“Autumn at the Beach” in The Mersey Review
Some years, it's overnight; some years, it's gradual, like aging in a marriage, where your partner can't see your new laugh lines or that forehead wrinkle growing between your brows that you obsess over every morning. Every year, no matter what, the shift comes. Since we moved to the beach eight years ago, I've been able to smell it. Usually, on our wedding anniversary, October 5th, the day after my birthday, the air turns crisp with a chill that wasn't there the day before, the sun shifts, and the warmth is muted. The smell of wood smoke from our Irish neighbor's house, two doors down, flows through our windows.