Moonglass (21 page)

By the time I got home, I was nervous in an entirely different way. The tingly, butterfly, electric way. Every day since the beginning of the week, Tyler had come down after practice in the evening when the sun was setting, and we’d wait for my dad to do his patrol lap before we headed, barefoot, onto the darkened beach. Once the lights of the truck bumped up the hill to patrol the parking lots above, the night, the beach, and the cottages were ours. In a week’s time we’d made our way through several of them, with Tyler as my personal guide and me more than happy to go along listening to his random bits of history and stories about the cove.

I checked the clock when I came in from dinner and was relieved I had a few minutes before he was supposed to meet me. Enough time at least for a spritz of perfume and a mint. Once freshened up, I sat on the couch and waited for the now familiar sound of his flip-flops coming up our front steps. The sun had just set, but it was darker than usual because of the clouds that had moved in. A storm was supposed to hit hard by the next evening, but from the looks of the sky, it was gonna be early. I hoped, after all the buildup this week, the race wouldn’t be rained out. I was nervous, but I’d stored up a lot in the last few weeks that I needed to let loose. And for now, at least, running seemed to be the best way to do it.

Tyler’s knock interrupted my thoughts. I hadn’t heard the shuffle of his feet, but he stood silhouetted against the sky when I opened the door.

“Hey.” He stepped into me and smiled. “You smell good.”

I stood on tiptoes and kissed him lightly. “You smell like a pool.”

“You love it.”

“I don’t know about
love
, but it’s growing on me.” I took a step back. “Where to tonight?” He glanced out the door. “It’s looking like it’s gonna rain soon. You wanna stick close?”

“Yeah, we probably should. Let me just get my sweater.”

We sat on the gritty deck of the lifeguard tower in front my house, feet propped up on the railing. A layer of clouds hung low in the sky, illuminated by the lights below, and a set wave pounded the sand, exploding in a white line down the length of the beach. At the rocks it sprayed high into the air, then pulled back in preparation for another surge.

“Man, I’m glad we never got this much swell this summer. That’d be a sketchy rescue out there in waves like that.” The next wave thundered down onto the rocks, erupting white water into the sky. “My dad’s got some scary stories about rock rescues.”

“I know.” He smiled. “I heard the best ones last weekend.”

I laughed under my breath. “They get like that when they’re together, him and Andy. That’s what they’ve always done … for as long as I can remember.” Tyler nodded slowly, like he was thinking about something, then he looked over at me. “Andy’s like family to you guys, huh?”

Another wave—this one small er than the others—washed over the rocks, and I swallowed, suddenly wary of where our conversation could go. But then I steered it in that direction. “Yeah. He’s like family. Ever since my mom died. He’s always been there for us.” I looked down at my hands, surprised at what I’d said. I’d wanted nothing more than to avoid mentioning or thinking about her since Tyler had put his hand to my cheek and kissed me that night. And now there she was again.

Tyler glanced over his shoulder, toward her cottage. “Is it hard for you, or him, to live here?” I hadn’t realized he could know it had been hers. But then again, it made sense. He knew about all the other ones.

I watched another wave explode on the rocks. “Not any harder than it was living at the beach where she drowned.” It came out sounding harsher than I’d meant it to, and I cleared my throat and sat up straight. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound …” Tyler put a warm hand on my leg. “You didn’t. Don’t worry about it.” He sat up and listened. “What you should worry about is that your dad must have hidden cameras around here or something.” He shook his head. “Damn.”

I looked around, confused at first, but then I saw the bump of headlights flashing over the sand. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Nope.” He scooted toward the ladder. “We should go.”

“Wait a sec.” I had to smile at his nervousness. “You just got here. Stay. I’ll pretend like I was on a walk or something, then I’ll come back.” Tyler shook his head. “Nah, I should go. I got that game tomorrow anyway. But you go first.” He pushed himself back against the front wall of the tower and leaned back so I could climb over him. I paused when I got to his lap, and he looked at me, serious. “Anna. If you ever want to, we could go in there together. Your mom’s old place, I mean.” He shrugged. “Just … if you’re curious. I’d go with you.”

