksgiving away from my family. I thought it might have made me sad to face this holiday without them, that I'd feel alone.

I told Jack and Bill that later, as we stood in the kitchen finishing the dishes. Jack said perhaps it was the very fact that this celebration was so very different from being with family that had been just the thing for me. Bill changed the subject to favorite ski resorts because he said that he used to take his family skiing for Thanksgiving when the boys reached their teens.

We were almost all the way done, stacking the last plate in Josiah's cupboard, when Mary's loud voice called out to us to hurry up and serve dessert so she could be on her way. We looked at each other and started laughing.

When I served her the pumpkin pie she requested, she looked hard at me and said, much too loudly, "There's something going on between you and the Brit, ain't there? Guess that's why you been smiling so much now. Don't know that I approve, mind you. But it's your business, I suppose."

I froze in mid retort. I swallowed the anger. I remembered she was drunk on top of her normal ability to be a meddling, nosy fool. "You're right. It most certainly is my business. And it will remain that way."

"Glad I had you bring the pies, Katie," Josiah suddenly barked out. "Like I said, you got a way with crust."

"And crusty old hags," Bill muttered beneath his breath when I walked past him.

I hate when people do things like that, I told Jack on the walk home. There was just no reason why she couldn't have kept her sharp tongue in check for a few hours, was there, I said.

"She reminds me of my mother-in-law, rest her soul," Jack said. "A woman who could find the black cloud in every silver lining."

We both laughed at that, somehow giddy at having shared the survival of the unpleasant Mary. By the time we reached my house, our equilibrium was restored. I invited him in for a drink and to make our own private toast to this holiday.

Tired from both the day of being "on" with others and the trudge back through the cold and snow, we debated the merits of building a fire. I told Jack that back before my father had paid the Wilson's to put in central heat into this house, I doubt anyone would have been able to stay here over the winter.

"Indeed, this system of sending warmth throughout a home is a most incredible invention," he said as he relaxed back upon the couch. "I have an old friend who always greeted such advances with joy while I often longed for the old ways. However, there is much to recommend about this modern age, I find."

"Why, Jack, you speak as though you're from another century or something. When did you turn into an old fuddy-duddy afraid of modern conveniences?"

He blushed so hard and stuttered, "I did not mean that quite as it... no, forgive me the poor choice of words... what I very much meant to say was how grateful I am to be living now as opposed to before... or rather how I would sometimes enjoy living in the time I study in my books but that is not my choice and I am happy to find myself living now..."

"Jack?" I sat up and grinned at him. "I think I've had enough to drink that I can just come right out and say this. You can be quite silly when you've been drinking, did you know that?"

"I have been told that," he said, returning my grin and seeming to sigh in relief. "What shall we toast to then, Katie? To modern times?"

"That seems quite right."

I jumped over to land next to him on the couch. He reached a hand out to steady me. We clinked glasses and drank deeply of the wine. I gave him a quick peck on his cheek and told him that in my family, it was a tradition to say at least one thing you were thankful for on this day of thanks.

"I am thankful I met you and that we have become friends," I told him. A deep blush bloomed upon his cheeks as I wiped away evidence of my peck. "You are a kind man, Jack. And one who deserves only the best."

"Thank you, Katie. Your words touch me most deeply."

"Plus, you have never made me feel uncomfortable... other men might take advantage of being alone with me... but you never do. It makes me feel good to be with a nice man who doesn't try to put the moves on me or anything. And I don't even care that by summer everyone on the island will hear from Mary and the others that something was going on between us because we'll know the truth, won't we?"

"My dear, perhaps another glass of wine is not the best idea just now?"

"Nonsense! I feel all warm and fuzzy. Here, let me charge up your glass as well. If we can't celebrate on a holiday, when can we? Lord, Jack, look at the snow out there!"

We stood at the back windows and watched as the moon showed us a spectacular and heavy dump of snow. I didn't realize I was swaying until he put an arm around me and led me to the couch. That's the last thing I remember until morning. I woke with a blanket over me and a dry mouth. My head felt three times bigger than I remembered it.

Jack was sitting at my kitchen table when I stumbled in there, rubbing my eyes and trying to get my bearings. He jumped up, poured me coffee and tutted away my concerns over how badly I must have looked.

Over my second cup, I finally looked into his eyes to see concern. "I drank way more than I'm used to yesterday," I said.

"It was a holiday and deserved very much to be celebrated."

"Did I do anything stupid? I sure hate the idea that I did or said anything I'm going to remember later and die of humiliation. God, I cannot remember the last time I tied on a hoot."

"You did nothing untoward. You were only charmingly inebriated, my dear. Put your mind at rest."

