We eat salmon for supper, and the dog leans against me all evening, my hand resting in her woolly fur.

Once the sun has fully set, we walk down towards the gravel shore. Dry grasses whisper around my ankles. The heady smell of sweet blackberries, heavy and ripe on the brambles. Crickets chirping. The clicking of bats above.

We launch onto the black, glassy surface of the ocean. The bioluminescence swirls around my paddle. I stand up, and we paddle out of the cove and north along the rocky island shoreline.

A vee of glitter streams from the bow of my paddleboard, like a space capsule re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere. Each paddle stroke sends off a swirling cascade of sparkles.

The sky above is clear, and the Milky Way arcs across above us. The air is warm and redolent with cedar and dry maple leaves. A seal surfaces behind me; I hear its soft exhale, then inhale.

I look over at K, her figure silhouetted by the distant city lights.