Sasha wondered if it is dangerous to love a man like him. So cliché, like a love song. But, still she wondered. A man like what? She asked herself. So, he just got out of a bad relationship. That was nothing new. But, he had had many bad relationships and the casualties of them were the women: nervous wrecks, pathetic, and desperate. Maybe that was who he attracted in the first place; or maybe that is what they became after being with him. Sasha didn't know. And, in all these years, she hadn't considered anything with him at all. She had never noticed that he was in fact handsome. He was tall and had a strong frame. He still dressed like he had twenty years ago, in jeans and a t-shirt. He had wavy dark brown hair and blue eyes. His skin was tanned and Sasha thought it cute that he still wore a rope-braided bracelet. The kind that shrinks on your wrist and you have to cut off with a knife.

Sasha counted the money in the cash register again. She was responsible that is why she was in charge of the till. And as she counted the fives, tens, and twenties, his smile crossed her mind, not once but a lot of times. And when she had said to him earlier, "should I call Brad and tell them no bread tomorrow?"

"Sure. Forget the bread. Who needs it."? And, there was a lilt in his voice and kind of husky drawl, a confidence. And the way he spoke to her with his eyes, it was only for her and it scared her to have someone break through and see inside of her, to understand her. That was the truth that she felt and tried to hide from herself: that she wanted someone to understand her.

He smiled and his eyes sparkled. He was so different at running the store than his father Ray had been. Ray was all business, all the time. And, when Sasha's mother, Barbara, would call in sick, the one or two times in twenty-five years, Ray would say "nope. Sorry Barbara. I'll be over to pick you up. We need the meat pies. I got nobody else" And fifteen minutes later he'd be at the door with medicine and a cup of hot tea with lemon and honey. "Drink up Barb" he would say as he helped her into his car. Ray would never have made a flirtatious, cavalier comment about the fresh baked bread. He would have told Sasha to go pick it up herself. If they can't deliver it, you'll have to go get it. At 5:00 a.m. Sasha knew. Her mother had to pick up the bread at the bakery on several occasions, still dark out. Sasha in the car, asleep under a blanket.

She had known Kenny for twenty years. Since they were kids. His family owned the small seaside market and her mom, Barbara, had worked there for over twenty years, making polish food in the back. She worked there until she died of cancer a few months before. Over the years, when Sasha was in high school, or visited from college, she and Kenny had hardly noticed each other. She remembered coming into the market and there would be a cute girl in cut off shorts hanging around the register or riding in the truck with him to make deliveries. Always pretty, always acting kind of dumb and adoring. Then they would break up and the girl would fall to pieces. Over and over again.

She now considered that maybe it was that she hadn't really noticed him; maybe he had noticed her all along. The way that he looked at her lately made her think that he had loved her forever. There was one time that she remembered him. She had been waiting in the car out side the back of the store. It was hot and she was wearing a halter-top and a black scarf in her hair. This was a week or so before her wedding, she had returned to Massachusetts from California. She was different, felt different, looking back, she felt more worldly. She had waited in the car for her mother who worked until the market closed at 9:00. The sky was turning a pinkish orange and the air was still hot. Sasha was in the car, she had arrived early. She was smoking a cigarette and blew the air out of the window, watching the boats on the harbor across the street. She was not doing anything but waiting, listening to the radio. Now, she couldn't recall what song was playing. And, when she looked towards the back of Sea Side Market, towards the door, Kenny was standing in the doorway smoking a cigarette. His eyes were fixed on her and there was such seriousness, such intensity that she lost her breath. He blew a stream of smoke and his steel blue eyes—so pale and translucent-- kept a steady gaze on her. And, when she looked back at him made eye contact with him, taking a second to understand or interpret his stare, he didn't turn away. He didn't stop. He didn't hide it. That was three years ago, but she remembered that look, what she thought it had meant. Then, finally, after all that waiting, just at that moment, her mother awkwardly pushed past him with a tray full of perogies that his father Ray, had wanted Barbara to drop off at someone's beach house in Wareham, on their way back to the small cottage in Mattapoisett. "I'm sorry honey," she said in her heavy polish accent, "can I move from you? So I can find the car," He had smiled at her mother and in a very gentlemanly way, took the tray and carried it over to the big Pontiac her mother had bought from Ray's father. A twenty-year-old boat in pristine condition, every chrome part polished. The upholstery unstained. A preserved bit of automobile history. Kenny gingerly placed the catering tray in the back seat and didn't look at Sasha once during the exchange. He checked to make sure it was secure. He kissed her mother on the cheek. "Bye Barbara." He shut the door and Barbara rolled down the window and said to him," See you tomorrow, czaruś" See you tomorrow, charmer, darling. But, she meant it lovingly, affectionately. But, he loved her and he kissed again her on her fleshy cheek. Sasha watched him the whole time not saying anything. She started to back out and turned to him again, he looked at her again with that same secret communication. He kept his gaze until she turned towards the front of the enormous hood and carefully pulled away and started down the road.

