The first time I saw her, I almost tripped over my feet and introduced my nose to the pavement. Not because she was beautiful--who could tell from the back of her head like that?--but because she occupied my bench. My bench. I glanced down the esplanade toward the seasonal businesses where the heady aroma of corn dogs and popcorn saturated the early summer breeze and enticed evening strollers to the waterfront. Plenty of benches sat empty there. No one had ever wanted to exchange the excitement of carnival rides and arcade games for the view of a bridge and some birds. No one except me. I get my fill of people at work every day. Moments of solitude on my bench are golden.
       I shoved my hands in my pockets and passed the interloper on the bridge side, trying to check her out without being obvious. Light brown hair. Slight build. Short-sleeved dress, the sort of loose, floufy thing women wear when it's warm. Beyond her, the avenue overlooked an inlet between the mainland and the barrier island. Seabirds swooped and dove for their supper, filling the air with raspy squawks. They were the company I craved. Not some stranger. I leaned on the guardrail, resigned to a good grump, and watched the gulls.
       Below the walkway on the water side, grey boulders jumbled against the seawall. Small crabs filtered the wet sand where miniature dramas played out amid much waving of claws and quick retreats into their holes at any hint of nearby movement. I raised my gaze to the waterline and sucked in a sharp breath. A rare great egret hunted amid the shallows a few yards away. I hadn't seen one of those around here in years.
       "Pretty isn't it?" the woman called.
       I ground my teeth. Add chatting to bench-stealing, I thought, then sighed. My typical Monday irritation was not her fault. I turned, forced a smile. "Yes. Odd, too. They usually stay south of us."
       "I know. This one brought me a gift." She twirled a long white feather in her fingers. "Dropped it in his hurry to eat, I suppose."
       Something about her made me feel better. "I've heard egret feathers are lucky."
       She nodded.
       I took in her features. Delicate, almost elfin. Except the nose. That had been broken at least once. "Are you local?"
       "Sort of. You?"
       "Up that way." I pointed to the hill behind her. "Haven't seen you here before."
       She looked down at her feather. "I used to come here a lot. I don't get out much now."
       "Ah." I half-turned back toward the water.
       "D'you want to sit?" She slid down and gestured to the vacated bench space.
       I considered it, then joined her. "Thanks." Up close, her eyes struck a chord in me I couldn't quite define. Maybe it was their distance, even though she sat less than three feet away, or the whisper of sorrow they conveyed. Like my mom's, only grey instead of nut-brown.
       The thought dredged up unpleasant memories. I planted my elbows on my knees and looked away in search of a distraction.
       "Most days, I come here to watch the birds. Never know what you're gonna see," I said. As if on cue, the egret rose croaking in sudden flight. We both laughed. "Case in point."
       "I like them too. My husband put a wooden nest box in front of our house."
       I swung my head to look at her. "Any takers?"
       She brightened, a shy smile punching dimples into her cheeks. "Oh, yes! Chickadees and house wrens, even a titmouse family."
       "Nice," I nodded. "The best I can manage at my apartment is a window ledge feeder."
       "That's fun too."
       "Yeah." Maybe chatting with a stranger wasn't so bad, even on a Monday. I thrust out my hand. "I'm Joe."
       She flinched. Like my mom used to. Like I used to.
       "Sally," she murmured, staring at my hand.
       I dropped it back to my knee. "Nice to meet a fellow bird-lover."
       "Yes." Her lips parted as if she would say more. Instead, she gestured. "I should go. My daughter..."
       I waited, but she stood and walked away. I watched until she disappeared into the crowd without a backward glance.
       Weird. Like that egret. That's why I avoided people. Too confusing. I shook my head and leaned back, glad to have my bench to myself again.
       The next evening, she was back. I rounded the bench. "Hey."
       "Hey yourself," she said. She slid down.
       I sat. "Been here long?"
       "A while."
       I looked out over the water, where the egret stalked. "I see your friend's on the prowl again today."
       "Yes." Her fingers twirled the feather.
       The movement drew my attention. "A new gift?"
       Sally laughed, mellow music in the humid air. "If he gave me a new feather every day, he'd soon be naked."
       "Good point." I watched the great white hunter a moment more, then leaned back and slouched down, stretching my legs out straight. A small groan slipped out before I could stop it.
       "Are you okay?"
       "Yeah," I sighed. "Too much time in a chair."
       "At your job, you mean?" Her voice calmed me like soft jazz. I liked the sound of it.
       "Yeah."
