The sun won't come up. We needed lights (headlamps, actually. You need both hands on the still-exceedingly-icy stairs in spite of all the money we threw at them) to navigate the trip to the beach well after seven this morning. I guess the days will get shorter and shorter for another week still and it sucks, for I have resorted to lifting up my skirts and running flat out after the sun, which hasn't shown itself through the rain. I will chase it, hair flying, desperate tears leaking from my lashes, and fail to succeed, being pulled back, swallowed up in the cool embrace of the long darkness.
Once on the beach I turn off my lamp, pulling it from my head, threading it up over my elbow so it stays safe for the trip home. Lochlan turns his off but shoves it up on top of his head. It can hold his hair back while he helps me search for treasures in the rain.
He has a backpack with him. In it is a blanket, a thermos of hot coffee, an empty paper bag for the glass and shells we find, and a flask of irish cream to add a little sweetness and a little evil to the coffee (everything tastes better outside) Also, he says he has breakfast in there but I don't know what it is.
We wave enthusiastically at a couple of kayakers from down the village way, who paddle close to shore because in this weather I'd hate to see them very far offshore, frankly. You get to know the colors of the boats after a while and then see them on top of people's cars or racked up on fences and behind garages and boat houses as you take your own kayak trip along the waterside.
Lochlan spreads the blanket on the log furthest from the encroaching tide. He pours two cups of steaming black coffee, lacing each one with a strong pour of the liqueur and handing mine to me, handle towards me. I take it and take a sip. He's right. It's better. I settle back against his shoulder and watch the waves. The sea is calm this morning. The rain makes lazy dots on the roiling surface and he says ten minutes. That's so I don't squander my chance to actually drink my coffee, usually daydreaming to the point where I must pour it out, wasting it all. I notice he has set up his lamp, hanging it from a branch stuck in the rocks, making a sort of lantern, adding an exceedingly touching, cozy atmosphere to our breakfast picnic. He pulls out a container of orange slices and one of hot cross buns, already split and buttered.
He laughs. Do your remember this?
He forgets I brought it up when I saw the bag of buns drop into one of our grocery carts last week. Of course I remember.
Second or third summer we went out, it was a different route and there were hardly any shops around, the sites were so far out of the towns we had a hard time keeping fed. You can't exist on candy apples. We tried.
Lochlan walked all the way into one town and back in the sun early one morning, having had enough, returning only to have his efforts feed us for almost a week straight. A bag of hot cross buns and a bag of oranges. You would think we would never eat those things again, let alone seek them out to have together but simpler times and deja views are always welcome in our world, a world lit by a stormy sea and a gently swinging lamp, a day forsaken even by the sun.