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"Why, good morning to you." His voice was big for a small man, and didn't sound in the
least "unmanly". His hand was outstretched. I leaned my shovel against the cabin and put my
hand into his, as natural as anything.

Young folks do it now but it wasn't something girls did then. I'd expected artistic hands
with long narrow fingers but the hand in mine was compact, a worker's hand without calluses. It
was a pleasant experience, but I was fearful for a second that he would say, "Come away with
me." He didn't. He proceeded to talk like we were having a normal conversation.

I was shy being face-to-face with him so suddenly. He was almost a stranger. But he
didn't act like one. He let go of my hand, and just as natural as if he were continuing a
conversation we'd started a while ago, asked, "Planting the roses?"

I came out of my stupor enough to answer, "Why, yes," while my thoughts ran around
searching for something smart to say. Nothing came.

"Right here by the door, I hope. That's the best place."

I nodded dumbly.

"Well, let's get at it." He lifted that shovel right out of my hand and started digging in
the loosened dirt, covering my shyness with talk.

"My mother had roses, a whole arbor of them to the side of the house. I used to play out
there under the roses, when I was just a little boy. It was cool there. I love roses, don't you?"
Before I could answer he laughed, "Dumb question. Of course you do."

My mind was moving again, but I guess I was not in complete control, for I blurted out,
"What are you doing here?" It sounded more like an accusation than a question. I immediately
wished I'd kept my mouth shut but I've always been that way, "Mouth ahead of brain," my daddy
used to say.

David stopped his digging, and looked directly at me.

I tried to avoid his eyes.

"No, look at me."

I did, but it was uncomfortable even through the pleasure of looking so straight on at
him.

"We--" he stopped. "What's your name?"

I stumbled it out.

"Sophie," he repeated, making it sound special. "I'm David."

I stood still, looking into his eyes, a fascinated thing like the hens would get when the
boys petted them on their throats.

"Well, Sophie, I'm here to help you plant the roses. I came back up to get my paints. It's
a natural day for painting, as it is for planting roses. But, I knew perfectly well that you would be
here, maybe not today, but sometime. We couldn't go on forever seeing each other and never
meeting, now could we?"

"Well... I never really thought about it." I mumbled the lie. This mumbling around was
awful. He was going to think I was a complete idiot. Shrugging my shoulders in what I hoped
was a casual manner I spoke up more firmly. "No, I guess not. After all," I said lightly, "we're
neighbors."

"No Sophie, we're more than neighbors. I know it, don't you?"

I struggled against answering but his eyes demanded an answer. An honest answer, and
for the life of me I couldn't lie to him. "Yes," then, angry at his forcefulness, I found my tongue.
"If we're not just neighbors, what do you think we are?" I didn't want him examining what I
thought we were.

"Friends," he answered. The dark blue eyes relaxed their grip on me and became sunny
again.

"Friends, Sophie, and Lord knows that's as rare as, well, as rare as having an
ebony-haired beauty greet me every day with a beautiful smile."

"Ebony-haired beauty?"
Me?

I'd never had a man speak so fancy to me before. Once a fellow at a dance who'd had too
much to drink told me I was, "a great looking dame," and men had certainly said fresh things to
me when making passes, but most men had to have something to drink before they could get
brave enough even to approach me. Mandy said I scared them off, but I don't know why.

And then, during the war they were either gone, or when they came back they seemed
gripped by a frenzy to get married, an idea that always chilled me. The life of my mother, or my
sister, was not what I wanted. Sometimes I scared myself. I knew I didn't want to lose my
freedom. But it was all confused with the feelings that at times nearly overcame me. At least
David seemed safe.

He turned back to the roses. He was relaxed, and with a silent sigh of relief, I relaxed
too. Together we planted the roses. Maybe they're still there. They took hold right away and by
the end of September were blooming so much that David cut some to take to his wife.

