We looked out at the water, which reflected so much light it was almost the same as staring at the sun itself. Webster apologized for squinting. He'd had an operation for cataracts. He was supposed to stay out of the glare.
This was a problem I'd heard about. The sun was strong enough on Anguilla to blind you over time.
"It's a beautiful place," Webster said, smiling and squinting. "We live here like brothers and sisters."
He walked me to my car and waited at the fence as I got in. I drove up the road. When I looked in my rearview mirror, he was still there, waving.
As I rolled back to my resort, with its huge, air-conditioned rooms, its marble showers, its irrigated gardens, I passed through acres of wide, empty, arid land, so open and exposed. It looked the way most of Anguilla must have looked 35 years ago. But at moments like this, the island seems eternally serene, a spot in the ocean where even celebrated upheavals ultimately give way to the lapping of the waves.
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