Broken Shells

by Jacqueline Hyatt

A man remembers the walk he took on a beach with his daughter a handful of summers ago, before the colonoscopies and reading glasses and arthritis. His daughter walked close to him. Her copper curls snaked out from under a bucket hat. She hated wearing hats, but he did not want her skin to burn. He slathered her with a whole tube of sunscreen before they left the hotel. White smudges painted her shoulders and cheeks.

The man remembers watching the sea breathe against sand, surfers fighting for waves and seagulls fighting for French fries. His daughter’s gaze was on the ground. Whenever he looked away, she stooped down and stuffed seashells in her board-shorts' pockets. She smuggled them home in her suitcase, hid them in a shoebox under her bed. She was only sixteen.

At twenty-one, she was not looking for shells anymore. The hot sand beneath her soles became sidewalk; flip-flops traded for needles in skin. She never learned, despite the sunscreen, that sea salt starves and leaves her leathery.

A man remembers the walk he took on a beach with his daughter a handful of summers ago, before the missing money and lies and rehab.