One-Sided

Maria twirled her simple wedding band around her finger, the pale skin beneath stark against her sun-darkened tawny brown. “I’m not sure, but I think waiting, right now, may be the hardest part of all this.”

Emily didn’t answer, and Maria didn’t turn toward her. She’d almost gotten used to the one-sided conversations by now. She knew Emily would remain silent, but she couldn’t help continuing as if that weren’t the case.

“It shouldn’t be too much longer,” Maria said. “Then we can… I can…” she trailed off as tears welled in her eyes, blurring the view of the mountains across the inlet. She wiped her eyes and stood, taking two deep breaths. “I’m going to walk along the water for a bit.”

She walked the beach, watching the ebbing tide pull the water line further out in a slow, methodical dance. Emily used to join her on these walks. They would walk silently, admiring the view, watching the seals pop their heads up, and knowing that the other was right there. A turn of the head would prove it, but they never needed to. Maria missed that feeling.

She walked past a rock outcropping that jutted out past the high tide water line and followed the beach as it curved back inland. From here she couldn’t see the towel where Emily was, nor the umbrella over it. A small green stone caught her eye and she picked it up. Jade. Not uncommon on that beach, but something about this one called to her. A milky line ran the length of the stone; an imperfection making it perfect in its own way.

Maria remembered their last fight. Emily’s porcelain complexion turning pink under the scattering of freckles, her sunset-red hair a tousled mass of wild curls. “Did you even think to ask me first!?” Emily yelled. Maria recalled muttering an apology, which wasn’t readily accepted.

“If you weren’t my wife, I’d…” Emily’s face was drawn, her jaw tight and fists clenched at her sides.

“You’d what?” Maria was trying to de-escalate the situation, but it seemed to her she was failing. “What would you do?”

Emily relaxed her posture and dropped her head. “I don’t know,” she said. “If you weren’t my wife I don’t know what I’d do, because I can’t imagine it.”

That, and a slew of apologies had been the end of it. Maria couldn’t remember what the fight had been about. She rubbed the little piece of jade and stuffed it her pocket. The breeze coming off the inlet was cold, and she pulled her jacket closer as she set off further up the beach.

She reached the point where the beach became too rocky to walk comfortably and turned back around. A bank of dark clouds was moving in from the south. “Please take your time, rain. Don’t come too soon.”

Maria stopped at the outcropping, not wanting to turn the corner and see the umbrella marking the spot on the beach where she’d left Emily. A bob of seals surfaced in the middle of the inlet and made a bee-line for the far, rocky shore. Maria thought their behavior odd until she saw the orca surface a mere hundred yards away from them. From its size it looked young. “Did you get separated from your pod, little one?” I’m talking to clouds and whales now, I’m not alright, am I?

She thought about pulling out her phone and snapping some pictures, but realized that if she did she would look back at her text messages again. Instead she concentrated on finding more interesting stones.

After finding and discarding a dozen stones and two pieces of sea glass she decided it was time to move back around the outcropping. She kept her eyes on the horizon, where the inlet opened into the sea, and walked. When she reached the towel she kept walking. The idea of sitting down with Emily to wait wasn’t appealing. She would have walked to the sea, but the river cutting the beach just fifty yards down the shore stopped her.

With nothing better to do Maria returned and sat on the towel, her back to Emily, her eyes fixed on the clouds moving in from the south. “This isn’t supposed to be us. We’re not supposed to…” she choked up as tears pooled and her vision swam. This time she let them flow.

“You promised me, Em. You promised.” Maria half wished the clouds would hurry up and drown her. “I can’t keep going like this.”

She pulled the jade from her pocket and a fat tear landed on it, turning its muted color bright. “I found this. It’s like us: a big divide in the middle, but it’s still perfect.” Maria pulled her knees up let her head fall there. “We were perfect, weren’t we?” She cried, great wracking sobs pulled from her soul, all the tears she’d held for too long. “We were… perfect.”

Maria wasn’t sure how long she cried, but when she stopped she felt hollow. Like there was nothing left to feel. The clouds were now gathering directly above and the wind was shifting, gusting in from the south. “I know we were hoping for a warm day with offshore winds, but it looks like it won’t happen. Sorry, babe.”

Maria patted her large bag once, to reassure herself it was actually there. She pulled her phone from her pocket and thought about looking through her text messages.

“I tried calling your mother to let her know, but she still won’t pick up,” she said. “I sent her a text, and told her it was urgent, but she won’t call back. I don’t feel right telling her in a text message or a voice mail. You’d think after calls and messages every day for three weeks she’d… I don’t know, do something.”

She was about to complain, again, about how Emily’s mother had cut them out of her life when they married, but she was interrupted by the sound of cars parking, doors opening and closing, and quiet conversation. Their friends, some from out of state, were all here, their faces gloomier than the gathering skies.

The group gathered around her. “We’re here, it’s time,” one of them said. Maria slung her oversized bag over her shoulder and followed them to the water’s edge.

“They’re here,” Maria said. “Come on, babe, it’s time.” Still without looking she pulled the urn from her bag and cradled it close. “Just one last kiss before I let you go,” she said, and kissed the top of the urn before dumping Emily’s ashes in the retreating sea.