I rode the train to the beach yesterday, not to go swimming, but to wander along the boardwalk and to stand at the railing and to look out across the sand toward the water, in which no people could be seen, though now and then a dog that was with a woman who was dressed against the weather, and whose hair was disordered by the wind, and who seemed to be smiling or laughing, and sometimes speaking to herself or to the dog, as the two of them made their way in the direction they’d been going before they’d arrived in my line of vision…yes, now and then the dog would plunge into the surf to retrieve a ball the woman had thrown.