“It was half-morning and gun-in-your-mouth obvious when she told me to leave and I stumbled over my clothes to the door. I thought of her middle name again. It was tucked in between the sugar and flour, the translucent orange bottle on the granite-topped kitchen island, subtle as a lighthouse. I found it when she was changing. I heard there’s this one guy who still throws messages in bottles, thousands of them. He has received replies. I wanted to break all the bottles, read every reply. But you can’t make the sounds of the ocean when it’s lying in pieces all around you. Some replies float and float and float and float.”
