I couldn’t hear waves without being pulled back to that afternoon.

So when Michael suggested we spend a weekend in a coastal town nearly six hundred miles from home, I immediately said no.

He asked again.

“It doesn’t have to be about the beach.”

“It is literally a beach town.”

“We can eat. Walk around. Sit somewhere. If you hate it, we leave.”

I looked at him.

He looked exhausted.

We were both in our forties by then.

And we had spent eight years building our lives around someone who wasn’t there.

So I agreed.

The first day was difficult.

I refused to go near the water.

We stayed on the boardwalk.

Michael bought coffee.

I pretended not to notice  families walking past us carrying towels and beach toys.

Then we passed a café with outdoor seating.

A woman was standing near the railing talking to a server.

She looked around fifty.

Maybe older.

She was wearing a faded turquoise cover-up.

My body reacted before my mind did.

I stopped walking.

There had to be thousands of turquoise beach cover-ups in the world.

I knew that.

Then the wind lifted one corner of the fabric.

And I saw it.