Out on the coast, the wind is cutting and cruel, and I like it that way. I like the way it sweeps her hair diagonally across her face and the way she screeches at a particularly overpowering gust. She hunches her shoulders and stomps her feet and hides her hands under my sweater which she has taken as her own. It’s the thick wool one I got studying in Dublin, the one that itches like wire weeds against your ankles, the one built for weather such as this. It is not that I am unencumbered by the wind, but more so that she makes much more a show of it than me, and enjoys it. It’s as if she’s saying: I see the way you churn the earth, the way you sweep the long shore grasses, the way you push the waves, the waves!—as powerful as they are—to your will. I see it, and I protest! This is the thing I love most about her.
We are not summer beach-goers. There is nothing appealing to me about horseflies the size of quarters making a meal out of me. There is nothing appealing to me about the crunch of sand in my sandwich, despite the name (God, who names these things?). There is certainly nothing appealing to me about the cooking of flesh in beach chairs, screaming babies, and seagulls fighting over greasy French fry bags.
No, we come out here when the crowds have packed their overstuffed cars and driven back west, their hot skin textured by the salt and sand rubbing angrily against leather seats. I see them return to our neighborhood in flocks, piling their luggage on front stoops, snapping at tired children whining and hungry from the drive. This is when I turn to her and say, “Isn’t vacation supposed to be restorative?”
And she looks up from her novel (she is always reading, my girl) and says, “hush.” She keeps me grounded like this.
Arriving home, we kick the cold sand off our boots and leave them on the welcome mat and she says,“whew!” and gives her body a shake. Then she says, “where the fuck are my slippers?” as if someone has hidden them. I find them kicked under the couch, and call her “dear.” She puts the kettle on the stove and rubs her hands above it, still wiggling her small body. We shed our outer layers, which hold the wind in their fibers as a cool reminder, and don blankets over our shoulders like children on Christmas morning. I sit at my desk and she brings me a cup. It is warm and bitter and I hold it in both my hands and drink too soon. The wind rattles the old shutters of our little shack and she shouts, “Go away! There’s no one home!” and curls up on the couch with her novel and we stay silent like this for hours, our muscles heavy, full of October sand.
It is raining when I return in May to paint the shutters and fix the rain gutters, which have fallen victim to winter yet again. Over the course of the winter months, I find myself picturing them overborne with snow and sagging and feel great cruelty at my abandonment. On the drive, I crank the classical station above the tinny pangs of rain upon the roof of the car. Out the window, I can see the length of the ocean stretching out beyond covert inlets. The wipers hit madly on the windshield.