After that I was usually outside when he passed. As the summer took hold, David lost
the routine of winter. Often he stopped to pass the time of day. Those were times of complete
happiness for me. I took lots of walks on the beach, collecting the shells left behind by the
waves. It became an obsession to see what new things were there. I found and kept so many that
I felt guilty being so greedy. I wrote Mandy to tell the kids that I was collecting shells for them.
It sounded so good I believed it myself.

More often than not, as I walked farther and farther I "happened" upon David. His
favorite place was near a stump far up the beach. From that angle, early in the morning, the
sunshine played on the Rock so that parts were in shadow.

He didn't just paint the Rock, he painted everything: the sea at storm, the seals, the gulls,
many different places along the shore. He got tangled up in the colors, too, like me and my quilt.
It was his fascination with the different shades of sand, and the different light--morning light and
afternoon light, cloud light and sun light, shadows, rain drops and the bird footprints that added
the depth to my quilt that it finally had. I've never looked at sand the same since.

And people. Sometimes he went to town or back in the hills to the farms. David knew
most of the people who lived up in the mountains.

The Hosmer family lived up one of those dirt roads. About once a week David visited
them, liking to have lunch with them but more, he loved seeing the children as they were,
natural, so he could paint them later. He didn't want them posed, he watched them as they
worked around the farm and did quick sketches that he finished in the winter. There was the
Hosmer dad, and mother, and five kids. Three boys and two girls. Funny I should think of that
now.

My favorite painting of his--oh, the mother's mother lived with them too--was one of the
girls picking raspberries in their little patch with the grandma. The girl was about six. She had a
little pail with a wire handle on it like her grandma's. Her face, in the picture, had a little
raspberry juice on her lips, and the most self-satisfied smile. A comfortable thing she was there,
in the patch with her grandma. All to herself. The grandma had white hair that was kinda twirly
'round her head. She wore a flowered dress, and boots, and her berry pail hooked onto the old
leather belt she had around her waist. She's looking into the bush and reaching to get a berry
from the middle.

I loved that picture. It was inside their front door and sometimes I'd look at it and I'd be
the grandma, and sometimes I'd be the little girl. It was cool in the bush and hot on our heads.
David was good at faces, though he didn't think so.

Down by the water one day I was looking for more sand dollars to use as models for my
quilt. But I was picking up everything else that wasn't broke when I saw David waving at me to
come over. My apron was full of the shells so I walked rather than ran over to him like I wanted
to.

The sand underfoot was white and dry. It squeaked as I crossed it. Gulls and crows were
flying up and down the beach, looking to be more playing than seriously hunting for food. When
I got to David he untied my apron so I could put the shells down. His face was a sight. His nose
was sunburned and peeling. His reddish hair was windblown and sticking up every which way.
To me he was the prettiest thing on the beach.

Something had him excited. After taking off my apron he lifted me up on a stump and
with his arm around my waist to steady me, he pointed out to sea. I was more aware of his
closeness and his hand at my waist than of where he was pointing, but as I looked I saw what he
was so excited about.

There were three whales playing in the ocean, big, long gray things. The calm sea
allowed us see them more clearly than was usual, plus they were closer than the ones I was used
to seeing from my window.

"I think those are called gray whales," David said, "Gosh, aren't they grand?"

They were spouting and diving and looked to be having fun. It made us both giggly.
Maybe being so close together had something to do with it, too. He had to hold me tight to keep
me from falling, and finally I had to get off the stump before I fell off it.

We sat down in the warm sand. As we talked he played with it, piling it into mounds,
then smoothing them flat. Dribbling handfuls of sand, he made designs while asking me about
the shells I'd gathered.

"You have so many, going into business or something?" Did he think I was greedy, or
silly? I explained about my nieces and nephews, and off-handedly told him about the quilt. He
was interested.

"But, David, the center is to be a piece-over of Haystack Rock, and I've tried, and tried,
and I can't copy it."

"Sophie, would you mind...?" His face was bright with an idea, plus the sunburn. "One
artist shouldn't interfere with another..."

