The edge of the sea lapped at Maya’s feet. The wind’s lullaby offered her a break from the heat. Her toes gripped at the sand eagerly in anticipation. On any other day, she would feel sorrow in her current situation.

Today, she awaited the arrival of her husband’s boat after six long months of lobster fishing. Day after day she spent pacing the shore, throwing pebbles into the sea wishing, wishing that the silhouette of Henry’s boat would erupt from the horizon line. The clouds had hindered her view at first, but now she could see it just fine.

She lifted up one hand and waved it in greeting. The other clutched her chest in an attempt to slow its ferocious beating.

Closer and closer his boat floated towards the shore. She had never been so excited to see her husband before. This is the longest they had ever spent apart. The time spent away from a lover is not for the faint of heart.

His boat was now only 50 yards away. Which human silhouette on board was her husbands, it was still hard to say.

She squinted her eyes against the blaring sun in an attempt to pick out her lover. As the boat’s bow came further into view, that’s when she discovered.

Where there should have been 8 men, there stood 7 instead. Her husband was not with them, Henry was dead.