All that time, Sasha didn't think of him while she lived in San Francisco. In fact, she had never really thought of him. And, now it was this sudden discovery. This person that she felt she knew, connected with since she had arrived several months ago. Moved in an instant from one life into this one.

As things happen, everything happened at once. Or maybe it was just her mother's illness that made her realize that her marriage was not working. Maybe it could have worked, but the divorce seemed logical in the violent storm of emotions that forced her back to Massachusetts, back to the little cottage in Mattapoisett. And asking Tim to come was not even a consideration. "Let's just do this thing," he had said in his dot-com business speak. Sasha shook her head. She had only been married for three years but she had known him for seven. It wasn't until recently that they had bought the flat in the mission, a tenancy in common. It wasn't until this past year, when he started making all kinds of money as a programmer and her as a project manager that they had furnished their house with pottery barn furniture and she started wearing clothes from Nordstrom. Tim started buying his clothes at banana republic." Remember when we bought all our shit at goodwill?" she asked him that last night, the night before she left. He was sitting in front of the blue glow of the computer and she was in a pair of his boxer shorts and a silk tank top. She was in great shape because she worked out everyday at lunch and ate sushi or Pho most of the time. He turned to her, didn't get up and she could tell from the rigid lines in his face, that he was distracted, holding on to the computer code in his mind, the stream of numbers and letters that were the path to a solution. Some bug. He was preoccupied. And, he felt that he was important, that his thoughts were important. That his time was worth a lot of money, he was wasting money talking to her.

But, his wife was leaving for good.

She didn't say anything but he nodded as if she had.

"You can go back to work," she said and walked out of the office, a little alcove off the bathroom, really a walk-in closet. They hadn't made it that big. They could only afford a one bedroom in San Francisco, plus the alcove.

That night she waited in their room. She waited until two in the morning when he came in, his eyes bloodshot and his white button down shirt wrinkled. She was mad at him. He sat at the end of the bed.

"I am sorry you are leaving, but it really is the best thing. Right now anyway"

He had become such an ass.

It sent a sickening feeling into her stomach. She had known for a long time that he didn't love her, felt trapped with her. And, now this was his out. And, there was no way she could not leave and once the space between them was forged, it would grow greater.

"Let's just get a divorce." She said. He turned to her slowly and then held her gaze.

"Is that what you want.?" He kept his eyes on her alternating from her eyes to her lips.

"Its what you want." She said, "my mother has cancer and I am leaving for who knows how long and its two in the morning and you look exhausted and you are just now coming in the room to say that my leaving is the best thing. What kind of husband says that?"

And, the thing was when she said husband it felt fake, it sounded artificial, like she was pretending. No he couldn't be your husband.

He nodded. "Maybe you are right." He stood up and walked into the bathroom.

And, in that moment she entered the eye of the storm. It was calm and it was easy to get in the taxi at seven the next morning. In fact, it felt natural, like the lyrics to a love song. And, the plane ride was easy. It was calm in the airplane, the roaring of the engines lulling her to sleep. The cold air and the bright light coming in through the windows as they passed over the Sierra Nevada mountain range. That was the biggest demarcation: a mountain range that separated the rugged west, with its high bluffs towering over the ocean. And, the gorgeous, ice cold pacific. It was all gone. The further east she traveled, the flatter the lands beneath her were. And, finally she landed at Logan Airport.

The winds picked back up and the storm resumed. Her Uncle Nick picked her up at the airport. Her mother's brother, he didn't seem as old as he was. He looked younger. Actually, he had always looked the same. Hair combed to one side, greased or something to keep it slick and in place. A pressed, neat white button down shirt, cuffs rolled up. Dress pants, pressed and clean. Black, polished shoes. He looked sharp. He was a butcher and he always dressed so well underneath the apron that absorbed the blood and guts of the steaks and cuts of meat. He looked like he had walked right out of the 1950s and when he worked he kept a pencil behind his ear. She always wondered if he was running bets when he would laugh and talk, covered in blood and guts, with the customers. A kind face, a sweet man. Clever and outgoing.

"Sasha, you look so pretty," he said and leaned over and kissed her forehead. He stared at her for a moment and tears came to his eyes. "You know everything that is going on, with your mom," He said with a hint of his polish accent. His was not as heavy as her mothers and his English was much better. He nodded and swallowed hard. "I'll bring you to your mother."

