Rose and I walked off the plane together.
The Florida air hit us when we came through the airport doors and there was something in it, the quality of it, the humidity and the warmth and the specific smell of the south in a way that was not the same as North Carolina’s south.
Rose stopped.
She breathed.
She said: that’s different air.
I said: yes.
She said: is the ocean close?
I said: the hotel is twenty minutes.
She said: twenty minutes.
She said it the way you say something when you have been waiting for it for a long time and it is very close.
The hotel was everything I had worked for.
Not fancy.
Clean and well-positioned.
The rooms had views of the water.
I had specifically booked a room with a view of the water.
We checked in.
We took the elevator.
I had the key.