I didn’t want to think about it. “Maybe one day.” I gave him a quick kiss, knowing I never would, then climbed over him to the ladder.

“Think about it.” He leaned down and kissed me once more. “Good luck in your race. I’ll callyou when I get back from the game.”

“Okay. I don’t think we’ll dive or anything with the storm that’s coming in, but we sometimes do pizza night when we can’t do Poke-N-Eat. I’ll let you know.” Tyler nodded and leaned back into the tower’s shadow while I jumped down into the sand, took a breath, and walked out into my dad’s low beams.

He pulled around me and rolled down his window, looking at me with furrowed eyebrows. “Hey, hon. What’re you doing out here?” I shrugged. “I needed some fresh air. Thought I’d check out the swell that’s coming in.” Another wave hit with a low rumble. “It’s getting big out here tonight.”

He looked out toward the water. “Yeah. It’s supposed to keep building until tomorrow night. Don’t think we’ll be doing any diving.” Another wave pounded the rocks. “Yeah. I wouldn’t want to be out there anytime soon.” A woman dispatcher’s voice crackled over the radio in the truck, and my dad turned it up and cocked his head to the side to listen. Something about the upper parking lot. He responded in code, the only part of which I recognized was his badge number. He leaned his elbow out the window. “I gotta go up there. Why don’t you go on into the house?” I nodded and turned to go, then paused. “Dad?”

“Yeah?”

I shook my head. “Nothing … I’ll see you in the morning. Good night.”

He stuck his arm out and rested a heavy hand on my head. “Night, Anna. I love you. Now go back in and get to bed. You got your big race tomorrow.” I nodded and turned again to head back to home. As I did, the forceful clap of water on rocks made me jump before I jogged up the sand to our house, suddenly cold.

Once inside, I watched my dad’s headlights move north up the beach, slicing through the darkness in front of them. And then, like they always did, my eyes wandered over to the beach cottage. Between what Tyler and my dad had told me, it sounded like my great-grandma had been there until the end, when they’d all had to leave. Which meant my mother’s room had been too. I sat for a moment, considering Tyler’s offer to take me in. When I grabbed the spare flashlight from the charger, I told myself I’d feel better if I looked inside just once, by myself.

The padlock was rusted through. I wrapped my hand around the crumbling metal and yanked down hard. It fell to the dirt with a clunk, and the door inched open. I looked around to make sure no one had seen, then took a deep breath and stepped over the doorway. The now-familiar smell of damp wood and stale air hung heavy around me in the darkness and sat utterly still, in contrast to my heart, which jumped and kicked in my chest. I hesitated, then clicked on the flashlight, keeping it pointed at the ground. Mouse pellets, dirt, and wood shavings covered the floor beneath my feet, and dark wood paneled all of the walls.

My gut reaction was to get out—back into air I could breathe and back to the place I had kept myself in for so long, where my mother was just another one of my childhood memories that had long since grown hazy and surreal. But I had crossed the threshold, and now something in me forced my feet forward. I swung the flashlight in a slow arc around the edges of the room, which had probably once been the living area.

To my left I could see an old stove through a small doorway. Beyond that lay a short hall way with another door off to the right. I crept past the kitchen, then stopped and peeked into a tiny bathroom. A dry toilet stood in the center, surrounded by pieces of broken tiles and rusty pipe. As I turned to go on, the thick threads of a cobweb stretched across my face, and I swatted frantically at them, dropping my flashlight in the process.

It thudded onto the wood floor, rolling loudly before coming to a stop against the wall. There, in the narrow shaft of light, I saw the bottom step of a staircase that angled up almost vertical y. Up until that moment it hadn’t felt much different from the other cottages in their broken-down state. I stared at the dust particles orbiting one another in the light, and I knew. If there was any space in the house that had been hers, that could possibly have some remnant of my mother in it, it would be up the stairs.

The first step sagged under my weight, so I crept up slowly, keeping my feet to the edges of the steps, testing them first before putting my weight fully on them. I was concentrating on this pattern of placing my feet, and then lifting my weight, when I reached the top step and finally looked up.

