“Oh!” Shuffling in the background. “You’re here? Right now?”
“Yeah. In the parking lot. Sorry for the complete lack of notice.”
“No, no, it’s fine! I’m just down here getting a drink with Phoebe. Here, let me go upstairs and get your father.”
Mae smiled. Phoebe was her mother’s favorite gossip partner.
“No rush at all, Mom, seriously. You can finish your drink. I’ll just be sitting on the bench out front; you can come meet me whenever.”
“What a wonderful little surprise. Okay, see you soon, Mae.”
And Mae had just settled on that bench, had just taken in a good deep breath, when it was whisked out of her again with a hug from Felix.
“Mae! I know you didn’t move to the coastjustfor surprise visits to your folks, but I have to say, this is working out splendidly for us.”
“Hi, Dad.” He was wearing a cardigan buttoned over a blue button-up and khakis. In other words, what he had worn almost every day of her life.
“I hear we’re taking a stroll on the beach?” He turned toward the path to the sand, mobility cane in hand, already walking away when Jodi jogged out of the doors behind them.
“You two!” she yelled. “Always running off without me.”
“Hey, Mom.” Mae slid an arm around her waist as they walked, an in-motion half hug.
“What brings you here in the middle of the day on a non-class day?” Jodi asked. Mae had taken to having dinner with Jodi and Felix every Thursday, after her business class.
“It’s my one month anniversary of being in Greyfin Bay. Thought I’d take the day off to celebrate.”
“How lovely,” Jodi said.
Mae didn’t respond.
She bent over to take off her shoes instead. Balled her socks inside, rolled up the hem of her linen pants.
She stood, wiggling her toes in the sand. She thought,that’s better.
It was funny. She had pictured, as she’d packed box after box in her apartment, morning walks on the beach. Sunrises and sunsets.
But in practice, her feet had barely touched the sand at all over the last thirty days. The ocean had still settled under her skin in a way she’d never been able to experience before—the constant awareness of it, subtly saturating her senses—but it simultaneously became easier to ignore.
She looked at the water in front of them, and couldn’t quite picture the last time she’d truly seen it.
“I can’t believe we both live here now,” she murmured as they moved closer to the waves. It was chilly out, even colder the nearer to the water they moved, but nobody complained. “Next to the ocean, I mean.”
Felix let out of a hum. “You always loved it so much,” he said, voice fond.
“So you’ve told me.”
They walked along the waterline.
Mae wondered why she’d asked Felix and Jodi to walk with her. What she wanted to tell them. Why she was truly here, on the coast, at all.
She wanted the walk to soothe her. To tell her how small and unimportant and weightless she was, like the ocean always used to make her feel.
But god, why was shehere?
She came to a sudden stop. She stared at a partially crushed clam shell.
“Mom,” she said. “What if I don’t actually know what the hell I’m doing?”
