Home.

It's 5 a.m. In the cellar, laundry churns in the washing machine. Upstairs, early light peers through the panes. I've emptied the dishwasher, tidied counters, made coffee, let the cat out. Tom has been gone since 4:30--heading out to the docks to take photos at dawn--so I am alone, puttering quietly among my morning tasks. It's peaceful to be here, amid these little habits.

Oddly, there's no rain forecast for today. Eventually I'll get clothes onto the lines. I'll do the grocery shopping. I'll settle into garden work, I'll mull over meals. For now I am resting in the gray-shadowed living room, watching pale day wash into the sky, reacquainting my body with this little house, this little life . . . two chairs pulled up to the dining room table, two towels on the bathroom rack, a small bed for two tucked under the eaves.

"The man, the enigma" is how our son describes his father. But of course love is a mysterious stranger.

On the mantle, before I left for Vermont, I arranged a bouquet of tightly budded chives, salvia, yarrow. Now the buds have opened--purples and dusty yellows, leaves tangled and lacy, a miniature thicket.

Refrigerator hums. Clock ticks. Rinse water splashes into wet sheets. The house murmurs through its chores. For the moment I am unnecessary, except to open the front door and call the cat back in.