My final angry words had hung in the air of this kitchen for sixteen years, turning a small disagreement into a permanent silence.
“She is not coming back for a toothbrush, Helen,” Arthur said, his voice softening slightly as he looked at the box.
“I know,” I said.
I walked back to the small bathroom off the hallway and set it back on the ceramic ledge.
The porcelain was cold under my fingers.
There was an empty space in the toothbrush holder that I refused to fill.
The ocean breeze carried the heavy scent of salt and damp sand.
The humidity seemed to stick directly to the graying wooden planks under my feet.
I had been walking for nearly an hour, navigating the dense afternoon crowd that always filled this stretch of the Ocean City boardwalk in late August.
Bright beach towels, plastic buckets, and the hum of the crowd blurred into a moving wall of color around me.
I kept my head down, my eyes fixed on the weathered timber.
This was a habit I had developed over many years of walking through places where too many people gathered.