But after Jack left and I was upstairs taking a bath, I had this vague memory that I may have stroked his hair and told him how pretty it was and how cute he was to blush when a woman paid him a compliment. I groaned and slipped under the water for a while.

In the days that followed, I found tromping on the beach to be very different. The snow that lay upon the sand wherever the waves didn't lap was blindingly white. I wore sunglasses constantly when I walked. Some days, the snow came down almost like pellets of ice skipping angrily over nasty clashing whitecaps racing for shore. It was bitterly cold. The Wilson's told me that February would be the mean month but that by then, I'd be inured to everything but cabin fever.

Toward mid December, I began to wonder about Christmas. Specifically, I began to wonder what I'd give as gifts to the people with whom I shared the island. I decided that baking cookies was likely the best thing I could do. I figured I could cook at my leisure and freeze them as I went. Then I could package them in one of the tins my grandmother kept in the attic and begin delivering them a few days before Christmas.

Many days during this time, Jack came over to check on me and I began to tease him that he always picked the days I was baking. It seemed to me, I told him, that I barely had enough cookies left over after he'd snitch the hot ones as soon as they were out of the oven to even make it worthwhile to freeze the rest.

We talked of so many things. Jack told me of all these places he'd been to while sailing with the navy. Once he began telling me of a battle in which he'd participated but part way through I'd stopped him. I simply didn't remember any skirmishes between England and France, I said.

"Are you trying to see if I'm paying attention?" I said as I put another cookie sheet in the oven. "Because I am, you know."

"You have caught me out, Katie," he exclaimed. "I was indeed trying to see if you were listening. I am certain my tales must bore you... I simply injected an old sea battle from the year 1805. It's a period of history that fascinates me and I believe I have read of every battle in that period of the Napoleonic Wars enough to have memorized all details."

This was about the time that we also decided that one way we'd fight the cabin fever the Wilson's warned me about was to find reasons to venture out. One idea was for us to begin inviting the other to dinner every few nights. It turned out to be a wonderful idea on other levels as well... after all, cooking for one is not very efficient. Plus, it gets boring eating your own cooking every night. And if it's just you, you tend to make do with whatever's simple and requires no prep work. But no matter how simple a meal we might have fixed for each other, it was much better sharing it.

I had yet to figure out a good Christmas gift for Jack. And then one day, I was up in the attic hunting for more tins when I came across an old brass ship's bell. It was in abject need of polishing. I set to work on it right away. I found my grandfather's old carving tools and carefully etched Jack's name under the bell's lip. I added the year. And then I added the island's name. I figured that no matter where he roamed in the coming years, that this token might be a reminder that in the first Christmas after his great loss, he had found a friend who wished him only the best.

The night after I finished working on the bell, I was at Jack's place for dinner. I was flush with satisfaction for having found the right gift... and also because I'd finished writing the novel I'd put aside three years earlier.

Jack offered a toast after I told him of finishing the novel. Of course, I have to revise, revise, revise, I told him, but it is an important milestone to have this first real draft done.

He wanted to read it. I told him that I had made it a habit to only let my editor read the final draft. I simply had too much riding on it when I wrote and if someone I cared about didn't like it, it was a crushing blow.

"Then when it is one day bound in a book, I shall insist that you affix your signature and write something pretty to me in dedication," he said.

"Actually, Jack, the entire book will be dedicated to you... well, in part to you."

"My dear! In truth? You would dedicate a book to me? That is most kind and quite exciting, if I may say so."

"You were an inspiration for one of the characters. I made him the observer... the one who explains things for the reader. He is the central enigma of the book."

"Of course, the most amusing thing of all is that I am far from an enigma. I am an open book." He paused, must have heard his words, and began chuckling.

"An open book. Jack! The things you say sometimes. You are so adorable."

"Tell me about the novel, Katie. What is it about?"

We talked long into that evening. I told him that it was about the journey of a young woman, of her attempts to break free from her parents' expectations and of her own fears. The twist, I said, is that the observer is in love with her... only he doesn't know it until the very end and he has to watch her fall in love with another man.

"What happens? Does she realize this other man is no good for her?"

"What makes you think he's no good for her?"

"Surely the observer is the right man for her."

"I think so, too. But sometimes your characters do what they want rather than what you tell them."

He shook his head sadly; I leaned against his shoulder as we sat before the fire.

On Christmas Eve, I went for a long walk in a snowstorm so beautiful it made me cry. I made the trek to Bill's home in an hour; I wished it had been longer just to stay out there. We shared cocoa and talked of people thinking we were crazy to stay over for the winter. I told Bill that I wasn't sure I'd do it again but that I was glad I'd done it this time.

"Did you know that Jack wants to buy the Bennett place?" Bill said.