       "What do you do?" she asked, then blushed. "I-- I don't mean to pry."
       I watched her fluster. "Warehouse. Order fulfillment."
       "Oh. Do you like it?"
       "Meh. It pays the bills." I stuck out my tongue and made googly eyes, and she laughed. "How about you?"
       "Me?" Sally looked away, fidgeting as if she'd never been asked that question before. "I'm just a housewife, a mother."
       "Hardest job in the world, my mom used to say." She'd been right, at least in part, but I kept that to myself. "Don't sell yourself short."
       She gave me a shy look and changed the subject.
       The next two afternoons developed into a new routine for me. I didn't have many friends. Hated small talk. Never--thankfully--got invited by co-workers to their parties. The bar scene bored me. Mostly I wanted to be left alone. Thirty-one and still single, but with good reason. Relationships are like gardens. You can't grow one in the shadows. I kept to myself and never felt lonely. Or at least I hadn't. Before Sally.
       After Sally?
       To my surprise, I looked forward to seeing her.
       By Friday, I found myself humming on my way to the bench. Sally asked about my day, and I vented about warehouse politics and co-worker drama. She listened, those sad eyes conveying her empathy. I rambled for ten minutes before I noticed something felt off.
       "Is something wrong?"
       Her face took on a blank look. A familiar one. Hair rose on the back of my neck.
       "No," she said. "Why?"
       I knew a lie when I heard one. I also knew when to butt out.
       Usually.
       I wiped the doubt off my face, forced a laugh, and started to turn away. "Never mind. It's not my business." My own words bit like ghost peppers. How many times had others said that about mom and me?
       "No! Joe--" Sally reached toward me.
       That's when I saw them, blue-black finger marks stretching around her pale upper arm, just inside the short sleeve of her dress.
       I recoiled, felt my face twist, and my lips draw back against my teeth in an indrawn hiss. It was like passing a horrific accident on the freeway. I couldn't drag my eyes away. My mother had borne similar marks more times than I could count. We both had.
       Sally snatched her hand back, wrapped her arms around herself.
       "What--?" I choked. Stupid question. I knew the answer.
       "It's nothing."
       I wrenched my gaze up to her face. "Your husband?"
       "It isn't what you think," she said with that telltale, too-casual shrug I'd seen a hundred times as a child. "I fell. He caught me before I could hurt myself. I just bruise easily."
       I stared. Her words could have come from my mom's mouth. Had that story ever worked for anyone?
       "Uh, huh. Look, you have no reason to trust me. But I know what you're going through. I've been there. You don't have to live like that. You can go to the police."
       She shrank from me, eyes wide. Her lips parted, their corners drawn down like she'd just swallowed sour milk. "I have to go," she murmured.
       "Sally--"
       She jerked to her feet and almost ran down the boardwalk.
       I sprinted after her. "Sally!"
       She disappeared into the evening crowd, and a flashback stopped me in my tracks... Mom and eight-year-old me disappearing into the crowd at the bus terminal. Bus pulled out with my nose pressed to the window, panting fog onto the glass while I tried not to vomit. Dad would find us gone, I thought, chase down the bus and snatch us off. Drag us home. Make us pay.
       I shoved my hands in my pockets and ambled to the railing. A rising tide ousted the egret. Water lapped the boulders. Darting movements flickered between their bulk--crabs burrowing down for the night. My belly rang the dinner bell, but I stayed at the waterfront until after dark, staring past the island toward lights like fallen stars on the sea beyond.
       Sally didn't show for two days.
       The next Monday, she returned. I came around the bench with a mixture of happiness at seeing her and chagrin at chasing her away. Hers was a dicey situation, especially with a kid involved. I didn't know the right thing to do, but I did know she needed a friend.
       A dark sky threatened rain, yet Sally wore enormous shades, their round black lenses hiding half her face. My mom had a pair of those, too. A sick feeling brewed in my gut like the storm looming beyond the island.
       "I'm sorry," I said. "I crossed a line."
       Sally still held the feather, but her attention focused on something more distant than the birds. She smiled without looking at me. "I love this bench. It's almost hidden from the rest of the boardwalk, isolated without being completely cut off. It used to be my special retreat."
       I frowned. "Why'd you stop coming?"
       A Harley passed nearby, its thunder rumbling the air between us. After it was gone, she shrugged. "Things changed. I moved on."
       I blinked, not sure what to say. She slid down, and I sat.
       "You were right," she said as if we were discussing the weather.
       Her words kicked the wind out of me.
       "I'm sorry," I rasped again. My voice sounded thin.
