Family Honor

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Their last months together had been gothic. Both of them had avoided being home, and the house in Marblehead with the water view had stood, more empty than occupied, both emblem and relic of their marriage. They had been much younger than their neighbors when they’d moved in, freshly married, twenty-three years old, the house purchased for cash with money from her in-laws. They had drunk wine in the living room and looked straight out over the Atlantic and held hands and made love in front of the fireplace, and thought about forever. Nine years is a little short of forever, she thought. She had refused alimony. Richie had refused the house.

Now she was carefully bubble-wrapping her paintings and leaning them carefully against the wall where the movers could pick them up when they came. Each painting had a FRAGILE sticker on it. Her paints and brushes were boxed and taped and stood beside the paintings. The house was silent. The sound of the ocean only made it seem more silent. The sun was streaming in through the east windows. Tiny dust motes glinted in it. The sun off the water made a kind of backlighting, diffusing the sunlight, and filling in where there would have been shadows. Her dog sat on her tail watching the packing, looking a little nervous. Or was that projection?

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