As she did most nights, she got out of the bed, slipped on her robe and walked out onto the small deck on the back of the cottage. It faced the beach, and the sound of the ocean waves soothed her. Not enough, but a little. Each wave gave her a millisecond break, just enough to catch her breath before the memories would catch up with her yet again.
She loved the smell of the the salty sea air, and the fine mist that would come off the ocean during different parts of the day woke her up enough so that she didn't fall back asleep and start the dream all over again. Most nights, she might have gotten three hours of sleep, and it was starting to wear on her.
But what could she do? Life had happened. There was nothing that was going to take away the memories of that fateful night. And her punishment for making that decision was going to haunt her until the day she died. If it didn't haunt her while she was awake, it hunted her in her dreams. She felt as if those memories were chasing her night after night.
For a while, she could confide in Steve. He understood. He tried to console her, tell her that she did the right thing. But she didn't do the right thing in her mind. Even though she was cleared of any wrong doing, she could never go back to her job as a police officer. She saw everything differently, and she hadn’t even been on duty that night.
Most of her career, she had known that being an officer didn't really suit her. She was much more of a creative type, loving to paint and write and even dance a little bit in high school. After considering the military to get away from her family stress, she opted instead to go into law enforcement. Something inside of her needed the adrenaline at the time, but these days she’d avoid that feeling at any cost. Now, she just wanted peace, yet it seemed to be the most elusive creature on earth.
She had done well in her career for a long time, but then the worst happened. She never really wanted to talk about it with anyone. Truthfully, she wished that she could stop thinking about it and never have to speak about it, but it seemed to be a part of her now. Like an extra arm hanging off of her body, making her heavier and dragging her down.
She pulled her robe tightly around her and walked down onto the dark beach. It was so remote and deserted, and nighttime made it feel even more so. A blanket of stars hung above her in the sky, and she stared up at them wondering if there was life beyond the planet earth. Maybe if she was on some other planet or in some other dimension, she wouldn't be suffering so much now. If you traveled to a different planet, did your history go with you? Or did you truly get a fresh start? Now she was just delusional from lack of sleep.
There was a rock on the beach where she liked to sit, just to get closer to the water. It was so clear tonight that the moon was dancing off the waves as they slowly rolled into shore. There was just something about the ocean that she loved. It felt like each wave was a renewal, a new beginning. Oh, how she wished she could get a new beginning in her own life.
But she didn't deserve it. She had taken a life. She had always known as a police officer that it was a possibility that might happen, but the way it happened wasn't something that she expected. How would she ever get over what she had done?
So she'd run away from her old life in an effort to start a new one, even if it was running a lighthouse on a tiny island out in the middle of nowhere. But so far, she hadn’t outrun anything. No, her fears and regrets had come along for the ride like an uninvited guest.
Her grandmother used to say that houseguests and fish started to smell after three days. But she wanted to add something new to that list- regrets. They started to smell too.
Sometimes, just for a brief moment, she thought about walking out into the ocean until she couldn't walk anymore. Not that she wanted to hurt herself. Not really. But she wondered if the universe wanted that. She wondered if the fact that she had taken a life meant that she should give up her own. A person has a lot of dark thoughts when they live in dark places.
Chapter 4
Julie finished making the coffee and then straightened the bistro chairs in the café area. It was an early morning at the bookstore because tourist season was now in full swing, and she had to make sure they were ready. Dixie would be coming in soon, and they would go over that week’s planning and the upcoming spring festival that would be the highlight of the season in Seagrove.
The spring festival always brought out a lot of tourists and locals alike. Seagrove loved to have festivals at least four times a year. And then there was the local farmers’ market that was open every Saturday. Julie loved to go to that, and Lucy often went along with her to pick out things for the inn. The community atmosphere was what she loved most about her adopted hometown.
She was tired this morning, having been up late talking to her daughter about her upcoming wedding and trying to figure out the guest list. Meg was going back-and-forth between wanting to have a big wedding and a small, intimate one. Her ping-ponging was starting to stress Julie out. She liked to have a plan, and she liked to have one early. Meg was much
