There was a day, some years ago, when you and I walked along a beach, in the sincere belief that our lives might become intertwined forever. On that day we did not speak of this, but we each knew, in our hearts, there was more at stake than a train ride from the city and back.
Then you were with him, and I with her, and the secrets we shared from that day stayed with us, unviolated, entire. Only we two have glimpsed that other life, that other future, the one never lived.
There are moments, for each of us, when we still stand in a harbor, watching the tall ships sail out to sea. They are magnificent, lovelier by far for the unknowable secrets they keep.
I have often thought of you in the time from then till now. Perhaps if the wind had blown the other way, if a certain moment had lasted but a moment longer, we would have sailed to sea together.
It was just a day, only one among many. Yet even now it stays with me.
That other life. The one we didn’t have.