The ice fog on the signal hill

Dear Delyara, The wind coming off the North Atlantic is howling through the telegraph lines tonight, carrying ice fog that sticks to the windowpanes like grease. I’ve lived in this wooden house by the harbor since my husband passed nine winters ago, and some days the only sound in these six rooms is the refrigerator kicking on or the wood drying out in the floorboards. I made a large pot of fish soup this afternoon out of habit, then realized as I stirred it that there was no one coming to eat it with me. I ate two spoons at the counter and put the rest in the cold pantry. You can get used to the cold wind, you can get used to the long dark, but the silence of an empty hallway after four o'clock in the afternoon—that is something that eats you alive from the inside out.