An artist? Me? I would have laughed, but he was so serious I just smiled. "But we can
help one another. What if I draw it for you?"

I didn't expect his help. "Oh David, you shouldn't waste your time."

His blue eyes were earnest, "I'd like very much to do it."

"Okay. If you insist. I'd really like some help," I said. I'll admit that I wanted more than
just his help. I wanted the drawing, yes, but because he would be thinking of me while he did it.
To know that David was thinking just of me and doing something just for me was a pleasure I
wanted very much.

Plus I was flattered. The family always took my quilts for granted, or teased me about
my eternal, infernal stitching, and complained about the little pieces that seemed to float into
every nook and cranny of the house. And here David was calling me an artist.

He changed the subject. "So, Sophie, you make quilts, and plant roses. I'm learning more
about you every day. Tell me, which of the brothers is your husband, and how long will you be
here?"

Me, married to one of my brothers? The idea was so ridiculous and too, my nerves were
just stretched thin. I hooted and laughed 'til I got a stitch in my side, thinking first of Willie and
then Zack as a husband to me.

"What's so funny?" he kept asking.

I finally got control of myself. "I'm here to help the boys, cook and clean for them. They
pay me a little from their wages and I get to live at the beach. I was tired of being with my
sisters. Willie and Zack and I, we all three like it."

"I wondered... I'm glad. The older one seems so gruff and unlike you that I didn't like to
think of you married to him. I see him sometimes outside when I pass by in the evening, and he's
barely civil. I don't think he approves of me." His eyes twinkled. "And the younger one, he
stopped and talked to me on the beach, last year, and seems to like my painting...but he's too
young, too immature. So..." "I wondered." While he was discussing my brothers as husbands, my
mind was on his wife. I didn't want him to speak of her, but maybe I'd made the same mistake he
had.

"But you, David, you're married, aren't you?" I hoped he'd laugh too and tell me she was
his sister, or his housekeeper, anything but his wife.

"Of course I'm married."

He didn't notice my disappointment. I swallowed it and kept smiling brightly at him,
while I murmured, "How nice," or something polite.

"Amy and I've known each other all our lives. It seems we've always been married. It's
been about twelve years now."

"But where is she?" I insisted. "I never see her." I wasn't happy with his tone in speaking
of her. He didn't sound at all like a miserable husband.

"You haven't seen Amy because she seldom comes to the beach. She used to come often
when we first moved here about seven years ago, but now she's satisfied to stay at home, reading
and taking care.

"She writes. When she's not off selling my paintings for me, that is. That's where she is
right now, in Salem. She left a week ago. I have a dealer there who sells for me. She delivers a
few to him. She has a regular route she follows all around the state, visiting small galleries, and
shops, and people she knows who are particularly interested in what I have to sell. She loves to
travel. And she really has a knack for selling, which is good, because I hate it. Getting out,
seeing all her old friends and meeting new people, it's good for her. Sometimes," he said quietly,
"she's gone all summer."

"Then she's not...sickly?" I wasn't overjoyed at the idea of such a healthy, self-reliant
woman.

"Sickly? No. Whatever gave you that idea?"

"Well, Zack saw her last summer here on the beach..." It embarrassed me to admit I'd
been talking about him.

The sun went out of his face. "Oh, that. Yes, last summer she wasn't well. For a while."
It seemed difficult for him and I wished I hadn't pried.

"We lost our baby." His face tightened. I tried to stop him.

"You needn't tell me."

He took a long breath. "Amy was about three months along and we were very happy.
We'd waited so long, and had just about accepted that we wouldn't have children when she
realized she was carrying a child. She was very careful... But I guess it wasn't meant to be.
Losing the baby was very hard on her. More on her thinking than on her body."

He sat quietly for a while, playing with the sand. Gulls screeched from down by the
water, fighting over a bit of something washed up in the tide. I couldn't think of what to say.
Then he squashed the tower he'd built, "But, it's all right now. We still have time. I'm thirty-five
and she's only thirty-three.