810. black coffee

Papa sat the deck, steaming black coffee in a white porcelain cup. He drank and breathed in what appeared to be one motion, his chest rising and receding in step with the gentle waves reflected in his steel blue eyes. Our house faced north. The back deck oversaw the sweep of ocean south. Sometimes I would join him in these early hours, two half-moons taking watch. He would smile and I would sit church quiet with my coffee milk and dangle my slippers above wooden planks laid with his calloused sweat.

We never talked beyond a simple good morning and the mandatory nodding of heads. As if the words could only be released at the proper angle. Walking was for talking he would say. But I could never quiet my mind and what from the outside seemed peaceful was, for me, a deafening emptiness. Somewhere out there was a another man. But what he loved was not me. And no amount of sitting was going to change that.