Sasha didn't know what she had expected. She thought hospice was a place. The place she pictured in her mind was a beautiful small bedroom. She imagined the perfect bedroom, serene with curtains that moved in the wind. Pretty old fashioned curtains, sprayed with starch and ironed. A comfortable chair near the bed.

When Sasha walked into the hospital room, she had a sick feeling. There was an oxygen tank in the front of room with tubes that ran all the way to the bed. There was tape over the floor so that no one would step on the oxygen tubes. And it created a strange desire to break the rules, to cut the oxygen and it created a horrific shame to imagine such a thing.

She should have come sooner.

Kenny –from the Seaside Market-- was in the room, sitting on a stiff wood and vinyl chair. He looked so much older, maybe he was tired from staying up or being so stressed, Sasha didn't know. He stood up when he saw her enter the room. He smiled at her, a kind smile "here take the chair," as if Sasha could just jump right into this, take her mother's hand, whisper the words that she imagined people say at the end "let it all go." "We're all right," "don't' fight it." She didn't want to say that. She wanted her mother to wake up and make her those little cookies with faces on them in different pastel colored icing. She wanted her mother to sit with her and struggle for the right word, to shake her head and raise her shoulders and say that Tim was "a..." 'Nice' but then look away saying, "anyway, enough about troubles" Which would infuriate Sasha. Who said anything about troubles?

Her stomach felt tight. She took a deep breath.

"Here sit down, Sasha" Kenny said to her. "I'll go to the waiting area."

Then she was alone with her mother. She studied her mother's face closely. And she couldn't stop watching her breathing, the breaths gurgling and shallow. Sometimes, an inhalation so full of fluid Sasha wanted to ring the nurse's buzzer and ask them to help her. Then, sometimes the breath would stop and the silence that descended terrifying. Her spine was stiff: ready, ready mom, please breathe. Then the exhalation would come and a wave of relief would wash over her.

It was the middle of the night the last night and she was asleep, sitting on the vinyl chair her head on the bed. She woke to the same gravely breaths. Her eyes felt sandy and Sasha stared at the hospital room for a time. She examined the instruments, and the little defribulator kit in the corner, the sink with packages of little pink swabs. She looked at her mother, and her face looked different some how. Thin from the illness, but something more. She had the feeling her mom had died even though she was still breathing, "mom" she whispered and it seemed false, like she was being insincere, but she continued anyway "I am sorry I didn't' come sooner. I didn't know." And the same uneven breathing. "You are really a special person. I love the smell of you. And, I love your cooking and your pretty smile." She ran her hands over her mother's forehead. She stood and kissed her. She held her face against her mother's for a long time. Her mother's skin felt warm, almost hot. She reached for her mother's hand and her hand felt cool. It was such a contrast. She stood still for a moment. And, her mind flashed on Kenny sitting there when she had come in. She wondered why he was there. She wondered if he was still in the waiting room. She walked out into the hall way and she didn't want to walk far. She didn't want to be away from her mother. She looked in one direction, then the next. And, in that moment she saw his figure, silhouetted in the darkened lights coming closer.

"Hi" he whispered when he approached.

"Why are you here?" she asked.

"I love your mom," he said, "she's like a mother to me."

Sasha nodded. "Come sit with us."

He stared at her for a long moment.

She sat on one side of the bed and he sat on the other. Neither said anything but instead both listened intently to the breathing, looking at each other when there was an interruption, a long pause between breaths. Their eyes communicated something "is this it?" It seemed so surreal to have him there: someone she has known since she was a child, someone who knew her mother, but not a person she was intimate with. He held Barbara's hand in his and Sasha kept her hand on her mother's face and then she whispered, "Its ok mom. We love you. It's ok to go." She looked at Ken and his eyes were wet, tears building. He wiped them and looked down at the ground.

After her mother died, months passed and Sasha was restless. She didn't' know what to do; she didn't want to go back to San Francisco. And, the little cottage in Mattapoisett felt safe and it felt right. It felt right to stay there just two blocks to the little cove and in the winter the nights were cold and even though most of the cottages were vacant off-season, there were a few locals who remained and she would see them on her walks. She didn't know where to go or what to do.

One afternoon, she was walking through Fairhaven and she smiled when she saw the Sea Side Market. She felt funny going in. She expected her mother in the back, her hair held up in a fancy twist in the back, flour powdering her cheek or some of the wisps of hair hat fell in the front of her face. Sasha walked into the store and the little bell rang. Immediately she smelled the fresh bread and meat pies. Kenny was behind the register. He was leaning back drinking a bottle of lemonade. His eyes lit up when she walked in. He acted funny like a rabbit in a children's story, trying to tidy the place up, fix it up all around the squirrel who has come to visit.

