It is as if history has elapsed this place.
I used to wonder if Allah
created Cypress Beach inJannah’s likeness,
beautiful, peaceful, perfect.
But now I know better:
this town is not without flaws.
I have glimpsed its grit,
and experienced its hostility.
I sit on the porch of our cottage,
where the air is clean and clear,
where disease does not hover
like stagnant smoke.
I write…
Words about her.
Wordstoher.
Because even though she left,
without explanation or farewell,
I believe she is the key
to unlocking Cypress Beach’s magic.
elise
I’m wading out of my pity party by dinnertime, when Audrey and Janie are due to come over with Chinese takeout.
When the doorbell chimes, Mom abandons her library for the first time all day. The focus she’s devoted to her cowboy-in-lust manuscript has worked to my advantage. She has no idea I came home from the beach upset, no idea I spent all day in my dungeon room, editing photographs, perusing back issues ofNational Geographic, and napping with Bambi, all in an effort to distract myself from wounds reopened.
Janie joins me on the sofa for an episode ofMickey Mouse Clubhousewhile her mama and mine pore over the calendar tacked to the inside of our pantry door. On it are Mom’s do-not-disturb writing blocks and Aud’s shifts at Camembert, plus random appointments and commitments any of the four of us might have, like the New Student Orientation my mom’s been hassling me about. We had a similar calendar in San Francisco during the time Audrey and Janie lived with us—it was the schedule that governed our lives. I have a very vivid memory of my mom pulling it off the wall, bending it in half, and shoving it deep intothe trash can, choking on sobs, the day Aud and Janie moved to Cypress Beach.
Here we are, together again.
“Turn up Mickey, Auntie,” Janie says as I weave braids into her corn-silk hair.
I oblige and stamp a kiss onto her rosy cheek. “You’re my favorite. Did you know that?”
“You’re my favorite, too,” she says.
I wrap a pink elastic around a final braid, then circle my arms around her. We watch Mickey and his gang use an assortment of Mouseketools to solve an inane mystery, but I keep hearing Mati’s rain-shower voice, two words spoken over and over—Kabul, Afghanistan—pronounced with intuitive apprehension. I fled the beach stunned, drowning in memories of the time surrounding Nick’s deployment and death, but now, in hindsight, I’m not surprised. Deep down I knew, somehow, that a friendship with Mati was too good to be true.
“Auntie?” Janie’s looking up at me, her little mouth drawn with worry.Mickey Mouse Clubhouseis over, and I’ve been staring at a commercial advertising a juicer.
“Sorry, girlie,” I tell her. “Let’s go tell Nana and your mama that we’re ready to eat.”
