The Second Mrs. Astor

by Shana Abe

He’d shucked off his jacket and now sat with his legs straight out, ankles crossed, leaning back on his hands with his face tipped to the sun. He’d loosened his tie, as well; with his sleeves rolled up and his collar undone, he might have been any country gentleman relaxing beside her, his mouth smiling, the sea light complimenting his tanned face and neck, that tantalizing glimpse of the base of his throat between the open wings of his collar. His hair was mussed from the wind and his driving cap, but she liked that about him right now, that informality that made him more human than myth. It suited him here on this small hidden beach, this fine intimate day.

He looks at me and it’s almost as if he’s given me a magical ability, the ability to be seen.

Kitty, in fact, became one of the photographers’ favorite subjects, maybe because all decent people love dogs, and it truly seemed like she was nearly always smiling.

This room could have been anywhere. Any superior hotel room, anywhere in Europe or America, anywhere she’d ever been.

“The dominion of the dead,” he called back to them, and grinned.

Kinder hearts are stronger, her mother had once said. Maddy needed to be strong.

The nature of hope is curious to me. It can sustain us through the darkest of times. It can buoy us above every reasonable expectation of despair. Yet hope can shatter us just as readily as the darkness can. People refer to it as false hope, but I think that’s misleading, because the feeling itself is painfully true.

“Who are all those people?” Alice asked, peering out the window. Madeleine and Vincent glanced at each other. Voyeurs, she wanted to say. “Voyeurs,” said Vincent.