My father and I were lying on the beach wondering why the moon looked larger than usual. My father argued idly--something about the flat terrain and the empty skyline. "If we could see a house, or a tree, or a traffic light, it wouldn't look so big."

It was a stupid explanation, but we are not the kind of people who carry iPhones, and whip them out to settle any debate. We hate those people. They ruin everything.

We'd been drinking wine from the motel's paper cups. We'd run out of wine a long time ago, but occasionally we still tipped the cups to our lips, forgetting.

He died in the morning. A couple of weeks before we expected him to die, but basically right on schedule. After the funeral the moon looked large again, rising above the houses, the trees, and the traffic lights.