We wore only T-shirts and jeans; though the breeze was cool, the sun was warm. Patrick either held my hand or put his arm around me, and we laughed at squabbling birds and we walked to the end of the island where all that lay to the south was ocean and Antarctica, his lighthouse to the north of us. And we stood there for a stretch of time we didn’t measure, he wrapped me up in his arms, and neither one of us spoke. It was a profound silence, as though he was showing the ocean he had me now, and it replied with a lick of wind and a rush of salt air. It was a defining point for us. It felt like
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