Page 49 of We Are Okay

Then I would go to Ocean Beach.

I’d sit by myself in the spot where Mabel and I used to hang out and stare out at the water. I was trying to remember my mother. I didn’t think of it that way for all those years I’d been doing it, but it was clear to me by then. The waves would come in, and I would try to remember the way she must have looked up on her surfboard, how she would have dragged it behind her as she came back to shore, how she would have waved to me with her other hand. Maybe I satright here with her friends. Maybe the buried memories of those days are what led me back each time.

It was mid-August, and Mabel had left just a few days before, and I was supposed to leave in a little over two weeks. That morning was quiet, only a couple of guys surfing in the distance. When they got out of the water they stood around talking, and at one point I saw them look over at me. I could feel what they were saying. Two of them were telling a third who I was.

It felt so unfair, that they could remember her and I couldn’t. Maybe if I closed my eyes, just listened. I knew that smells triggered memories, so I breathed in deep. And then I heard a voice. It was one of the guys. The other two were gone.

“Marin,” he said. “Right?”

“Yes.”

I squinted up at him, wondered if my hair reminded him of hers. I thought he might tell me about something intangible. An aura I gave off or a gesture I made.

“What are you waiting around for?”

“Nothing,” I said.

But it wasn’t true. I was waiting for a faraway nostalgia to take him over, the way it always did with all the others. I almost held out my hand, sure he’d drop shells in. Maybe the feeling of them in my palm would do it.

“I heard you looked a lot like your mom, but this is ridiculous.”

He didn’t sound dreamy at all, but I smiled anyway and said thanks.

“I’ve got a van in the lot and some time to spare,” he said.

My body tensed. In spite of the lead in my stomach, in spite of the way I was sinking into the sand, darkness rushing in, I made my voice stronger. “Whoareyou even?” I asked.

“I’m Fred,” he said.

“Never even heard of you.”

I turned to the ocean and watched the waves crash. The more focused I was on them, the louder they were, the closer they became. When a wave reached the toe of my shoe, I stood up.

I was alone, just like I’d hoped, but it felt terrible.

I needed something.

Ana, I thought, but that was stupid. Ana was not mine.

I needed a warm place, music, sweet-smelling rooms.

Traffic parted for me; the darkening sky held its light until I unlocked my door and rushed upstairs.

“Gramps,” I called. “Emergency! I need cake!”

He wasn’t in the living room or the dining room. The kitchen was empty, nothing on the stove or in the oven.

“Gramps?”

I stood still and listened. Quiet. He must have been out, I thought, but I found myself at the door of his study. I saw him. Couldn’t believe it but there he was at his desk. Cigarette smoldering in the crystal ashtray, pen in hand, staring blankly off.

“Gramps?”

“Not a good time.”

His voice wasn’t even his voice.

“Sorry,” I said, backing away.