Ten

TEN

IT'S BEEN A LONG day for me, much more activity than I'm used to, at least lately. Tomorrow is going to be much, much longer.

But I'm not ready to go home yet.

It's the beautiful twilight time on the South Fork of eastern Long Island. What I think of as my own personal magic hour. It's the kind of night, and light, that reminds me why I wanted to live out here full time, a hundred miles from the big, bad city, twenty miles from land's end in Montauk.

It's September, my favorite month of the year, even though I'm about to give the best part of it away with both hands.

I go past the turn to my house, keep going to Indian Wells Beach, park my car. No other cars in the lot. Just the way I like it. My own private beach, free of charge.

I get out and take off my sneakers and walk down toward the water, wanting to feel the sand underneath my feet.

There are a lot of beaches in this part of the world that I love. But I love this one the most, maybe because it's so close to my house.

Out here I rarely feel the urge to think out loud. Almost like I want the ocean to do my thinking for me.

I walk and I think, mostly about tomorrow, heading east toward Atlantic Beach, the next one up.

Just me and an ocean perfectly lit as if by a moon shining down on a movie set.

Built for the movie of my so-called life.

I keep walking, taking it all in, beach and water and moon and sky. There's a point, every single day, when I think the same thing:

This can't be happening to me when I'm going this good.

I've just won the biggest case of my career. I'm in love with Dr. Ben Kalinsky. Really in love, for the first time in my life. I told myself I felt the same before both of my marriages. I realize now I was only kidding myself, as if wishing could have made it so, both times.

I suddenly feel myself smiling, thinking about all the days and nights when I had Rip on this beach with me, walking and running and then walking a little more, watching him get stronger, if not a whole lot faster.

Like he refused to die.

Now it was going to be my turn, a long way from home.

Before I, the only person on this beach tonight, head for the parking lot, I suddenly stop and then I am shouting at the ocean, or maybe God Herself, about just how goddamned much I want to live.

Then I get back into my car and drive past the turn for my house one more time and keep going to the Springs.

I park my car in the driveway and ring the doorbell, remembering the first time I made a trip like this, to this same house.

When Dr. Ben Kalinsky opens the door, I say, "There are some things I need to tell you."