Elias had lived there almost his entire life, in a small cedar cabin above the tide line. The roof leaked in hard rain, the stove smoked when the wind turned, and the windows rattled every winter. Still, every morning he woke grateful.
His wife, Nora, had once called the cove “a hard place with a soft heart.” She had been gone six years, but Elias still set her blue mug beside his own before dawn, as if the old habit kept some small part of her near.