Moonglass

worries I’d had about coming and what it might dr edge up felt far off and irrational. My house was on the beach, I’d sort of made a friend, and the lifeguards were cute. It was almost like a fresh start. Maybe that was what my dad was trying to do, in some strange way—give us a place to move on.
    For the past couple of months, when he would drive up to my grandmother’s on the weekend, he would show up tired and … depressed? I had assumed it was because it bothered him to be back where he and my mom had some history. Too many memories. Which was why it didn’t make sense to me that he had taken the transfer in the first place. It was also what set me on edge about the whole thing. It never occurred to me that maybe it was the other way around. Maybe it was good for him to get away and look at a different stretch of ocean, one that didn’t hold within it the sharpness of her absence.
    Lying there under the sun, with the sand formed to cradle my body, I couldn’t decide how I felt about that, exactly. The prospect of being somewhere different, where my mother had once been, still left me uneasy. At home I could avoid the places that made me think too much, could be sure that I didn’t run into any unwanted memories. I could stay away from the places we had walked together, happy, and the places that held other, less sunny memories.
    Or if I ever chose, I could go to them, maybe even graze the same grains of sand with my bare feet. Here I didn’t have a choice. I didn’t know how to think of her here. Even if I wanted to know more, it had been so long since I’d asked anything, I wasn’t sure I knew how to anymore.
    I sat up and glanced at the lifeguard tower. He was still there, though now he leaned forward against the railing under the sun, looking straight out at the sparkling water. All up and down the sand, beachgoers splashed in the crystal blue. Kids on bodyboards kicked for waves that rolled under them without breaking. A couple floated out beyond the swim buoys, entangled, kissing the salt water from each other’s faces.
    I set my sunglasses down on my towel and walked down to the water’s edge. Just like the night before, it was warmer than I’d expected. There was no tensing up, no breath holding when I got in. I dove under a little roller and swam underwater, eyes open. The clarity beneath the surface was shocking. On the bottom I could see the ripples made by the waves. I kicked down into the muted blue and scooped sand between my two hands, then let it flow out and settle back into a tiny pile. Almost out of air, I floated to the surface and burst through, happy. From where I floated I could see the lifeguard looking at the tide pools through his binoculars again. He must have been new, to be that worried about people on those rocks on a day like this. He was so focused on that spot, he probably didn’t notice anything else.
    I made my way back to the waterline and shook the water out of my hair, then walked toward the rocks. The tide had gone out, leaving the huge clusters exposed and shining. In every indentation there was water—crystal clear and warm. I picked my way over the rocks and peered into a pool that was small but deep. The tiny waving arms of sea anemones lined the sides all the way down to the bottom, which lay beneath smooth round pebbles. As I squinted into the pool, a drop of water made its way down my face, then landed silently in the water, becoming the center of a ring of ripples that radiated outward.
    “Hey!” A voice behind me yelled. I paused and composed myself before standing up slowly. “Hey,” he said, softening a little. “You shouldn’t be out here this far. People get knocked over all the time, and then I gotta patch up all their cuts too, so why don’t you come on in?” Out of breath, he extended his hand.
    I smiled casually out at the flat ocean. “I think I’ll be all right.”
    He put his sunglasses on top of his head, and I saw that his eyes were clear blue. They flashed frustration. “Listen. You need to come in.” He looked over his shoulder, and I followed his gaze to the lifeguard truck I had seen earlier. “Now.” He offered his hand again.
    The truck slowed, then almost sank to a stop on the sand, and the guard inside put his binoculars up to his eyes and pointed them at us. I raised an eyebrow. “Supervisor?”
    He looked back impatiently. “Yeah. Kind of. Can you just come back to the beach?” He had to be close to my age.