What They Had Taken

He moved ahead of her, quick and sure, kicking at shells, stopping now and then to wait for her. His dark curls lifted in the wind, shifting and falling with each step.

"Slow down," she wanted to say, but the words never left her lips.

The sea had pulled back in the night, leaving the shore wide and bare. The sand lay damp and ridged, marked only by the memory of waves. In the shallows, tide pools clung to the earth, cradling bits of sky.

Her boots pressed into the ridges the tide had left behind. The air smelled thick with salt and things long dead. The wind pressed against her, catching strands of her dark brown hair and whipping them across her face.

Beyond the dunes, a cicada buzzed—a dry, rasping hum that rose and fell with the heat.

Even now, he moved with that boyish ease, that loose-limbed confidence. His pockets were full, as always. Bits of driftwood. Shells. The small treasures he never left behind.

She crouched by a tide pool, dipping her fingers into the cold water. A sea star clung to a smooth stone, its arms splayed wide, shifting just barely as the water quivered around it.

She traced her finger along the ridges of its skin, the water cool against her knuckles.

"Mom, look at this one!"

She smiled before she even turned.

He stood beside her now, grinning, his hand outstretched. His grin was crooked, a flash of teeth against sun-bronzed skin, wide and unguarded. A smooth black stone rested in his palm, wet from the tide.

"You always find the best ones," she murmured.

She rolled it in her hand, feeling its weight.

She had once argued with someone about it—not stealing, just rearranging. At the time, she hadn’t believed them. But as she looked out at the sea, shaping and reshaping the shore, maybe they had been right.

She slipped the stone into her pocket.

The sun pushed higher, turning the sky the color of a conch shell. The air grew heavier, thick with the smell of sunbaked salt and seaweed.

They walked on, the sound of the sea their only conversation.

“You used to run ahead,” she said. “I could never keep up.”

He only smiled, tossing a stone into the surf. The water swallowed it without a sound.

Further down the beach, an osprey hovered, its wings holding against the wind. Then it dove, a sharp plummet into the sea. It came up with something silver in its talons, a fish twisting against the sky.

She flinched at the splash, then laughed.

“Remember that time the fish caught you instead?” she said, grinning.

The memory surfaced so clearly it might have been yesterday—his small legs kicking through the shallows, his laughter sharp as the salt air. The way the mullet had leapt straight into his chest, how he had screamed, then giggled, then spent the rest of the day stomping through the water, hoping another fish would come flying at him.

She almost laughed, but the moment passed before she could hold onto it.  

The wind tugged at her sleeves. She rubbed her arms.

Without a word, he shrugged off his jacket and draped it over her shoulders.

She pulled it close. It smelled like the sea.

At the edge of the dunes, she knelt and brushed her fingers through the sand, uncovering the pale curve of a shell. It was small, its edges softened by time and tide, its surface cool against her palm. She lifted it carefully, rubbing her thumb over the faint ridges, then turned and placed it in his waiting hand.

“For your pocket,” she said.

He looked down at the shell, then back at her. The wind pressed against them, the distant waves rolling in, constant as breath.

They left the shore and climbed the dunes, where the wind bent the sea oats.

Here, away from the water’s reach, the cairn stood. The wind had shifted the stones, some pressing deep into the sand, others tilting, threatening to fall.

She ran her fingers over the stack, then reached into her pocket and pulled out the dark, perfect stone he had found for her today. She placed it at the top.

The wind moved through the dunes, rustling the grass. The waves rolled beyond them, steady and endless.

Then—a crash. A wave struck hard against the shore, louder than before. The sound sent a shiver through her, pulling her back.

Back through the years.

Back to the moment she had waited too long.

She had been watching him, knee-deep in the water, chasing the waves. He had called for her to come in.

She should have.

But she had hesitated. Just for a breath.

At first, she thought he was playing, that he had ducked beneath the waves. Then she realized how far out he had gone.

A second passed. Two.

Something inside her chest snapped.

She ran. The cold water hit her thighs as she waded in, her arms sweeping through the surf, reaching, searching. The waves tugged at her knees, unsteadying her.

"Where—where is he?!"

A dark head surfaced for the briefest second, too far out. She lunged forward, but the water pulled her back.

A hand. A flash of movement.

Then nothing.

She dove, hands outstretched. Her fingers met only water.

A wave knocked her sideways. She went under, salt rushing into her throat, burning her lungs. She kicked hard, breaking the surface, coughing, gasping.

Then—another splash.

She caught a glimpse of him—a man sprinting into the surf, arms pumping, legs driving forward. His voice cut through the crash of waves. "I see him!"

She turned, frantic, but the current dragged at her legs, pulling her back.

The stranger swam hard, plowing through the swells, his head dipping beneath the water as he searched. He reached out once, twice—then dove.

She struggled toward them, her limbs weak, but before she got close, the man surfaced again, empty-handed.

He turned back. His face was grim, unreadable. He didn’t look at her.

She stood beside him, soaked and shivering, staring out at the sea. The waves kept moving, indifferent, washing over the place where he had gone under.

They had waited. The stranger. The people who had gathered on the shore. The ambulance that had come too late.

At some point, she had sunk down onto the sand, someone’s towel wrapped around her shoulders, a plastic water bottle clutched in her hands.

The stranger hadn’t spoken. He had stood nearby, hands on his hips, staring at the waves as if he could will them to return what they had taken.

She had never seen the stranger's face before. She hoped never to see it again.

Her husband had come, later.

He had stood like the stranger had stood, shoulders tense, his face hard. But he hadn’t looked at the sea. He had looked at her.

He hadn’t spoken until much later, when the silence between them had stretched so thin it had finally broken.

"I wish it had been you."

Six months later, he was gone too. He took his clothes. His tools. His books.

But he left the sand-dollar necklace their son had made, looped around the bathroom mirror.

She pressed her fingers against the newest stone.

Sixteen. One for every year.

The wind had picked up, rolling the waves into restless peaks. The sky was changing.

She turned and walked away from the cairn, away from the dunes, away from the place where people had once gathered in hushed voices.

The waves kept moving, indifferent.