Chapter 10 - The Song of the Tide
Six years later.
The summer sun over the Maine coast was golden, long, and sweet, casting ribbons of pink and amber across the salt marshes where the river met the open sea.
A small wooden sailboat with a red canvas sail rocked gently near the wooden dock, its mast creaking in the soft evening breeze.
Six-year-old Evelyn came running down the grassy hill from the cottage, her bare feet covered in sand, holding a small brass handbell she had found inside Gabriel’s workshop.
"Mommy! Look!" Evelyn cheered, ringing the brass bell with a clear, high chime that echoed through the quiet cove. "Daddy said I can ring the harbor signal when the boat comes in!"
"You have to pull it with a steady cadence, Evie," I laughed, walking down the deck steps in a soft linen dress, holding the hand of my three-year-old son, Noah, who was carrying a yellow bucket full of seashell treasures.
Gabriel stood at the end of the dock, securing the mooring line of the sailboat, his skin tanned deep bronze by years of working in the salt air, his shoulders broad and relaxed under his blue canvas shirt.
He looked up at us, his eyes crinkling at the corners with a warmth that had only grown deeper with every year that passed.
"Is the harbor signal ready, Cap'n?" Gabriel called out, catching Evelyn as she leaped off the end of the dock into his arms, swinging her around until she shrieked with laughter.
"Ready!" Evelyn shouted, holding the brass bell high above her head.
I stepped onto the dock beside them, taking Noah into my arms as he held up a bright pink scallop shell for Gabriel to see.
Far off down the coast, the soft, low chime of the Cape Elizabeth lighthouse bell sounded across the water—a deep, resonant note that carried three miles over the calm, blue sea.
It wasn't a warning. It wasn't a call of distress.
It was just the sea telling the shore that the night was coming, and that everyone who was lost had finally found their way home.
Gabriel wrapped his arm around my waist, pulling me and Noah close against his side, while Evelyn rang her small brass bell once more into the setting sun.
The bell tower on Lake Shore Drive was three hundred miles away—a distant, fading memory built of stone, shadow, and old paper.
May you like
Here, on the edge of the world, where the pine trees met the sea and the air was clean and free, our children’s laughter was the only sound that echoed across the water.
And as the golden light faded into a sky full of bright, cold stars, I held my family close, knowing that no shadow, no lock, and no lie could ever reach us again.
