Tide

15 miles away, the tide was in, and now the river smelled of salt.

“S’funny,” Mark said, leaning over the embankment and tapping away cigarette ash. “Something so far away, but it still affects us here. And there’s nothing we can do about it. It just is.”

I looked toward the next bridge, where someone had hung a 20-foot ‘Refugees go home’ banner.

“That’s not why Rachael left.”

He threw away the cigarette, harder than he had to. “She left because of the war. She wanted to help people.”

“No,” I said. “She left because you wouldn’t go with her.”