"No! Really? He's never told me that. We've gotten to be good friends. I would have thought... but, of course, it's his business. Still... how do you know about this?"

"Josiah told me. Jack asked him to arrange a radio call to get a message to some attorney in Boston to begin negotiations."

That short wave radio was the only real means of communications with the mainland during the winter season. Usually, Josiah strictly restricted using it except for emergencies. I had asked him not two days earlier to radio message my editor with my news of finishing the novel. He had said it wasn't a habit he wanted to start, this business of getting unimportant messages to the mainland. Next thing you know, he'd said, is that people over there will start expecting him to take calls and get messages to the rest of us.

When I left Bill's place, I cried on my walk home but it wasn't the snow that made me do it. I cried for Jack. I had seen such growth in him, I'd thought. Now I wondered. Would he never be willing to rejoin the world? Would he stay here on this island forever and never be happy again? It was one thing for me to find coming back here was a needful thing, but I planned to leave when the spring came around. I feared poor Jack may have needed to leave more than me and now it seemed he was determined not to go. It made me so sad to think of him that way, never letting anyone else into his life, never finding a reason to really fully live his life again.

It wasn't intentional that I stopped at Jack's place on the way back. It just seemed to happen, that I found my way to his door front. I heard strains of violin music from inside and stood there listening for so long that I began to shiver. By the time I knocked on the door, I was beyond cold... so far beyond. I never quite registered that the music stopped just before he opened the door.

He took one look at me and began doting on me. His warm fingers smoothed off my knit cap. He took off my jacket; pushed me into a chair; removed my boots. Carried me shivering helplessly until he just stood holding me before the fire, rocking me as I whimpered in his arms at the painful return of feeling to my limbs.

There I was, all ready with this heartfelt speech to him about the need for him to leave this island someday... but the words didn't want to come out of me. And it was because I was shaken by a realization that all this time, I'd begun to think of him as some young, inexperienced boy... as if he needed me to watch over him. Of course, he very well did not. Who was I to give him advice or lecture him about what he should do?

This person holding me, caring for me... he was a strong, proud, resolute man who'd lived a whole life that I knew virtually nothing about but which had once filled him with love only to leave him shattered. What could I know of his struggle? Who was I to judge how he would find his way in life?

Here he was, strong enough to be holding me like this... and yet, I knew in my heart of hearts, that he needed above all else to be comforted and lifted above his pain. I had once been in this position... someone dear to me had seen me struggling so hard and she had given me dignity even while she gave me comfort. It had been the start of my journey back from grief.

Eventually, he sat in the couch and just held me on his lap. He never asked me why I was there. He just held me.

But then his touch changed. He stroked my hair; that was the first thing. His arm around my shoulder shifted and pulled me more firmly against his chest. That was the second thing.

I felt him begin to harden against my hip.

His hand patted and caressed along my spine. 

I could smell the scent of man upon his neck; my nose was nestled right along it.

I had honestly never really allowed his maleness to have a place in our relationship. I had simply refused to acknowledge it, as if it would have no intrusion into the friendship if I did not let it.

Christmas Eve.

Around the world, families gather on this night.

Everyone else I knew... everyone but Jack... they have family they could be with on this night if they so chose. They are the lucky ones.

It seemed so easy. It seemed the perfect gift for Jack: that I should give him the only kind of comfort I could that night... the comfort of being intimate on this night when being alone seemed the cruelest thing I could have done to him.

His touch was so soft, so tender... not tentative, just slow and sweet. He never went fast; he just took his time in moving to where it was unmistakable what he hoped we'd be with each other that night. I burrowed in harder against his neck when he gently stroked over my breasts and then squeezed ever so slightly but deliberately.

For a moment, his hand dropped to my thigh and he didn't move at all except to hug me to him before relaxing his hold. I felt his chest as it rose and fell. His move was subtle but it ended with his thumb ever so lightly touching between my legs. My mouth opened and I kissed him a whisper of a kiss upon his neck.

When he put a finger under my chin and raised it, I didn't know what I'd see in his eyes. I feared I'd see confusion or pain; I saw only intensity and desire.

"Only if you wish it to be so, Katie," he said softly. "But I would wish to know you in this way above all things."

Our first kiss was awkward. I think I had forgotten how to do it. I tried to move in response to him but our noses bumped and we both kind of chuckled. Still... he took no chances with the second one. He smoothed his hand along my jaw and then simply held my face steady while he suckled gently on my top lip. I opened to him at the first prodding; our tongues barely met but then they explored as if we could take forever with just the kiss.

He held me for a long time. Just held me. His mouth seemed to want nothing more than to explore my neck and shoulders. But then his hand caressed each of my breasts, as if checking to be sure I would not stop him.

