Sea Glass
Chapter One
Honora
Honora sets the cardboard suitcase on the slab of granite. The door
is mackereled, paint-chipped-green or black, it is hard to tell.
Above the knocker, there are panes of glass, some broken and others
opaque with age. Overhead is a portico of weathered shingles and
beyond that a milk-and-water sky. Honora pinches the lapels of her
suit together and holds her hat against the wind. She peers at the
letter B carved into the knocker and thinks, This is the place where
it all begins.
The year is 1929. A June day. A wedding day. Honora is just twenty,
and Sexton is twenty-four.
The clapboards of the house are worn from white to flesh. The
screens at the windows are ripped and flapping. On the second story,
dormers stand like sentries keeping watch over the sea, and from the
house a thicket sharp with thorns advances across the lawn. The
doorsill is splintered, and she thinks it might give way with her
weight. She wants to try the pitted knob, though Sexton has told her
not to, to wait for him. She steps down into the dooryard, her pumps
denting the springy soil, unleashing a scent that collapses years.
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