The candle flickered once before holding steady, its flame no taller than the tip of her finger. Lolly watched it burn, silent and still, as if staring long enough might will something back from the smoke. She hadn't lit this particular scent in months—fig and smoke—the one she'd made the morning after he first walked out her door. It had his fingerprints in it, metaphorically speaking, and some days, metaphor was enough to undo her.

Mariner's Bay had a way of swallowing time. You could lose days in the ocean air, in the haze of candlelight and the hum of cicadas outside the window. You could forget how to speak, how to need, how to burn. Lolly had tried to forget. Lord, had she tried.