Shifting Sands by Lydia Fazio Theys
We lie side by side in the perfect spot, near but not too near the ocean’s edge, on our stomachs, toes pointing toward the sea. Parallel to each other and nearly the same height, we fill the center of the soft flannel blanket leaving a narrow frame of pastel stripes around us. The day offered one last Indian-Summer chance for this kind of near-indecent luxury and we took it. Not only for the sun’s warming touch or the stroke of the shore breeze, or even for the seaside’s ravishing sounds and smells, but because this is where Nina and I have our best talks. Private talks about everything and nothing, that keep us close, as close as mothers and 16-year old daughters could hope to be.
There’s been little conversation today, but that’s okay. I play with the sand through the blanket, each hand squeezing and scraping at a granular mound under thin flannel. The one-step-removed feel of grains rubbing grains, the friction translating through fabric to fingertips, is soothing and familiar. My ear against the ground fills with muted sound passing though the sand beneath me.
“Isn’t it funny how sand can feel - I don’t know - almost hard and soft
at the same time?”
Nina’s voice smiles. “I know what you mean.”
Eyes closed, I savor the sensation of cool beach below and hot sun above, its broad brush painting my back with dense warmth right through my t-shirt.
“Mom?” Nina’s echoey voice comes to me partly through air and partly through sand. I turn to face her, looking through one squinty eye, but I can’t see her for the blinding sun.
“Mmm hmm?”
“Promise you’ll listen? The whole thing before you answer?”
The flag is up. Dangerous currents in this conversation. Swim at your
own risk.
“Okay. What’s the whole thing?”
“Well, it’s this.” Nina shifts, and the hollow scratches reach my ear. “I know we always do a big family thing on Thanksgiving. And I like it, too. I know how much you like me to help and…”
“Having your help isn’t …”
“Hey! The whole thing, right?”
I sigh. “Sorry.”
“I know you get all freaky about the family being together. And family is important.” A seagull flies low overhead, blocking the sun just long enough for me to glimpse the earnestness in Nina’s face.
“It’s just that this one time, I was wondering if maybe we could, you know, break the tradition. Just this once. Lisa’s family wants me to go with them to their cabin in Vermont. It would be so cool.”
I fidget, reaching off the edge of the blanket with one hand. I smooth the surface back and forth, back and forth, coaxing the larger particles to the top. My mind’s eye sees what my fingers can’t feel: that the larger grains have character. Some are clear, some pink, a few black. Alone, they look different from the endless mass of tan, but mixed in, they are merely part of the whole. I force myself to return to Nina’s question and I raise my head to look at her, this time with both eyes.
“I don’t know what to say, honey. What if…?”
At that moment, the skin of our feet comes alive in response to a sudden rush of cold water. We haven’t been paying attention to the tide and now we jump up, laughing as I retreat further up the beach, past the high tide line. I stand, looking down at this sun-crisped place, less inviting than the water-smoothed surface we’ve been forced to leave. There are bumps and sharp bits of seashells and dried spartina stems; the daily tide doesn’t reach here, to groom, comb, level and tamp to a pleasing solidity. I wait for Nina to catch up with our shoes and towels. I know this is just the beginning. I know she will grow away from me, have her own life, but I don’t have to like it. I don’t have to want it to start quite yet.
Nina comes over and squints at me. “So, are you going to put the blanket down, or what?”
I run my hand along the front of Nina’s pulled-back hair, its near-perfect smoothness marred by a few crystalline grains. I smile at her loveliness framed now by the deep blue sky. I want to wrap her in the blanket and hold her in my lap. I want to tuck her in and soothe her fears, but she’s not the one who’s afraid. Instead, I hand her one end of the now-gritty blanket and together we struggle against the breeze to spread it onto this scraggly new terrain.
Lydia Fazio Theys, astronomer by training, contract writer by necessity and creative writer by night. Lydia lives in Connecticut with her husband and their two great big children. Two crotchety cats, two high-maintenance Italian Greyhounds and whatever else wanders in through the cat door round out the mix. Lydia’s work has appeared: in flashquake, Opium, Yankee Pot Roast, Gator Springs Gazette, Moondance, Quintessence, Somewhat, Mad Hatter’s Review, Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, Quiction, HeavyGlow and the Just Bite Me anthology; on KRCB public radio’s Word by Word and a coffee mug (really); and as inspiration for a dance by the Junction Dance Theater in Pittsburgh. A story is upcoming is the print anthology, “Hardboiled Horror.” She wishes she could use words as beautifully as Paul Simon does. Find her at her blog…..
