THE LAST LIGHTONE
The house
by the sea
By the time Nora reached the house, the tide had taken the road.
She stood at the garden gate with her suitcase in one hand and a letter in the other, listening to the water move between the stones.
1 THE HOUSE BY THE SEACome before the summer ends, her brother had written. Nothing else. No explanation for the years of silence, no directions to a house she had almost managed to forget.
There was a light in the upstairs window.
She lifted the latch. Somewhere beyond the orchard, a door closed, and the evening seemed to hold its breath.
• • •
For the first time in years, she had arrived somewhere she wasn’t quite ready to leave.
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