I brought Andrew to the cabin, because it's for sale and I might never see it again and it wouldn't be right for someone so close to me not to have had a chance to glance at the person I am when I'm there.

He was so resistant to going, and it hurt that he was. He thought he would become bored away from his things and the courseways he controls.

That is a thing, and important thing, to be able to surrender yourself, knowing when you should surrender yourself in trust to another. What does it mean when we are afraid to do it, even for people we love the most and who we know have our safekeeping in mind? What is it that we are afraid will be lost?

I'm still working on that one for myself.

The forecast was for clouds and rain and I expected it to be true but it wasn't. We had some rain, but some sun most of the first day and for that traverse through the gates across strait and mountain. We arrived at the cabin before sundown and I walked him out to the beach and showed him the long arcing expanse of it, it dappled with dinnertime strolls. Then we returned to the cabin and made dinner, stiff in arrival and quiet, him from his unassuredness and me from it too.

When it should've have been dark enough, I walked him down to the beach again, just this one more time to do something he might not have wanted to do, because I wanted to show him the sky, wanted to see if the sky as I knew it could be was there this night even just a little, even just a diminution of itself, which would be an immense thing in comparison to what we see in the city. But it hardly was, with the skating cloud cover and the waning moon rising in the east. This time it was the moon all marvelous, bright and daresay blinding. Killing the stars and even the very archtype of night. We stood on our long-cast moonshadows gazing up at that womanly thing, squinting to protect our eyes. And then I knew that nighttime has never been a darkness, but a roving season of its own that the peoples of all history responded to with cycles of activity and ritual.

I feel so far from that drum—is that what feels off? That occasional twinging reminder that something is just not right amid the escalating feast of human mastery over material.

I told him that at the cabin you don't have to do anything you don't want. That when I get there I often sleep the entire first day, I often don't leave the cabin at all—but if you wanted to, you could leave the cabin, you could do whatever you wanted. I mean it.

By the second day I saw him soften a bit and brighten. It was raining then, drops of a forest that shook the trees and quieted the roar of the surf. We can do whatever we want, so we took the car into town to the cash machine and when we saw a walk-up stand selling halibut and chips we stopped and bought a two-piece set to go. Then we stopped at the espresso stand and got our coffees. We took it all back to the cabin and sat before the window enjoying these comforts and watching the intrepid seal-clad surfers try to ride the steely waves. We stayed that way a long time. Eventually I picked up my book and he picked up his guitar, and he said he understood.

At dusk, still in our spot, he with his guitar, me with my book, a surfer drowned on the beach in front of the cabin. We saw a person sprint across the sand in front of the window and heard the tinny calls "help" and "drowning." We jumped up and ran down to the edge of the sand, barely juiced cell phone in hand. Sure enough, there was a cluster of neoprene-clad bodies huddled around something. The quick counting of CPR rolling up the beach followed by a clap "Breathe!" I dialed and the call connected. Where are you? What's happening? I didn't really know—not the address, not what happened, and afraid to move at all for fear of losing the connection. "South Chesterman" eked from me. That's OK, the operator said. Apparently I wasn't the first to call.

It would've been wrong to join the crowd on the beach, to engage in the vanity of bystanding, so we walked the other way to wait on the road for the ambulance. We waited there a good long time, at least 15 minutes, and the body had already been out of the water who knows how long before that. From the beach, still the counting.

When the ambulance did arrive it looked like it had driven straight from the past, with the rounded corners of an earlier, optimistic age that had long since been debunked. Two paramedics leapt out, poor in practice and demeanor, haphazardly grabbing at equipment, forgetting things and having to return, and dragging it all in one unorganized heap to the beach. Even their flashlights burned dim, as if left long unchecked.

My heart sank; they wouldn't be able to save the person.

We returned to the edge of the sand and stood there another good long time as darkness overtook and individuals began to peel away from the crowd and the crowd dwindled to a small huddle. Dim beams moved erratically, a fight broke out and was quickly squashed. The counting stopped. Then the long methodical process of putting a body on the stretcher and navigating a lightless beach with that awkward weight.

Andrew thought he heard a name carried across the sand, and that's the only thing we had.

It was dinnertime, but how can you eat? We sat in the quiet warm light of the cabin and talked about death. How the person didn't expect to die today, how we won't expect to die. We talked about other deaths and things you learn, mainly the human incapacity to prepare for this one thing. All the meanings of living settled in the quiet light. After awhile, we ate.

In the morning on our way out of town we asked for news and there was none.

++

I checked the area's online newspaper the next day. It was a young man from Vancouver visiting with friends. Twenty-two, and his first time surfing. He was found floating face down in the surf.