Wash-ashore Summer

In a creative writing class at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown a group of strangers form friendships and more during an unforgettable summer--One of them hiding a terrible secret:
Sandi___________
It snowed the night all of the carefully constructed details of our life together fell apart. Not a heavy snowfall or one for the books folks would talk about. No, rather a gentle dusting not to be remembered by anyone, perhaps, but me for the world as I knew it was about to change. My role on the planet was no longer my own. The snow fell like a mist of fine flour escaped to the surface of the table, meant for a bowl in which something wonderful was about to transpire. For me there would be no more wonderful. My husband, who was up in Maine in the home I had taken retreat from and not yet returned—a long overdue library book beloved by too many on a spit of sand known as Cape Cod to be let go, had died suddenly and without warning. The snow had begun to fall. I went from being a wife to a widow along with it...
Arnold Walsh__________
This was a mistake. Maybe the whole thing is a miscalculation I consider now. What sounded good on a snowy afternoon in February overlooking the UW campus and downing beers at Nick's on State Street seems a little crazy now. Marcus convinced me to do it. Everything from the assistant teaching position for the creative writing class at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, all the hell the way at the end of Cape Cod, to stopping in Chicago to spend time with my family-- and for a little reunion with our college friends, had been his idea. I blame it all on Marcus. He always was what my mother would call an instigator, not that she could ever see that I think now as both my parents fawn over him the way they always have since he and I first met back in Michigan. I think I see Marcus Squirm, not something he usually does. Instead of trying to help him I turn my back on them all, slamming out onto the stoop where this day in May would be beautiful up in Wisconsin but is stifling and grimy somehow here where the houses are crowded together on top of one another in a way I am afraid might stop me from breathing...-- Sue-Ellen_________
Joy first, I remind myself. For too long I have put everything else ahead of my joy. That's what this summer and this writing class are all about. I am finally putting my joy first.
After years of raising children and taking care of the home, I have come to Provincetown to do something for me. I have never been alone I think as I sit alone in the room waiting for the rest of the class to arrive. A breeze brings sea air in that I inhale deeply...
Ezra__________
Six months after my divorce the new house my realtor found for me has revealed itself as a mistake. The pipes are clogged causing slow drains, windows let in air making every single room drafty and the roof leaks. There is little good to say about the God-Forsaken place clustered in a series of buildings off of Bradford Street in Provincetown. Other than it is not a prison cell. After I set fire to my ex's clothing, all of his earthly belongings, in a wild torch of a blaze it took fire departments from two neighboring towns to combat, I suppose the thing people tell me is true. I am lucky I am not in prison. With that in mind the new house is—nice...
Come Join This Class By The Sea. There's a Seat Just Waiting For You...