The Tide That Left The Pier Empty At Dawn

She let go of the rope and felt the boat drift before she allowed herself to look up.

The pier was slick with salt and old paint and the gulls argued overhead as if something had been stolen. The ferry engine coughed once and settled into its idle. Naomi Claire Holloway stood with the coil of rope cooling in her hands and watched the space widen where the boat had been. When the deckhand nodded she nodded back and stepped away. Naomi Claire Holloway did not wave. She did not call out. She understood that the sound of the engine was already a kind of answer.

The town of Grayport woke slowly behind her. Nets hung like tired flags. A coffee shop door opened and closed and let warmth escape. Naomi walked past the bait barrels and the bench where she and Eli had waited out storms that never came. The morning smelled like brine and diesel and wet wood. She took a breath and tasted the sea the way you taste a truth you cannot swallow.

Her house faced the water and always had. The windows filmed with salt. The floor held a soft give where generations had walked in from boats. Naomi set the rope on the hook by the door and leaned her forehead against the glass. The tide was pulling out and taking the light with it. She watched the ferry shrink until it was a shape she could mistake for something else.

She had met him the first winter after her father died when the harbor froze thin and treacherous. Elijah Martin Keene had arrived to fix the radio tower and asked directions with his full name like he needed to be official in a place that resisted it. Naomi Claire Holloway had given hers in return and felt the distance in the sound of it. He stayed through the thaw. He learned the tides. The names softened. The house filled with his boots and his careful humming.

By midday the town had decided it was a working day. Naomi walked to the market and bought cod she did not plan to cook. Mrs Alvarez asked about the weather. Naomi answered honestly. At the end of the dock she watched men mend nets and listened to the slap of water against hulls. The sound threaded through her and held.

In the afternoon she climbed the hill to the lighthouse. The door stuck the way it always had. Inside it smelled like oil and dust and old storms. She wound the stairs slowly and stopped at the window that faced the channel. She remembered the night the light failed and Eli had climbed with her in the dark laughing too hard. She remembered how he had said he might leave someday and how she had said nothing and meant both yes and no.

At the diner the windows steamed and the soup came too hot. Naomi sat alone and watched couples trade salt and stories. When the bell rang she looked up out of habit. Elijah stood just inside with a bag at his feet and the look of someone checking a map that did not care. He did not sit. He said he needed to catch the last ferry. She nodded. He said he was sorry. She nodded again. The restraint between them felt heavier than the bag.

They walked to the pier together. The tide had turned. The ferry lights cut lines across the water. He stopped at the rope and set something on the bench. A small brass key. The lighthouse spare. Naomi watched it shine and did not touch it. When he said her name it was quiet and close. She did not answer. He stepped back and the space widened.

Night came clean and windless. Naomi stood at the edge of the pier and listened until the engine sound folded into the water. She went home and turned on the lamp and then turned it off. She slept in fits and woke before dawn to the sound of the tide leaving.

In the gray morning she returned to the pier. The bench was empty. The water lay flat and honest. Naomi bent and picked up the key where it had rolled to the edge. It was cool and solid. She closed her hand and then opened it and slipped the key onto the ring with her house keys. The ferry did not come back.

At sunset the lighthouse light swung out over the channel and found nothing to hold. Naomi Claire Holloway stood at the window and watched the tide take the color of the sky and let it go. Somewhere far out a boat changed course. The pier stayed empty and the water kept moving.