I wasn't much of who I am back then, and if I was, I wouldn't have been as afraid to approach her as I was. There she would sit, by the breakwater, brown shoulders curving in the sun; white frills of a hiked-up Sunday dress gathered at the knees, a wide-brimmed hat falling in soft folds over her face. A silhouette against the rising sun that would recur always in what I'd do. I never even knew her name. That's how I'll remember her. My first girl.