One story tucked beneath shore pines, windows facing the cove.
My breath caught.
Reid watched me.
“Too much?”
“No.”
“Head?”
“Quiet.”
“Do you remember?”
“I don’t know yet.”
We got out.
Cold air carried salt, wet cedar, and smoke from someone’s chimney farther along the shore.
The smell reached me first.
Then the faint metallic sound of the cottage gate.
A chain striking wood.
My hand stopped on the latch.
Memory did not arrive as an image.
It opened around me.
A winter afternoon years ago.
Reid behind me carrying two bags and complaining that the gate wanted blood. My hands numb from cold. Mercy tied at the old dock below the cottage. Wind pulling the hood from my head.
I heard myself laughing.
Not imagined.
Remembered.
Reid came close.
“What?”
“The gate.”
He looked at it.
“You fought with it for ten minutes.”
“You said it required negotiation.”
“You kicked it.”
“It was hostile.”
