It’s frigid. Air bites at your nose, flushing your skin.
The salt is drying out your tongue. When you were here last it was humid, and hot, and sand clung sticky and rough to your ankles. You aren’t supposed to be at the shores in December.
You aren’t supposed to be around your family, either. You vowed not to see them unless you had to—in the past you made excuses not to attend Christmas day of. Even faked sick last year, got your gifts delivered.
How selfish you were then.
When you were here last everything was fine. When you were here last, your hands were full of shells by the end. Broken pieces then—now, there’s not enough traffic to break them. You’ve picked up three perfect ones and discarded them. Perfect has no value.
You’re stalling. You’re pushing back from having to go to the house. You forgot your sweater there, and your mother will start to worry soon, but if you keep thinking about that you’ll never be able to go back through the door.
Your sneakers are filling slowly with cold sand. The dampness is soaking through your socks—you might just die of hypothermia.
You have to go back. You know you do—if you don’t, your father will be upset with you, and your brother will call, and your grandmother will tisk to herself when she sees you’ve finally arrived again. They don’t want you here, either, maybe. All you brought was your college debt, two suitcases, and your misery.
There’s a storm brewing on the horizon. You heard a poem about that once—a metaphor for rage, bubbling inside you quietly and darkening everything around before you even see the clouds. You don’t think you’re full of rage. But maybe you don’t know what to think anymore.
You’re here because you love them. They love you, even if they don’t want you here. They love you, even if you’re miserable and cry at night and can’t stand to look in the mirror at your own body.
The storm is getting closer. It looks almost darker than nightfall all the way out there. If you don’t go back now, you’ll get caught in the shadows. They’ll ask where you are, be worried, come find you. Would you want that?
You remember your dorm back home. Your roommate laughed about their holiday plans—studying and lounging about their parents’ winter home in Vermont. You’d been invited, and had to decline. Said you were spending the break with your family; ironic how that turned out. You’ve been out here for hours now, but you can’t tell anymore.
Now that his illness had befallen, there was no more ignoring family. It’d be ugly to call it karma, too self-centered, but you can’t stop thinking that maybe that’s why this happened. You treat family like it’s forever and something bigger than you decides to show you who’s boss.
Metastatic. Hypermetabolic. You’d looked up the words and closed your computer when reading made it too hard to breathe.
Metastatic meaning spreading.
Hyper- meaning fast. Metabolic meaning devouring.
It was taking him over, and quickly, and here you were standing on the beach instead of doing something, anything. Death loomed on the horizon, past the storm clouds. God, how stupid you were to think it was for you. Nothing here is about you.
You turn from the increasingly harsh winds coming up from the ocean. When you go back, the condo will be warm. You will still be cold. Dinner will be ready. They will have waited for you. It’s best to go back now.
You stuff your hands into your pockets and think about the tree in the living room. It looks so out of place, glistening and blinking with lights and tinsel and ornaments with family photos displayed across them. Behind it you can see the canal through the sliding door’s glass. If you look hard enough, you can see the families in their apartments across it, laughing or watching movies or fighting. But they’re so far, and there’s practically nobody there in the wintertime anyway. You’re stuck here. No asylum can be sought. Desolation took the town and you were one of the only survivors.
No, you don’t want to think about death right now. Not about survival, or about desolation, or solitude. You just want to get back there, to be warm again. Maybe you could even hug your mother about it. Lord knows she needs it. You would hug your dad, but he’s never been that kind of man, and although he loves your mom, he’s never really cared about her family all that much. He’s who you got the skipping-holidays thing from, anyway.
Pa would probably be on the couch, you figure. He’s always watching Lassie on that old box TV—never trusted the newer ones. He ‘d insisted on his bedrest being on the sofa, said hospital cots were stuffy and he wasn’t that kind of guy. Would he want you to sit beside him now? After all those years of not speaking to them, taking them for granted?
The wind is still biting at your body like a starving fish at a hook. The sand from the beach is swirling off the sidewalk up your legs, into your shoes, across your shoulders. You really wish you had that sweater right now.
The neighborhood is coming into view across the street. A siren wails down the three-lane highway as you cross it. You don’t have to wait for the walk signal. It’s too late and nobody’s driving anyway. The emptiness reminds you of those apocalypse movies—plastic bags and leaves skittering across an empty slab of pavement. Darkness above you, light shining too harshly from traffic lights.
You kick a discarded drive-through cup and turn into the parking lot for the condos. There are barely any cars—one belonging to an old couple who you’ve never met, one to a younger family who were new to the area, and the others belonging to your family, all magnetized to Condo 26 like tragedy sticks to an orphan. The front door is half-open, waiting for you. Lights are on. You can’t see anyone in the windows.
The doorknob of the screen door turns silently when you move it. Nobody looks when you enter. They’re all circled around the table, eyes closed and hands locked in prayer. Your mother is crying into her food. Your grandmother is shaking, more violently than usual. You approach, slide into your seat. When you glance over your shoulder toward the TV, you find the couch empty. The house smells like boot leather and sterilization.
“Where’s Pa?” You ask, voice rough.
Your mother takes your hand into hers—silently, kindly, a silent I’m so sorry. Her face is blotted red and her eyes are rimmed with tears. Your heart drops. He’s gone.
“Let’s say Grace.”