by Riley Hall
An early seagull shrieked from somewhere out over the Lake and my eyes lit up. I turned to my brother, Jessie, who was grinning back at me under his shaggy head of hair.
"My name's Sunrise," I whispered, biting my lip, "what's yours?"
"Jack," he answered. Then he turned on his heel and ran to where Mama had left the towels. Picking up two, he hurried back, tossed one at me, and threw the other over his shoulders.
He ran. Faster than anyone I'd ever seen, the towel stretched across his arms and spread out like wings.
"Caw!" I yelled, my six year old voice breaking horrifically on the high note. "Look out! Caw! Look out!" Jessie swiveled and stopped,
"Caw! What?" He asked, pretending to be scared.
"Hurry!" I flew to the huge beached culvert that kept the dunes from tumbling down and waited. Jessie appeared in moments, panting. He drew his eyebrows together and folded his wings. "A hurricane!" I muttered, breathless, "It's coming, I can feel it!" He whimpered and threw his wings over his head, shivering. "Hurry!" I said a second time, "We gotta get somewhere safer!"
We flew as far as Mama would let us go down the beach and cowered behind a brush tree. I heard Mama singing again and forgot the game. "Carrie!" Jessie squealed. I didn't turn around.
"Mama!" I ran up to her grinning widely, and sprang onto her lap.
"Hi there," she said, smiling but staring off into the distance so I knew she wasn't really paying attention. I followed her stare. There was pretty sailboat out on the water. I frowned. She was thinking about Daddy and his girlfriend. Mama'd told me that he was just off on a vacation, but I wasn't stupid. Besides, I'd heard them fighting.
It had been a dark ugly night, the clouds hiding the stars. Daddy had been late coming home from work again. Mama'd yelled about a phone call and asked him where he was the day before. And then Daddy'd said work. Mama yelled about something that I couldn't remember, then she talked about the girlfriend. Daddy'd said she was wrong, but Mama was never wrong, and I knew that better than anybody. So Daddy had left that same night. That last thing I heard him say was "You'll regret it." I didn't know what that meant, but he sounded mad. I tried to go out and stop him, but Mama kept the gates up in front of Jessie's bed too high, and it always took me too long to get it down. I'd missed lots of good cartoons that way.
I looked back up at Mama. She was still staring at the boat, but humming softly too.
"How come boats float?" I asked her quietly. I'd always wondered about it. "They're so big and heavy and stuff, shouldn't they sink?" Mama finally looked down and blinked at me. She kind of paused for a moment, then smiled,
"Because the water loves them." I didn't understand.
"What d'you mean?"
"If the Lake didn't like the boat it would swallow it whole. Like in a storm. So if a boat is floating, you know that the water loves it."
"Oh," I answered, but I still didn't understand. "But they're so heavy."
"It doesn't matter," she told me, "It doesn't matter how big or little, or old or young, or blue or purple, not if it's love." Jessie was sneaking up behind us, about to pounce on Mama. I smiled,
"Even if it was a great big ocean oil liner thing that weighed a million pounds and was a zillion years old, and as ugly as Jessie?"
"Hey!" Jessie screamed, ruining his surprise. Mama bounced me in her lap and grinned,
"If it looked like Jessie, the water would fall in love at first sight." She pulled Jessie onto her lap and I rolled my eyes.
"No way. Jessie would sink in a millisecond." But she didn't believe me, and neither did I, so I picked up my towel and started to walk away. Maybe I would build a sandcastle. Jessie's voice stopped me.
"When's Daddy's vacation done, Mama?" I didn't turn around, I knew Mama wouldn't be smiling now, and I hated to see her sad, but I had to hear the answer. Maybe Mama was wrong. Or maybe I'd dreamed the fight. What if Daddy was coming home tomorrow?