I met Susan Lewis, as she then was, for the first time in Lingo’s Market, an old–style general store that sold produce and cereals alongside expensive cheeses and boasted its own in–store bakery. It was still a family–run operation — a sister, a brother, and their mother, a tiny, white–haired woman with the energy of a terrier.
On our first morning in the resort, I stumbled out to buy coffee and a newspaper in Lingo’s, my mouth dry, my legs still unsteady from the night before. She stood at the deli counter, ordering coffee beans and pecans, her hair tied loosely in a ponytail. She wore a yellow summer dress, her eyes were a deep, dark blue, and she was very, very beautiful.
I, on the other hand, was very much the worse for wear, but she smiled at me as I stood beside her at the counter, oozing alcohol from my pores. And then she was gone, trailing a hint of expensive scent behind her.
I saw her a second time that day, at the YMCA as she stepped from the pool and entered the dressing rooms, while I tried to sweat out the alcohol on a rowing machine. It seemed to me that, for the next day or two, I caught glimpses of her everywhere: in a bookshop, examining the covers of glossy legal thrillers; passing the launderette, clutching a bag of donuts; peering in the window of the Irish Eyes bar with a girlfriend; and finally I came upon her one night as she stood on the boardwalk, the sound of the arcades behind her and the waves breaking before her.
She was alone, caught up in the sight of the surf gleaming white in the darkness. Few people strolled on the beach to obscure her view, and at the periphery, away from the arcades and the fast food stalls, it was startlingly empty.
She looked over at me as I stood beside her. She smiled.
“Feeling better now?”
“A little. You caught me at a bad time.”
“I could smell your bad time,” she said, her nose wrinkling.
“I’m sorry. If I’d known you were going to be there, I’d have dressed up.” And I wasn’t kidding.
“It’s okay. I’ve had those times.”
And from there it began. She lived in New Jersey, commuted to Manhattan each day to work in a publisher’s office, and every second weekend she visited her parents in Massachusetts. We were married a year later and we had Jennifer one year after that. We had maybe three very good years together before things started to deteriorate. It was my fault, I think. When my parents married they both knew the toll a policeman’s life could take on a marriage, he because he lived that life and saw its results reflected in the lives around him, she because her father had been a deputy in Maine and had resigned before the cost became too high. Susan had no such experience.
She was the youngest of four children, both of her parents were still alive, and they all doted on her. When she died, they ceased to speak to me. Even at the graveside, no words passed between us. With Susan and Jennifer gone, it was as if I had been cut adrift from the tide of life and left to float in still, dark waters.