Read The Topsail Accord for Free Online

something?”
    “ No. I’m a geologist.”
    “ So why do you know so much about runners? And running injuries?”
    “ I’ve been a runner my whole life. Was pretty good once upon a time.”
    Her voice drifts away. She rarely ran when she was married. He wasn’t a runner. Didn’t understand why she wanted or needed to go running. He was always trying to ‘get in shape’ and didn’t understand why someone so thin and fit had to do any exercise. Eventually her only runs were at noon at work, where she didn’t have to explain to anyone why she wanted to go running.
     
    They run quietly for a hundred yards.
    “ You saw me every day this week?”
    “ And last, all but one.”
    “ You’re here for two weeks? Why didn’t you say hi?” he asks.
    “ You looked like you were out running. I didn’t want to interrupt your private time in the morning. It’s too pretty and quiet here in the mornings for interruptions.”
    “ Thanks,” he says.
    She matches her pace to his, smiles at him, and they settle in to the running. They run to the pier, the natural turn around point, and where he turns around every day. He slows to turn, she turns with him.
    Now the sun is behind them, but sparkles even more brightly off the waves. The newness and freshness of a beach morning seeps into her with every breath of the warm briny air. The tide is going out, leaving firm wet flat sand behind. The air is warming, but still cool for late July. There is the slightest breeze coming in off the relatively cooler water. They pass a few other joggers, nod their heads, say nothing. Respecting each runner’s decision to run alone, to be alone, to be quiet, to be at the beach at this time of morning.
    Another mile goes by soundlessly but for the ripples of the waves, his hard breathing, and their footsteps.
    They pass a surfer riding the gentle curl on the outgoing tide.
     
    “ I’ve always wanted to try that,” he says.
    “ Me too,” she says.
    “ I wonder if anyone learns to surf at my age?” he asks.
    “ How old are you?” she asks.
    “ Forty nine. Fifty in a week. You?”
    “ Does it matter?” she asks.
    “ Nope. Just seemed like the natural question.”
    “ Forty last month,” she says.
     
    They continue jogging. His limp is better in this direction, with his right foot a fraction above the left on the very gently sloping low tide beach. They come within sight of her house. He doesn’t know what to do, what to say.
    She slows to a walk. He slows too.
    “ This is my house,” she says.
    “ It’s beautiful. And exactly one mile from the pier. Sometimes I use it to time my runs up and back.”
    She stops. Smiles at him.
    “ You measured it?” she asks.
    “ A couple times, a few years ago. Once with a yellow surveyors wheel, and once with mapmyrun.com. They both came out to two miles, give or take twenty yards.”
    She turns and looks at the pier. The lone surfer has turned into three or four surfers, and the lateral current has drifted them down towards her house.
    They quietly watch the surfers in the North Carolina morning where the rising sun, the soft breeze, the lazy low tide, and the endorphins from the beach jog still making everything right with the world.
    “ See you for coffee at nine?” she asks.
    “ Deal,” he answers.
    “ Does anyone rent surfboards around here?” she asks.
    “ I’ll find out and let you know,” he says.
    He heads down the beach to the public parking area. She climbs the wooden steps up the dune and then looks down the beach at his retreating form.
     
    “ How was it?” her sister asks. She has been waiting on the bench on the little deck on top of the dune.
    “ It was nice,” Shannon says.
    “ Nice how?” her sister prods.
    “ He can run without having to talk,” she says.
    “ Could he keep up?” she asks.
    “ Not this morning. His knees hurt,” Shannon says. “And probably not even if his knees were bionic.”
    “ That’ll happen to men his age,” Cara