1995
After Rory's wife has left, I feel raw, like a scab that's been picked too soon. All the anger that eluded me while she was there, in front of me, thrashes through me now. But I have learned, this summer, that I don't have to stay within such feelings, allowing them to throw me about. I can write, or run, or swim, or walk: any of those will change the balance, make me bigger than the emotion, shrink it back to its proper place inside me. Not me inside it.
I check my watch — five hours to sunset — and decide to walk.
I move awkwardly down the small climb onto the beach, the weight of my bump pulling against me. It is one of the things I most look forward to regaining after the baby is born: my own way of walking. Off I set, doing my best to stride. Onlookers glancing as I pass see o