       She turned. "For what?"
       I kept my mouth shut.
       She looked away. "I love him, you know. Despite his faults. Despite everything."
       I knew all the excuses. All the justifications. My dad used to tell my mom no one else would want her. She believed him for years. "You're gonna stay."
       "He's the monster I know. I tell myself it'll pass."
       "Yeah," I sighed. "What about your daughter?"
       This time Sally didn't reply. Gulls screeched and dove over the water, following the tide. Their cries echoed off the bridge to assault the lull in conversation. I looked down at her arm. Her sleeve hid the finger marks. Wasn't that the same dress she'd worn Friday? I frowned. I never was good on details like that.
       "He doesn't like me talking to people."
       Her words snatched my attention. "I don't want to make matters worse."
       "Please don't walk away," she murmured at the feather. "You're the closest thing I have to a friend."
       "Same here."
       She managed a hint of smile. "Twenty-nine Langwood Street."
       I blinked. "Excuse me?"
       Her dark glasses tilted toward me with twin reflections of my confused frown. "Do you know where it is?"
       "Um..."
       "Out past the library, northwest part of town."
       "Okay."
       She peered at me a moment, those shades masking her expression. I wished she would take them off. Then she did, and I wished she hadn't. Skin beneath both her eyes shone red and black even in the gloomy light. Spots of blood dotted the sclera in the left. The right one puffed out like a balloon, closed but for a narrow slit.
       "Oh," I gasped, sickened by what the bastard had done to her. Even my dad had never gone that far. One hand came to my mouth. I might have gagged.
       "If I don't show for more than a day or two, you tell them where to find me."
       I babbled something incoherent, still gaping at her ravaged face.
       Sally slid the glasses on, stood, and walked away. I lurched to my feet to stop her, pleas crowding my throat, things I'd said to my mom. Don't go back! Let's go to the police! Stand up for yourself! But she was gone before I could push them past my lips, and they shriveled like ashes on my tongue.
       A band contracted around my chest, made it hard to catch my breath. I should do something. I knew where she lived. I could report what I'd seen. Of course, if cops went to Langwood with questions, Sally might not tell the truth, especially if hubby was around. Even if officers knew she was lying, they'd have no substantial evidence to make an arrest, and both Sally and her daughter would be worse off than ever.
       I swallowed hard, still staring at the spot where she'd disappeared. The voices of caution and reproach argued in my head.
       Walk away before you get any more involved.
       But what if he puts her in the hospital?
       What if he puts you in the hospital?
       Screw that, I thought. Sally was a human being. My friend. No woman, nobody, deserved that kind of abuse. Except maybe scumbags who beat people senseless. Like Sally's husband. Like my dad.
       She didn't show the next day. I waited two hours. The day after, still no Sally. By the third Sally-less afternoon, experience screamed do something. I sat on our bench, feeling as helpless as when Dad went after Mom. Sally told me her address for a reason. Langwood Street... classy neighborhood. I'd been through that area once, when I first moved here. Big houses, large yards. Lots of space. Neighbors might not hear cries for help.
       The eight-year-old in my head wanted to run back home, lock the door, pretend thirty-one-year-old me never met Sally.
       I argued with myself at our bench until the boardwalk was all but empty. Stars peppered the horizon away from the city glow, and the birds had long since gone to roost, but I'd decided Sally needed more than just a friend. She needed help. Like my mom had all those years ago. And I wasn't eight anymore.
       Just after dawn, I dragged myself from the rumpled bed, grabbed a cold shower, and called in sick at work. Then I got in my car and drove northwest.
       When I got to Sally's subdivision, I began to question my sanity. What the hell did I intend to do? Knock on the door? Demand to speak to her? What if hubby answered? The last time I'd gotten between an enraged husband and his wife, I'd ended up unconscious against a wall in our dining room. I lost three molars and a portion of the hearing in my left ear that day.
       I turned left onto Langwood before my mind talked me out of doing something crazy.
       17... 19... I drove another block. 25... 27... There--29 Langwood. I crept past, checking out the scene. The house sat atop a small rise back from the road, separated from lots on either side by woods. Stone exterior. Wraparound porch. Enormous old sycamore out front. No cars visible in the driveway, but the garage door was closed.
       Then the forest tract blocked my view. I drove on, glancing at nearby homes. None were less impressive. At the end of the street, I turned around, passed Sally's once more, and parked beside the road. My inner child cringed. What the hell are you doing? he shrieked.