I was watching him as that hand went under my sweater. I wasn't wearing a bra that day; I had so many layers on that it just seemed unnecessary. The last layer next to my skin was silk, those indispensable luxuries that seem so practical each winter. When he touched me over the silk, I shivered at the tactile sensation. I just wasn't expecting it.

We ended up helping each other undress. He undressed me with reverence. There is no other word to describe it. He made me feel beautiful and delicate. My own hands shook when they finally touched the skin of his chest and realized these were the scars that young Amy had remarked upon. I'd only ever seen him close after the season for wearing bathing trunks and shorts was past. Perhaps this was why it had been so easy for me to not notice him in this way.

How else to explain that I'd been so blind as to not seen his virility? To never notice how handsome he was? To not see his eyes as they were this night? To not have recognized his sensuality and sexuality?

He picked me up when he had stripped me down. Just picked me up in his arms and walked up the flight of stairs to a bedroom. He didn't kiss me along the way; he just held me to his chest and whispered in my ear that he found me beautiful and sweet. As if what he was doing was too important to him to rush it.

When he laid me on the bed, he finished removing his clothes. I watched as he pushed his jeans down over his hips. I could see his size; it was unmistakable in the bulk that strained against the capture of his underwear. I waited for him to join me; I stroked him and he held me.

"I'm afraid I might be out of practice. You may need to... to remind me?" I whispered against his ear. "I wouldn't be able to say that to anyone but you, Jack."

His fingers touched lightly over my wetness; his lips nuzzled along my collarbone. It seemed to take him a moment for that to register. His head raised; he looked into my eyes. "Has it been so long for you, Katie? A woman like you?"

"You're the first... since..."

He swallowed hard and gave me this soft smile. "You make me feel as if I am the luckiest of men, to know you would choose me in this way. I promise I will be gentle."

"Maybe at first... but I won't break, Jack. Don't feel you have to hold back. I trust you."

I had honestly thought that I would never allow myself to want another man. I suppose I wasn't so sad to have given that up; I never thought another man would interest me in that way; I never even felt I was missing anything to not be interested in other men as potential lovers. But in that night with Jack, he taught me to listen to my body again. He taught me that when the time is right, taking the final step is natural.

In the morning, I woke to find myself held safe in the arms of a man I trusted... and liked. I had not lain with any man in more than three years. It had simply been the right man, the right time, the right decision.

My hand was between my thighs. I could feel the soft, damp heft of his groin nestled against my rear. He held tightly to me, his arms around me; one big hand on one of my breasts and the other clamped over my belly.

My fingers were sticky with his essences. I felt semen slick between my thighs, in my crevices, damp beneath me on the sheet, and trickling in drying streaks along my hips. I stroked through the soft, swollen, tender areas of my own sex and felt oddly moved to understand that I liked this feeling.

I liked waking in his arms.

I liked the aching in my limbs and the soreness between my legs and the itch I couldn't scratch all by myself.

I liked his breath upon my shoulder.

I liked the feel of a large male behind me.

I liked knowing the man with me was Jack.

I liked the way his arm twitched when I shifted ever so slightly, as if he was disturbed in his dream and wanted to cling to me to be sure I'd be there when he woke.

I liked the way he nudged in closer.

I liked how he hardened gradually, surely.

I liked how he kissed me on the neck as he woke, as if it was his only thought and had even perhaps been something he thought he was dreaming.

I liked how rough his voice sounded when he said, "You feel like every good thing I never could touch before this moment."

I liked how he let me twist and turn until I was facing him only to have his hip roll slowly over mine.

I liked how he burrowed under the covers and began kissing my body while I moved against him, arching into the insistent caress of his hands.

I liked how he shoved my hand away from where it shielded him from feeling he had to kiss me down there... down where our fluids from the night before mingled with new wetness from me in response to what he'd been doing.

I liked how he held my thighs firmly apart.

I liked the fire in his eyes, the way it spoke of passion that had blazed to life in him.

I liked that I knew just what that passion felt like because I felt it roar to inferno heat within me at the sight of him looking up at me like he did.

I liked how his tongue lapped and probed; how his mouth sucked and suckled.

I liked how he rolled to his back, his strong arms locking my body to his, his mouth refusing to give up the suction hold it had on me, his enthusiastic grunts echoing under blankets until I was on top of him and shoving the blankets off so we could breathe... and the whole time, he was making me come in his mouth until I called his name and pulled his hair without realizing it... and then lay there over his face, exhausted and wanting so much more.

I liked how he made me remember I was a woman.

I liked how he introduced me to the part of him that made me his woman.

I liked how he whispered to me that to be a man with me had been worth the wait.