Marlene raised the glass to her lips, took a long drink of whiskey, gulped it down. There below, far below in the darkness, she watched the waves crashing into the reef. Should she go down there and walk along the beach, as she had done with the boy? That was a precious time for her, and she didn’t want to spoil it. In her head, that would be the ideal moment. No, she would not go down. She would stay here, on top of the cliff, overlooking the ocean, and keep herself busy drinking her whiskey and listening to classical music. Tonight, Chopin again.

He was coming to call somewhere in the world, she thought, that boy, coming to call on some other woman. He had been a dozen years younger than she was at the time, so now... Now would be the time for him to get out and explore. He needed a woman, someone strong yet graceful, someone quick-witted, who could laugh at his jokes, who could understand him and his sideways mind.

Would he ever find such a woman? Has he? She made chamomile tea and sat down in the shaded room at the back of the house. Some day I'll move to the other side of the world, see how they live life there. Some day I will take a cruise to the far reaches of... She thought of Iceland--what might be there awaiting her, what fortune? Yes, a trip to Iceland. It had been decided. Without question, she would journey, even at this ripe old age, to a country she knew nothing about, see how they do thing over there.

Her brother--he was out there. He was seeing the world. Bo, where are you now, in what whore's bed, with what dangerous, whiskey-breathing men after you? He was always the love-'em-and-leave-'em type, and he was always on the move. When she was "dating" the so-much-younger boy, Bo had disapproved. What a hypocrite...but she loved him for it.

He was probably somewhere near an ocean, for he, like she, could not live without it. They were ocean people, and it was no mystery why. Their father had been a commercial fisherman in his younger days, and later in life, he fished three or four days out of the week, writing his stories, then skipping down to the beach when there was a lull, gathering more ideas in this Zen-like state. It was something relaxing, something tranquil, that he did, and he brought his children with him. Marlene, the oldest, Bo, and then Jane...

There was another thought: what happened to Jane? She had contacted Marlene five years ago, and then suddenly, nothing. It had been a pay call, from somewhere miles and miles away, geographically and mentally--Jane, in her head, was on Pluto. There had been rumors. Marlene heard them, was secretly interested in them, but she blew them off as hearsay and would seem not to be listening. Yet she knew what they were saying about her sister--and why.