       I got out of the car and locked it behind me. Mobile phone in my pocket--still there, still on--I pushed my feet onward. Birdsong filled the morning. 29's driveway approached.
       I stopped, staring toward the place. An attached garage bordered the left side. A covered porch, framed by picture windows at both ends, ran the length of the house. No signs of activity. My heart pummeled my ribs as I walked down the drive. Up close, I saw details blurred from the street. Escaped garden plantings ran rampant through shaggy grass. Dead limbs protruded from the sycamore's greenery. More than a few roof shingles needed replacement. The pole holding Sally's nest box, complete with crooked snake-guard, pitched like a drunken sentinel in the yard. It'd sheltered no feathered family in years. A warm breeze stirred numerous snaggle-toothed wind chimes on the porch. Cracks webbed the white paint. Moss covered the lower stones on the home's exterior.
       I followed the walkway and stumbled up three steps to inch toward the front door. My hand hovered, trembling, over the bell. For a moment, the porch blanked out, replaced by an image of my father towering over me when I stepped between him and my mother, his features distorted as he hurled insults at a boy who would interfere with a man performing his duty. The back of his fist on its final approach to my face. The stars of pain that had exploded in my vision upon impact. I hesitated, undecided.
       Until I heard the crash.
       Every part of me cringed. I cowered behind the door as though it would protect me. Muffled shouts followed from somewhere in the house. I scrambled, keeping low, to the picture window on my left. My addled brain registered nice furniture. Gauzy curtains. Thick carpet. Lots of beige. I gawked past all that to the open door beyond. Nothing.
       I groped down the porch to the other window and peeked over the sill like some sleuth tracking a perp. A cushy, well-used sofa sat in the room's center, along with a pair of mismatched armchairs and, further back, bookshelves, but something closer snagged my focus. Just inside the glass, an antique table held a lacy runner, pulled askew, and framed photos jumbled out of formation. Some lay face down, one face-up on the floor, its glass shattered. Beneath the shards, a posed young couple smiled for the camera. Not Sally. The woman--
       Wait. Her cheekbones and grey eyes favored Sally's, though this woman's hair was red. Sally's was brown. A sister?
       Another crash, closer this time, clenched my stomach, and I ran. I tried to stop myself, but my legs wouldn't listen. Twice I fell. Bloodied both knees. Tore my jeans. A cold sweat broke out all over my body. My heart hammered in my throat. Back at the road, my hands shook so hard I dropped my phone twice. It seemed to take forever to press three digits to call for help. Longer for the police to arrive. Two units in black-and-whites. No lights. No sirens. They wouldn't risk squeezing the hair-trigger of a domestic dispute when so much could go wrong.
       I sat down the street in my car, near the cul-de-sac, watching. I couldn't see the house, but I didn't want to talk to the cops before I talked to Sally. No ambulance came. No hearse. I chewed my nails--a habit I'd thought broken years ago--and waited until the cops left with someone in the back of the cruiser.
       They'd made an arrest. Good.
       Five minutes after they turned the corner and disappeared from sight, I started my car and returned to Sally's driveway. This time, I pulled in close to the house. My legs still quivered on the way to the porch, this time from a different fear. My mom told more than one person to mind their own business when I was a kid. Would Sally hate me?
       I swallowed hard and rang the doorbell.
       I'd begun to believe she wouldn't answer when the door opened a crack, secured by the safety chain. Small help that would be if someone really wanted in, I thought.
       A woman with red hair and a grey eye peered through. She looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn't see enough of her features to be sure.
       "Can I help you?" she said, her words thick, forced.
       "Sorry to bother you," I said. Even I could hear the tremor in my voice. "I'm Joe Smith. I'm a friend of Sally's. I just want to be sure she's okay."
       The eye narrowed. "You're a friend of Sally's?"
       "Yes." I cleared my throat. "We usually hang out at the waterfront, watch the birds."
       The woman stared at me.
       I couldn't blame her. Some stranger at her door was making claims. How could I convince her? "Look, I know this sounds weird. I haven't known her very long, just a couple of weeks. But three days ago she told me she was in trouble and gave me her address so I'd know where to find her if she didn't show for more than a day or two."
       The woman straightened, an odd twist on her face. "You came here to check on her?"
       "Yeah. I was, um--" I looked away and back again, "--about to ring the doorbell, and I heard some shouting, a few crashes."
       "When?"
       "An hour ago. Maybe two."
       Her jaw went slack. "You called the police?"
        I gritted my teeth. Here it comes, I thought. "Yeah. I did."