"I was walking. I wanted to say hello," Sasha said and she thought of the night in the hospital room and the wake. Then, the funeral. A numb procession through ritual and mourning and even though he was right there, sitting right beside her mother when she had died, sitting in the room with Sasha. That final breath, the glance they exchanged but not really believing it was the last one. All the others weren't the end, why would this one be any different. And Sasha had counted in her mind following her mother's last inhalation. She counted to ten, to thirty, then forty, and then she knew. She knew that there wouldn't be an exhale. She knew her mother was dead. After that, she didn't really remember. Time moved in strange manifestations: slowly, then consciousness evaporated and hours had passed. And, the exhaustion, the headache and heaviness of her body. And really, the only thing she remembered from that first week was talking to Tim on the phone,

"You're strong," he had said, "you've always been so strong. You'll get through this Sasha" And it was so foreign. It was the feeling of him calling her by another name. He was comforting himself for being such an asshole. He could have said I'm sorry. She remembered telling her Uncle Nick. "He didn't even say he was sorry."

"Your mother never liked him," Nick said. And for some reason they both couldn't help laughing.

But then there was the screeching halt of nothingness. Nothing to do but forget. But, that is hard to do.

"Do you want a lemonade?" Kenny asked her.

Sasha smiled, "No thanks. I have to go, I just wanted to come in...I don't know."

And he watched her as she stood in front of the candy and gum rack. She looked around took the store in. She knew it well. It was like a home to her.

"Hey," he said, "how long are you going to be around?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, here, in Massachusetts."

She shrugged her shoulders. "For a while, I guess"

"We need—" he started. "Would you want to work here for a little while? Help out?"

So that was how it happened. How she happened to be back here, behind the register, counting money. Working where her mother had worked. That was how the attraction to Kenny started and grew. His stare, and smile, and gentle way with her.

In the beginning their friendship was very sibling like. Kenny acted very protective. He always walked her out to her car and if the roads were icy, he would follow her back to Mattapoisett. Then, one night he asked her to help him stock the liquor room—a big room where the liquor was separated from the food in the rest of the store. The store was closed and the kitchen and meat staff had gone home. It was just the two of them and all of the tension that had built up, the feelings that Sasha had that she thought, perhaps, were hers alone rose to the surface. Kenny was standing close to her and she had her hand on a stack of boxes, the light from the street lamp outside cast a yellow hue on the room and she felt frozen, her heart beating quickly. But just as maybe something would have transpired, his eyes in that penetrating gaze, his cell phone pealed its familiar Beethoven's fifth and he fumbled for the phone in the back of his jeans. She could tell the way he answered it, it was Jessica. He stood motionless and looked down and the floor. Sasha could hear Jessica's impatience, her voice imploring. The crying started pretty soon into the conversation then followed by her anger. At times, her voice was so loud that Sasha could make out the words completely, "it's not fair. This is what YOU do, Kenny." Then silence. And Kenny's eyes looked at Sasha and she wasn't sure what they were pleading for. "I have to go," Sasha whispered. And, he nodded walking towards the door with his key in hand, holding the phone to his ear with his shoulder. He unlocked the door from the inside and pulled the glass door open. "Bye," he mouthed and then after she walked into the dark parking lot, he closed the door behind her and locked it. When she put her car into reverse, she could see he was still on the phone. He had lit a cigarette and was leaning against the counter, kind of hunched over. He held a hand to his forehead and just listened. Sasha had the desire to park across the street and watch him. See how long he talked to Jessica.

After that she didn't go back to the Seaside Market. And what she had seen in his eyes, all those sweet flirtations. The dream that she had made up, it seemed completely fictional to her now. And working at a market in Fairhaven seemed unreal, unnecessary. She wanted to leave everything but the cottage. She didn't want to sell the house in Mattapoisett. She knew her uncle would take care of it until she knew what to do. She got into her car and started driving down the road towards Boston, to the airport. She had friends in San Francisco and opportunities. She missed working out and eating healthy Asian meals. She drove past Fairhaven, and the little harbor dotted with picturesque New England scenes. She thought about all she had made up about Kenny, the story that kept her preoccupied over the last few months. Could she fall in love with him? She tried to remember some of the fantasies. They seemed transparent, two-dimensional now. A light rain started to fall and she looked up at the gray sky. She felt a little like herself. And, then she had an image. It was the image that had helped her to sleep at night these months since she came to see her mother, since her mother had died. It was the same fantasy over and over, and Sasha realized that this was all it was just a simple, one sentence story: His eyes on her, penetrating and in the fantasy, he moved close to her, still staring into her eyes. "I love you," he would whisper and then he would kiss her. And, when he touched her body, his hand on her cheek, she felt understood. She felt loved.