The last one out of the water every year. She was still going in at the end of October. Then one morning the cove turned over to winter and she came up the path, put the kettle on, and did not go back.
The blanket is the heavy one. The cocoa has more marshmallow than cocoa. A date next April is on the kitchen calendar, in pen.
She is not sulking. She is regrouping. For the friend who takes the end of summer personally, these are the quiet weeks after the last leaf and before the first string of lights, and The Tide Pool is keeping her company through them.
When the tail is in the closet, the shirt has to say it for you. The Comfort Colors 1717 is a heavyweight 6.1 oz tee cut from 100% ring-spun cotton grown in the USA, garment-dyed and soft-washed so it already feels like a tide-worn favorite on the first wear (and preshrunk, so the fit holds from June to the cold-water months). It is the tee for the long business day that ends at the lake, and for the landlocked believer whose nearest ocean is a screensaver. Soft on the skin, sovereign in the room. Mermaid Dayz prints it for the woman who has a mersona and a mortgage.