Charlotte Parkinson stared straight ahead, her vision narrowing until she had fixed her gaze on a spot on the horizon. It felt like when, as a child, she had looked through binoculars or a viewfinder toy and it had taken a while to focus, to have her brain catch up with what her eyes were seeing. Now, as she focused on the horizon, the reality was she wasn't seeing anything. She was unseeing . . . or trying to.
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A slight breeze wafted across the deserted beach where Charlotte and her husband, Miles, sat side by side, close enough to touch. But not touching. Their blue and white beach umbrella provided some respite from the midday sun, casting a faint shadow across Charlotte and half of Miles. Miles always seemed to give up that extra bit of shade to make sure Charlotte was fully protected. That was in his nature and if Charlotte noticed, she didn't say. There were lots of things she didn't say.
The soothing sound of lapping water was mesmerising as the waves gently rolled to the shore and then lazily retreated, part of the laws of nature. The water comes, the water goes. An eternal cycle, as certain and scientific as it was mysterious and inexplicable. Charlotte dug her toes into the warm sand, feeling the rough exfoliation as she slightly rocked them from side to side then pushing her heels deeper to make twin indentations. Dragging her gaze down, she puzzled over the patterns she was making, enjoying the feel of the abrasive grit as she massaged her feet. She swiftly stopped all movement and returned her feet to a resting pose, both pointing ahead, unfeeling.
Charlotte could sense Miles' restlessness as he jiggled around in his beach chair trying to get comfortable. Miles did not like being still. That was also in his nature but today he wrestled with the agitation of inertia and tried to just be. Miles, too, was scanning the horizon, though he wasn't sure what he was looking for. Answers perhaps. Answers he knew weren't there.
This was the fifteenth time Charlotte and Miles had sat in this place, on this day, at this time. Just sat, wordless, senseless, helpless, hopeless. Charlotte thought it might get easier as the years passed. Surely time would heal. Isn't that what they say? "Time heals all wounds." Well, some wounds are too deep, too devastating to heal - Charlotte called BS on that saying. Fourteen years of agony, indescribable pain, intense grief, unspeakable heartache.
The details from all those years ago were fading. Charlotte thought that would never happen. Catching the faint whiff of salt, seaweed, and coffee (could that really be coffee?), Charlotte tried to recall the smells of that day. Coconut scented sunscreen? Vegemite? A new tennis ball . . . or was it a beach ball, emitting that sickly heated plastic odour? She couldn't remember and that distressed her. She needed to remember; she needed not to forget.
One thing Charlotte could remember was the panic, the heart thumping, adrenaline inducing dread that engulfed her. The sounds she heard that day were different. She remembered that. The remnant of a big storm was thrashing the beach. They call them East Coast Lows now, but this term was new to Charlotte; back then they were just big storms, monster storms. Charlotte recalled there was a big swell, and the crashing of the occasional rogue wave would snap into your senses even when you weren't paying attention, bringing you back to be reminded of the force, the power of the ocean.
Charlotte thought Miles was watching him and Miles thought Charlotte was watching him. When in fact no one was watching. For Charlotte, maybe that was the hardest thing. No one was watching. He was alone. The roaring sound, the rumble that shook the sand beneath their feet, the wind that whipped the salt spray towards them as the sea approached, encroaching their space. There was a monster wave . . . and he was gone.
The screams, the pounding of feet, the search, the running, the lifesavers, the sirens, the boat launched in perilous conditions, the wait, the wait. Then the hope, the wish for things to be right, and that chance dashed as the little body, cradled in the burly surfer's arms, gently laid on the sand, worked on by the bystander doctor and nurse, then the drop of the head, the tears, the tears.
Now, fourteen years later, seated exactly where they had been frolicking with their little boy, Charlotte and Miles sat, close but not touching. A commemoration, a recollection, a tradition, a need to have the time again, to re-set the last decade and a half, to undo the undoable.
Fourteen years of not going to school or playing footy. No laughing, crying, loving, teasing, hugging, singing, being.
It was almost time to go. It would be another year to think of what might have been, what could have been yet to come. They would be back. As each year marched on that resolve never faltered. They would be back to remember, to grieve, to mourn, to forgive.
It wasn't immediately recognisable, but a noise made Miles and Charlotte both look up together as a thump, thump, thump sound disturbed their abstraction. A boy, who was about the age their boy would be now, should be now, was jogging on the edge of the water, eyes fixed on the horizon, each step taking him closer to an uncertain future.
But it was a future.
Charlotte and Miles stood and packed up, Miles carefully twisting the umbrella into its case, Charlotte tapping off the shards of semi-wet sand still attached to their chairs, bags slung over shoulders, and then a final look to the water and the retreating back of the boy.
Without words, because there were no words, they reached out and held hands as they walked away.
***
Penny O'Shea, the author of this piece, is a finalist in the 2022 Newcastle Herald Short Story Competition. Read the full list of finalists in this year's Herald Short Story Competition by visiting the Newcastle Herald website.