Fiction | September 01, 1981
A Disturbance of Gulls
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That summer, he did not know–until he drove up to the summer house on the island and there was no one to come to the door and embrace and welcome him, no old man to surprise, first with the bark of his dog, Pal, then the scurrying of Shasta and the Whore of Babylon and the half-dozen other cats, no old man to bend over the kitchen table, his crippled fingers around the bowl he drank tea from, who would turn his quivering albino eyes up and squint, “Is it you? You?” with the abrupt cough of his laughter and the joyful cackle in his throat–no, he did not know that it would be the summer of his pursuit.
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