I’d read in a report in the local paper, this town could be underwater. I remembered it because of the unusually poetic language in the headline. With predicted rising sea levels over the next century, Sailors Beach could slip beneath the waves. How it sounded almost like a relief—to surrender like that. Back then, I often confused danger with beauty, drawn as I was to stories of other people’s tragedies, tales of lighthouse keepers’ daughters, lonely men and women living out on the edge, perched above those same wrecking waters.
