I opened the door.
I let Rose go in first.
She walked in.
She walked to the window.
Below was the pool.
Beyond the pool was the beach.
Beyond the beach was the Atlantic Ocean in the specific blue-green of Florida water, the blue-green that photographs try to capture and that is still somehow more when you are seeing it.
Rose put her hand on the glass.
She stood like that for a moment.
I stood in the doorway and watched her.
She was eighty-six years old and she had never seen the ocean and she was seeing it now.
Through a window.
In twenty minutes she would see it in person.
But right now she was seeing it through the window.
Her hand was on the glass.
She said, very quietly, not to me: Edwin.
She said it once.
Just that.
Just his name.
Then she turned around.
She was smiling.
