I sat in the damp sand between the water and the dry sand. With my legs spread wide, the waves lapped at me. I thought about Brenda against me. I looked around and I was alone. I felt alone. Deep down, I was alone. I lifted my hips and slipped the bottom of her swimsuit past my hips and over my feet. I held it to my face and inhaled deeply smelling the mixture of salt water and our fragrance. How I missed sharing myself with her.

Aunt Peggy called at the start of June and asked if I wanted the beach house for the next three months. It seemed that she had been unable to rent it out this summer. How could I turn such an offer down? We had never been close, but this was exactly what I needed at this point in my life. I had no classes to teach until the fall, so I said I would. I laughed at my luck the whole time I packed.

Just past the toll bridge onto the beach, I took the top down on my Jeep CJ so I could enjoy the next ten miles of sun. The last few miles, I was glad I was driving a 4-wheel drive as I plowed through sand drift after sand drift that covered the road. Sometimes I was not even sure where the pavement was. The house numbers passed, 6824, 6826. There it is, 6886. “Wow! Looks like at least twenty homes are gone,” I said aloud. The others looked empty. Peggy’s place was all that remained at the end of the road. I realized that there would a lot of solitude.

For a few weeks each summer when I was growing up, my parents used to bring me to her place. Built in the 1950’s, the house sat on a concrete slab with sides of concrete blocks painted pink with jalousie windows cranked out as we pulled into the driveway. It was not a popular part of the beach back then, there used to be several rows of houses each parallel to the water. Now after the past several years of hurricanes, many of the houses were gone, only some scrap wood, a few pilings, and a few slab foundations, nothing else. Of course, there had been a pink flamingo out front of her house. The pink flamingo was now gone.

At least the key she gave me still worked. Larger windows now replaced the old windows. What a mess the place was, it looked like no one had been here all winter to even check on the place. I tried all the faucets and the water seemed to work, even the hot water. I was surprised that the electric hot water heater was actually working after seeing the condition of the place. I was not one to complain though. I used the broom from beside the fridge to sweep the terrazzo floors. It would be stupid to have carpets in a beach house. It was nice to feel the coolness of these floors on the bottoms of my feet. They were nicer than vinyl, and prettier than plain concrete.