We sat by the shore with the surf breaking over black rocks. The sun broke thru the cloud deck far out to sea and radiated golden beams of light down to the water setting distant waves ablaze. Then it burned cracks and crevices in the nearer clouds, lighting up the island behind us. And finally the clouds vanished and the sun set against a clear evening sky.
“Is that peach?” I asked.
“No,” Trudy said, hesitating briefly. “Maybe tangerine.”
Not tangerine, I thought to myself.
“Rose?” I asked.
“Not rose,” she said, “although there are roses that color.”
The sun kissed the surface of the sea, a bright peach-tangerine-rose orb balanced on the flatness of the Pacific.
And then we watched it sink below the horizon. It descended into the water, and we sat there silently until the last sliver of it disappeared.
I turned to Trudy. She turned to me. And we smiled.