By five o'clock, the wind along Harbor Road had stripped the remaining warmth from the asphalt. The tide was retreating slowly over the gravel flats, leaving ribbons of dark kelp and wet stone gleaming beneath an iron sky. Arthur kept both hands in his coat pockets, listening to the rhythmic clang of the halyards against aluminum masts in the marina below.
The Sound of Slack Water
There is a brief quarter hour before dark when the harbor turns completely motionless. The incoming swell loses its momentum against the breakwater, and the current hesitates before pulling outward toward the strait. In that pause, the town sounded different, as if someone had closed a heavy door between the road and the open sea.
He walked past the closed bait shop and the weather-beaten picnic benches where summer tourists used to rest their paper cups of chowder. Now the benches were just wet pine, flecked with salt and lichen. He did not mind the cold; it had a way of clarifying things that conversation usually obscured.
Watching the Ferry Turn
Out on the channel, the evening ferry swung wide to make its approach into the slip. Its yellow passenger deck cast a soft, buttered reflection across the slate chop. From this distance, the cars parked on the lower deck were indistinguishable dark boxes, each holding someone bound for an ordinary kitchen or an empty house.
He waited until the horn sounded its single low note across the water before turning back toward the lane. The evening was settling in earnest now, cold and quiet and entire.