I stood facing the ocean, having lost track of the cars zipping past on the road behind me, ripping through the melodic push and pull of the surf on the sand and the otherwise eerie serenity of the landscape. The massive slab of rock jutted into the sea, the waves slamming against it as the tide moved ever inwards. Each white, churning wave crashing to the wet, gray tan sand and spreading; then it would pull back, dragging along with it bits of green, rich smelling seaweed, pebbles, and fragments of shells long crushed against Seal Rock before making the slow journey to the shore. Funny how something so small could travel so far only in vain, to be pulled right back out to be broken into smaller fragments, ultimately becoming nothing more than the dust of something once full and beautiful.
The long crescent of beach was swathed in a thick blanket of fog, dampening the dark hair I had pulled away from my face and the light sweater I clung to my body for warmth. The morning ached with the kind of cold that made itself known, seeping into my skin and stiffening my stride. I closed my eyes and took in a deep breath of the salty air, letting myself slip into memory.
My father always was a quiet man, and had become even more so in the years after my mother's funeral. Some days, as could be expected from a husband who lost his wife, were better than others. And through the contests of who-can-slam-the-most-cupboard-doors-hardest, we learned how to work around the sore subjects without communication. We just knew. I would never mention the sewing room and how it hadn't been aired out since mother had been put on bed rest, and he never mentioned the copy of The Great Gatsby on the side of my bed, the red ribbon page marker never moving from page 40, and how every night I read about Myrtle meeting Tom because that was the last page of the last book that my mother's hands held. Myrtle was right, “You can't live forever.”
My mother's favorite spot was the beach, and every year when we left our home in the care of our neighbors, we'd drive and drive till we reached our second home. The rocky hills leading to flat, wave swept expanses of soggy, cold land; half stark trees with branches blown away from the gusty winds; the endless churning gray of the Pacific Ocean; it was all as familiar to me as the corners of my favorite toy. My mother would pull me close as we sat on a blanket, the wind whipping her pale hair away from her cheeks as she kissed the top of my head and hummed to me, her voice high and sweet.
I was 7 when my mother and father told me I was going to be getting a little brother or sister, and almost 8 when she went into labor while brushing my hair before bed. That night, and several afterward, I stayed with Mr. and Mrs. Riley across the street. I didn't know until the funeral that I didn't have a mommy any more, and that I wasn't going to have a little brother or sister after all. The baby was buried with my mother. My father couldn't even cry as we stood in front of the gravestone, one with 27 years of life, the other one day, and he wouldn't let go of my hand even when I complained that it hurt.
The summer after losing my mother, I had asked him if we could go to the beach. His reaction had been a swift, sharp swipe to the cheek, and then his hands encompassed my shoulders. He was tall, and he had to kneel in order to speak into my shocked face.
“No, Ella,” he said, his words filled with anger.
I had never seen my father's face so crumpled. Suddenly, he looked old. The furrow in his brow deep, his lips turned and drawing a thin crease from the corners of his nose to the apex of his lips. His eyes had gathered tears, brown and swimming. He knew what he had done, and he moved a hand from my shoulder to gently touch my still stinging right cheek. And for the first time that I could ever remember, even to this day, my father dropped his head and sobbed.
  I never asked about the beach again.
But then, one year, just after I had turned 17, I experienced my first heart break when Henry Robson had asked my best friend to the prom. My father, being a quiet man as he was, simply grabbed the keys from the hook and nodded to the garage. The roads we took were unfamiliar to me, but something itched in the back of my memory. An empty front seat, a cotton skirt beneath my cheek, a soothing hand in my hair. The smell of musty, salty, air and the roar of something larger than an engine. An echo of a child’s laughter, a ghost really. Like a fish beneath murky water, the harder you searched for it, the less clear the image became.
I didn't even remember falling asleep, but I had. And I was awoken by the gentle nudging of my father. It was dark with the barest trace of light, the sky a dusty navy gray. Stretched before the front of the truck, was the ocean. Endless water, dark and black, creeping and washing up over a white-gray shore, never meeting for more than a second before pulling back into itself. I looked over to him and realized all the words we never said. All the conversations we lacked, all the scars I'd self inflicted—I had convinced myself my father was a broken man, and therefore could not be spoken to or trusted. I'd never tried to forget the incident when I was young, letting the sting of a slap resonate through the years. I'd never tried to make it easier for him. He lost his first love, his only love. They had gotten married after discovering I was going to exist in their lives when they were only 19, and she was the only woman for him. And now, besides her paintings, I was all he had left. 9 years of silence over one moment’s mistake. I looked at my father with new eyes then.
My father just smiled at me. In that moment of half awake awe, and he leaned over and opened my door for me. I slid out of the cab, instantly aware of the chill digging into my bones as I slammed the door shut and tried to walk steadily on the shifting dry sands above where the high tide reached. The darkness ebbed away slowly, the sun beginning to filter through the thick mist with a watery shine and making the scenery glisten. The roar of the ocean sounded like silver bells as liquid ran over sand. An orchestra of precious metals. My father had leaned against the hood of our old Ford truck and watched, his hands tucked in the pockets of his khakis as I continued walking towards the dark water, soon breaking into a jog, and once I hit the firmly packed sand, I broke into a sprint.
My heart pounded, rushing blood and memories through my body with each pump of the muscle in my chest. My breathing was rapid and painful to my lungs, but I couldn't stop running. And so I ran, with all my might into the waters my mother loved so much. These sands held memories locked away in them like secret gems. My first few steps, my mother's soft voice pressing into the top of my hair, my father's smile...I stopped when the surface of the waves hit my knees, the water lapping up towards my thighs as each wave pushed in for a chance at kissing the earth. It was cold, and sadness pricked at me. Tears began to blur my vision and I mourned the loss of my mother again. It was as if I could feel her here, her singing reaching my ears and the gentle pads of her fingers wiping at the tears on my cheeks. The ocean wind wrapped itself around me, it hugged me for a moment, and blew away, taking my sadness with it, carrying it into the lightening sky. This Sacred Place was my mother's temple, it was her favorite spot. And I turned and walked out of the ocean, numbed to the chill as I ran back to my father.
My father and I never went to the beach again after that early morning, and now, like so many things, it was just too late. Opening my eyes, I looked over the same stretch of land in which I had run so many years earlier and narrowed in on the distant forms of my husband and daughter walking towards the water. They were easy to spot, clad in black from the funeral service held the day before.
I reached over and pulled a book out of my purse, the royal blue cover cracked and faded, pages well yellowed. Tucked in the middle of a chapter was a frayed red ribbon. I opened up to page 40 and held the book mark between my fingers for a second, before relaxing the grip I held and watching it dance, carried on the gusty and lilting breezes coming in off of the ocean.
My voice shook slightly as I read,“Taking out my handkerchief, I wiped from his cheek the remains of the spot of dried lather that had worried me all the afternoon.”