The fog stopped at the ridge

I left for work at ten past seven and the street was bright. The lemon tree threw a sharp shadow on the fence. By the time I reached the ridge on the way to the 101, the light changed in the space of a few hundred yards. Ahead of the car the air was white. Behind me, in the mirror, the hills were the ordinary brown of late August.

The marine layer does this. People who live on the other side talk about June gloom in August as if the calendar had stuck. On my side we get the heat that sits in the inland valleys and makes the back house hold the afternoon until midnight. The ridge is the argument between the two. Some mornings the fog spills over and the lemon tree looks gray until nine. This morning it didn't spill. It stood up on the far slope like a wall that ended at the road cut.

Traffic slowed where the visibility dropped. Brake lights, then nothing to see but the lights, then the car in front becoming a shape again. I know this stretch. The office park is below it, and once you drop down the fog is either gone or it is the whole day. It was the whole morning. The fountain was off, which I could tell because the basin was dry enough to show the coins and the leaves. Someone had left a sweater on the back of a chair outside the coffee window. It was still there at lunch.

Driving home, the wall was in the same place. I came out of it into clear air and the temperature went up enough that I took my hand off the wheel and held it near the vent to check that the car agreed. It agreed. The lemon tree had its shadow back. Two fruit were on my side of the fence, new since the morning, or I had walked past them in the dark. I left them. I'll get them tomorrow if the ants don't.