It was visibly lighter in this room. Not only because the walls were all painted white, but because of the large window that looked out directly onto the rocky tide pools that drew so many people, including myself. Just beyond them, a boat, probably out for lobster, sat beyond the breaking waves. Its blue-white light waved and bobbed gently over the shiny black surface and splashed a bright pool around the hull.

The image it created looked like a painting. I stepped back and realized why. The frame around the window was wide with detailed corners, a frame around the perfect canvas. I imagined how the picture in the center must continually change in color and texture, through seasons and weather.

Your mother was a brilliant artist
.

I stepped closer, keeping the light as low as I could. To the side of the window a small door opened out to the balcony I had been so intrigued by. My hand reached for the crystal knob, then stopped short as a dark shape on the window frame caught my eye. Cautiously I raised my light up to it and brushed away a layer of dirt to reveal what lay beneath.

It was a tail.

A curved tail that tapered and ended in two curling tips. My eyes followed the graceful lines upward and found the woman’s body and waving hair that I knew would be there. I stood on my tiptoes and reached my hand up to the top corner of the window frame, then ran it down the length of it, squatting when I reached the bottom. Dirt and salty film coated my fingertips, but I didn’t wipe them off.

I continued with my hand, along the bottom of the window frame, wiping away the dust, then up the other side. Faded mermaids, beautiful in their curves and waves, swam among rocks and coral in an underwater garden. When I got to the top, I had to move on raised toes, wiping the grime away with each step. No swimming figures bordered the top of the window. Instead there were three words, scrawled in faded paint. I stepped back and shined my light on them.

BEAUTY, GRACE, STRENGTH.

I stared at them, afraid to breathe, then repeated them in my head.
Beauty. Grace. Strength
. No recognition or memory came to me, no special significance behind them. She had placed her brush on that window frame, and with delicate strokes had left something of herself, something meaningful to her that I didn’t understand. That I might never understand.

Were those the things she valued most? The things she wished she’d had? Things she wanted to pass on?

I stood rooted to the sagging wood floor and switched off the flashlight. Then I sat down and cried.

She was all around me, everywhere I turned, from the moment we had arrived. And still … she wasn’t. I had fooled myself into thinking I felt some connection to this place. There it was, right in front of me. Her art. Three words. And nothing else.

I wiped my eyes, hard, wishing I hadn’t let myself think there had even been a possibility of anything else. She had left me alone in the dark long ago, and this time was no different. I put my head down on my knees, and my red moonglass slipped out of the edge of my shirt and swung back and forth on its chain before coming to a stop, dangling in the dark, inches from my face.

I closed my hand around it and felt the same smooth contours that I had for the last nine years, since the night she died. A piece of sea glass. That’s what she left me. I knew now that she had dropped it for me to find.

Some walks, when we combed the beach for glass, I would get discouraged when I didn’t find anything at first. It always seemed that as soon as I would want to turn around and quit looking, a piece of glass would magically appear in front of me in the sand, giving me just enough reason to keep searching.

I had heard her tell my dad as they lay next to each other on our beach blanket one afternoon, soaking up the sun, that she dropped them for me to find. A few feet away I carved a tunnel into my sand castle, and I decided to walk far away from her from then on, to see if I could find them all by myself. And so when I picked up the red piece that night, and looked up and down the beach, bursting to tell her, I believed I had found it all by myself.

Because she’d been walking out into the water.

I squinted through the morning drizzle, watching the town car make its way down the hill. Ashley had arranged for me to be picked up and taken to the race so we could go to the spa afterward. Between the rain and a sleepless night, I’d gotten up ready to bail on both, but I didn’t want to have to tell Jillian that I wasn’t running, or Ashley that I was canceling, so I’d forced myself into my uniform and packed a bag for the spa.

The car stopped directly in front of me, and the driver hopped out. He jogged around to open the door I was already reaching for.

“Thank you. You didn’t have to get out in the rain, though.” I dropped my hand and took a step back, all owing him to open the door. As he did, Ashley leaned her head out.