Wheeling Gull Isle September

He shuts his eyes, the mainland disappears. When he opens them it’s Ava at his hocks, her dark fur tipped with sea fog, a film over his own snout too.

“You can be like Mommy and I’ll be like Daddy. You can talk to God and I’ll talk to... fish,” he shrugs. “We’ll hunt in the tidepools and build a fort on the port side. We’ll need driftwood and lots of reeds, for bedding!”

They’d construct a hopeful little world together, he decides, where absence can’t reach. Just them, God, and the sea.

“Oh- and don’t tell Mal.”