       She closed the door, confirming my fear. Then I heard the chain slide out of the lock, and the door opened again. That feeling of familiarity slapped me upside the head. The woman in the photo, the one with the shattered glass I'd seen in the other room right before I ran. This was her. Except her right cheekbone was flush with the beginnings of a bruise. A small cut parted her upper lip just below the blood crusted in the tip of a nostril. Three patches of blood dotted the front of her shirt. She still held a napkin smeared with rusty brown.
       "I'm sorry," she said. "I don't mean to be rude. I'm--"
       She stopped, blinking, but tears came anyway. I stood outside on the mat, my hands gripping one another. "Are you okay?" I asked. "Is Sally?"
       She gestured, and I stepped inside. She closed the door behind me and beckoned for me to follow. I frowned and matched her pace through the house to a central hall, where we stepped over broken glass and a dustpan, passed a broom leaning against the wall and came out into the room behind the second picture window. She went to the table, picked up a framed shot I couldn't see from the porch, and handed it to me.
       Sally. Same brown hair, same sad grey eyes. Same dress she'd worn on the boardwalk that first day. I looked from the photo to the woman and back.
       "People always told me I looked like her," she said, "except for the hair. I got that from my dad."
       "Your dad."
       She nodded. "I'm Celia Collins. Sally Jameson was my mother."
       "Celia," I parroted. I shook my head to clear it. "Is Sally okay?"
       "Mr. Smith," Celia said, a small wrinkle between her red eyebrows, "my mother is dead."
       I felt like I might pass out. "I'm too late, then. I should have come right away, the first day she didn't show at the park." I pushed one hand through my hair, pulled my lips back against my teeth. "Damn it. I should have--"
       "No, you don't understand." Celia stepped closer. "She died a long time ago, twenty-three years today, as a matter of fact."
       Her voice pelted my ears in a muted echo as if funneled through a tube. I shook my head. What was she talking about?
       "You look a little pale." Celia laid a hand on my arm. "Come. Sit." She led me to an armchair in the center of the room.
       "What... I don't..." I stammered. "I'm not... Why would Sally--" I looked up at Celia's face, at the bloom of purple spreading up the side of her face and creeping under her eye. Understanding edged closer.
       "Like mother, like daughter," she said. "Except, I didn't die."
       "Your father killed her," I said. Was that my voice?
       "Yes," she whispered.
       "How old were you?"
       "Eight." She looked away, picked at a fresh tear on her khaki slacks. "He beat her to death while I hid in the closet. I thought he'd kill me too."
       "I hope he went to prison." My rancor fell hot from lips too familiar with the feel of cuts and bruises.
       "No," she whispered. "He shot himself."
       I felt my face twist at that. Too quick an end. I gestured at her cheek. "Your husband?"
       She nodded. Her lips worked, but no sound emerged.
       "Yeah," I sighed. "Abuse runs in families." I should know. I'd researched it long enough to know I was more likely to abuse a spouse than other guys.
       A choked sob caught her off-guard, and she folded in the chair next to mine. Time distorted, stretched thin as a veil while she cried herself out. I waited until she wiped her face and sat up before I slid my open hand forward--slow, easy, no sudden moves--palm up, an offer of support. Celia took it, squeezed it, then let it go.
        "I don't know how you knew," she croaked. "If you hadn't--"
       "Not me." I shook my head. "Your mom did this." I looked down at the framed photo in my other hand, at Sally's practiced smile. "Will you tell me about her?"
       Celia and I talked for a couple of hours before I drove home and parked on the hill. Any other weekday, I would already be at the waterfront by now with my new friend. I got out and shuffled down the hill to our bench.
       Empty.
       I stared at it a moment. It felt wrong to sit there now. Instead, I swung my gaze to the inlet without really seeing it. The air hung damp, salty with high tide. Shrill cries rang in my ears, calls from the ever-present gulls. The view from our bench. A familiar everyday setting. Except everything felt surreal. It would never be the same. It couldn't.
       I slumped, shoulders hunched forward, hands slack at my sides, a lump in my throat. Every word Sally had said to me replayed in my head, followed by stories from Celia's memories until a shimmer of movement caught my eye. I froze, gooseflesh stampeding down my arms and up the back of my neck as I watched the sleek white feather drift past my face and land at my feet.
       I tore my gaze away to search the sky and the water's edge.
       No egret today. Just this gift. I picked it up, and my fingers closed around the feather's shaft, twirling, twirling.
       Maybe it would be okay to sit here after all. Just for a little while.