She rented the house for six weeks. It was small, just one bedroom and a screen porch, with ceiling fans that wobbled when they turned. There was a beach a few minutes’ walk away, but she rarely went. She preferred the quiet of the mornings — the hum of insects, the slow warming of the air, the way the early light filtered softly through the house’s porch screens, pale and golden, casting a mesh of shadow across the floorboards. 

The sky, in those early hours, was a muted blue-gray, as if taking its time deciding what kind of day it would become. The scent of pine drifted in from the woods beyond the neighboring houses, mingling with salt from the sea and something faintly sweet — maybe honeysuckle, or the remnants of a flowering bush she couldn’t name. When a car passed, the crunch of tires on gravel was brief but oddly comforting, as though the world was beginning again in small, polite intervals. 

She sipped her coffee slowly, often without tasting it, listening to the fans creak overhead and watching a moth bump softly against the screen.

The man lived two houses down. She saw him first when she was carrying a grocery bag in one arm and her sandals in the other. He was watering a plant on his porch, a shriveled thing that looked beyond saving.

“It doesn’t look like it wants to be helped,” she said as she passed.

He glanced at her, then down at the plant. “It’s the only one I brought from home.”

After that, they exchanged small talk. He was polite but didn’t push conversation. He had a dog, old and nearly blind, who wandered off-leash and returned without being called. Once, the dog stopped in front of her steps and sat down. She reached out her hand, and the dog licked her palm, then kept walking.

She asked about the dog one day.

“She’s been with me longer than most people have,” he said. “She came along during the first Bush, or maybe the second. I don’t remember now.”

“You don’t remember your dog’s age?”

“I remember she liked my ex-wife better.”

She smiled. “So did my ex-husband’s cat. It used to hiss at me like I owed it rent.”

That made him laugh. “Maybe we should compare notes on all the animals who’ve judged us.”

They stood there a while longer. It was early evening, still warm. She could hear someone playing jazz down the road.

“You want to come by tomorrow?” she asked. “I bought too many peaches. Again.”

He hesitated, then nodded. “Only if you let me do the dishes.”

“That’s very forward,” she said, lightly.

“I’m an optimist,” he said.

She liked the way he didn’t apologize after that.

In the evenings, they sometimes found themselves on the shore. Not together, at first. She brought a towel or a folding chair, and a thermos of tea. He brought a cooler with a few beers, which he drank slowly. 

The beach was never crowded at that hour — just the occasional silhouette of a couple walking a dog, or a teenager throwing rocks into the surf. The sand, still warm from the sun, cooled beneath their feet as the light shifted. Long, lavender shadows stretched from the dunes, and the sea turned the color of slate. Gulls passed overhead without calling out. Sometimes the breeze lifted enough to rattle the grasses behind them, dry and pale as straw.

The first time they sat beside each other, it was because the wind had blown her towel near his feet. He picked it up and handed it to her, and then he stayed.

“I’m not here for any particular reason,” he said once. “I didn’t plan it. It just seemed like the thing to do.”

She didn’t respond because she wasn’t sure if it was a question. She thought of telling him about her heart — the irregular beat, the fatigue, the months she had spent inside her apartment, worrying. But it didn’t feel necessary.

They began to share things. A basket of strawberries she’d picked. A crossword puzzle he couldn’t finish. A bottle of wine that stayed open over three days. He told her he used to teach high school English. She told him she had been married, once. That was enough.

“You’re not what I expected,” he said one evening.

“What did you expect?”

“Someone more relaxed. It’s a vacation town.”

She raised an eyebrow. “You’re not exactly a human hammock yourself.”

He laughed again, quietly. “That’s fair.”

One night, there was a storm. The power went out, and she lit a candle in the kitchen. A knock at the door, and she opened without asking who it was. Thomas stood there, holding a flashlight and a half-open bag of pretzels.

“I don’t like being alone in the dark,” he said.

She let him in. They sat at the kitchen table. She poured water into glasses, though neither of them drank. At some point, she reached across the table and touched his wrist.

It was not a dramatic night; no confessions, no promises. But when the lights came back on, neither of them moved for a long time.

In the days after, something shifted. He came later, stayed less time. She found herself watching the path between their houses, waiting for his shape to appear in the dusk.

She did not ask him why. She thought she understood.

On her last morning, she made coffee and packed slowly. She looked at the plant on his porch — still alive, though not thriving. The dog barked once and then went quiet.

She left a note tucked under a coaster on his porch table. It said:

The plant is still brown, but I think you were right to water it anyway.

She didn’t sign her name.

She drove away before the sun was high enough to make the road shimmer. She did not cry. But she looked at the empty passenger seat more than once.