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PART ONE

2016

Chapter One

September 2016

Clyde Bay, Maine

Robbie woke up when it was still dark outside They’d slept with the s open and he could hear the surf on the rocks It was such a constant sound that he rarely heard it any , too He lay there in his bed for a fewto her breath and the water, both steady and fao on forever

Emily’s face was turned away froainst his hip, her ankle curled around his so her toes rested against the sole of his foot Most s he would roll over on to his side and put his arainst him in her sleep, and they would stay there for a little while, long enough so that when he got up, leaving her asleep in their bed, he would still feel the waro about histhe scent of her hair

If things stayed as they were, if they progressed as they would, he knew this would be the one thing that would never change Not the rhyth They had slept together this way on their first night together, fifty-four years ago, and every night since then that they hadn’t slept in the saht as far as he was concerned Robbie knew his body would reh for his et her

It would be enough, to live for these h But he had to think of Emily

Since the day he hadhe had done was for E he needed to do for her Nohile he could still do it

Robbie eased hi her He sat up on his side of the bed He was eighty years old, and aside froh in the rainy weather, he was in pretty good shape, physically He still nised hih his hair was aleless skin of a man who had spent most of his time outdoors His body probably had ten, fifteen more years in it Preserved by the salt: that hat they said about old sailors

Without thinking too ot dressed in the near-darkness, as he did al except for so his hand over the banister railing he’d carved hile piece of oak He’d had to take the front door fra in the house Back in 1986 – Adam had been ten

He tested hi the facts, so maybe they would stick Adam married Shelley in 2003 We moved to Clyde Bay in 1977 Ithe Great Depression I retired in 19No, I was seventy, or was Iwhere are ?

Robbie looked up He was in the kitchen, where he’d built the cabinets with his own hands He was filling the pot for coffee Every , while Emily slept upstairs, and soon Ada, to do his paper round before he went to school

A dog nudged his leg ‘Just one minute, Bella,’ he said easily, and he looked down and it wasn’t Bella This dog had a white patch on his chest, and it wasn’t Bella because Bella was pure black, it wasit was Bella’s son, it was

Another dog yawned noisily and got up stiffly frorey on his muzzle and a white patch on his chest Robbie looked froed his hand and wagged his tail and he was Rocco It came back to him in a rush This was Rocco, and the old one was his father, Tybalt, and Bella was Tybalt’s mother and had been dead for thirteen years

Robbie’s hand shook when he opened the door to let the two dogs out