The Sorrowful Sea

Cory couldn’t describe his grandfather without first describing his house; like a hermit crab and its shell, the two parts made the whole. His memories of the man were thoroughly knotted up in the place, with its splintering whalebone-grey shingles and walls that bellied out like a ship’s sail, the whole of it hurricane battered but somehow determinedly clinging to the headland above the bay like a barnacle glued to a tide-scoured rock. 

Cory’s mother used to joke that it couldn’t be a bachelor pad, because her father was married to the sea, which never failed to rouse a rumbling chuckle in return, though as far as Cory could remember, his grandfather didn’t once contradict her. 

He couldn’t remember his grandfather’s voice, not exactly, but he would never forget his laugh; at times a low, lazy rumble, like a storm breaking far out over the water, at others as loud and booming as a clap of thunder, so resounding that a young Cory half expected the walls of the cottage to come down around them in a confusion of timber and tile.  

Now, standing outside the house after so many years away, Cory took a deep, steadying breath. Defying all reason, the cottage at his back was still standing, seemingly unchanged after over a decade of disuse. 

His grandfather’s art was strewn all around him. To some, it might look like an unfortunate preponderance of storm debris, but to Cory, it was like a carefully curated sculpture garden; in what had once been a sparse vegetable patch, vertiginous towers of lobster pots in various stages of decay bowed over like stoop-backed old men, while behind him, great coils of rope and netting groped up the side of the house like vines. The half-torn remains of a sail splayed out over a sagging trellis like the webbed wing of a bat, its holes carefully darned with woven mats of dried seaweed. When he was alive, his grandfather had always been down at the beach, combing the shore for flotsam and jetsam, dragging reclaimed treasures from the sucking clutches of the sand and transforming them into works of art to adorn the cottage. Their very own open-air gallery. 

When we see something that’s not right in the world, we don’t just sit back and leave it be—that’s not our way, son. His grandfather’s one-man crusade to clean the beach and waters of their little bay on the rugged Maine coast had seemed to a young Cory like a never-ending chore, but to his grandfather, it was as much a joy as a responsibility. She looks after me just as much as I care for her, he had said once, when Cory was in a huff after spending an hour trying to free a particularly stubborn bit of fishing line from a fat sandbar at low tide. The fish I catch, the seabirds that lay such tasty eggs for my breakfast. A smile had flashed across his sun-burnished face, as sudden as a lighthouse beacon on a dark night. Well, a bit of tidying is a small price to pay for such good company, don’t you think?  

At the thought of his grandfather—roaming from spot to spot on the shore like an industrious bumblebee, tinkering with his artwork, resting on the back steps of the cottage with a cup of coffee so strong the smell of it could give you a second-hand buzz—Cory felt his throat close up with a sadness so sharp it surprised him. How long had it been since the accident—fifteen years? Sixteen? But then, maybe grief never really leaves a person—it just burrows down and makes itself at home deep within you, a wrongness that becomes indistinguishable from the whole, like a broken bone that never sets quite right. 

Cory hadn’t thought his family would ever be able to face this place again, not since that awful call had come through—the first of many—after what was now remembered as the “storm of the century”. Missing became Lost at sea became Presumed dead. For a few days, the “presumed” had been like a life raft for their hope. As they’d waited helplessly for more news, it had quietly sprung a leak, and sunk into the abyss.   

So it had come as a bit of a surprise when his mother had suggested this trip a few weeks earlier, calling Cory out of the blue at his office in the city. He would want us to live our lives, Cor, she had said, voice tinny but determined over the phone line. It would kill him all over again, knowing we were still hurting this bad. Blunt, but fair—a testament to his mother’s steely New England roots.

And now, here they were, staying in a place so unchanged it felt like a museum to his grandfather, a man who had been a father to Cory in every way that mattered. Cory shook his head, trying to clear the painful memories that had circled him like a shiver of sharks since they had arrived a few days before, threatening to breach the surface and drag him under. But there was one he couldn’t seem to ignore—that kept flashing in his mind and darting away if he looked at it too directly, as slippery as a fish. 

Him and his grandfather, standing hand-in-hand on the beach. A tinkling, burbling laugh dancing in the night air around them. A woman in the water (that was the water?), and—

Gone, again. Cory scrubbed an agitated hand through his hair, glancing out at the glimmering surface of the bay, its rippling waters cupped by a sliver of sand that curled towards him like a beckoning finger. 

Before Cory knew quite what he was doing, his long legs were carrying him away from the cottage, towards the sea.

———

The pathway from the cottage to the sea was exactly as Cory remembered it from his childhood, weaving its lazy track through the dunes like a dried-up riverbed, braiding around low peaks of sand and scruffy beach grass. The smell of the place hadn’t changed either—the air was perfumed with the clean, briny smell of the bay, laced through with heady scents of juniper and bayberry thickets baked by the late-morning sun.

Thin tendrils of low-hanging cloud were all that was left of the mist that had hugged the shore since dawn, obscuring the fast-rising tide like an impenetrable iron curtain. Now, Cory had to squint against the crashing waves that threw off shards of sunshine like broken glass.

He walked along the well-worn boardwalk, a ribbon of weathered, grey wood and that unspooled towards the sea. The rhythmic echo of his steps roused a band of sparrows from the leathery beach heather that ran on either side of the warped platform. They chirped indignantly before disappearing into a tangle of leaves a few yards away. 

Hands shoved deep in his pockets, shoulders hunched against the crisp sea breeze that mussed his sandy hair and tugged at the corners of his t-shirt, Cory crested a dune and followed the track down towards the shore. His shadow loomed large over his shoulder, stretched thin and curving away from him like a question mark. 

The pathway ended abruptly at the foreshore, and Cory stopped at its edge, unsure of himself. He felt something like nerves coil a tight fist around his heart, a sensation completely at odds with the tranquil seascape surrounding him, and the melodious sound of water lapping daintily at the shore. He rubbed sweaty palms against his shorts, straightened his back, and marched down to the water’s edge. 

The waves kissed his toes, a cool comfort after the rough wood of the boardwalk. He screwed his feet into the sand and raised his hands to cup his mouth. 

“Hello?”

His voice sounded small to his ears, snatched up and carried away on a breath of wind. He cleared his throat and tried again. 

“If you’re there, answer me!” he shouted across the bay. 

Cory waited, stock still. The rippling surface of the water winked in the sunshine, and out in the distance, he could make out a sailboat gliding serenely across the mouth of the bay. He suddenly felt very foolish. What had he been expecting? 

He knew exactly what—something impossible, something that had never been real. He shook his head, angry at himself for getting swept up in a fantasy, for reopening a wound he had convinced himself was long since healed. 

Cory’s head whipped suddenly upwards as a bird cried out overhead, near and insistent. He turned to face it, raising a hand to shield his eyes against the bright sky. Eclipsed by the blazing sun, he could make out nothing but the shape of it—huge wings spread wide, pinions flared as it wheeled lazily overhead. 

It cried out once more—a keening, sorrowful peal—before it dropped its wings and dove swiftly towards him. Cory staggered back in surprise, but instead of finding the shore beneath his feet there was only water. Cold, unending water, like he had thrown himself backwards off the edge of a deep-sea cliff. 

As he fell, the water reached up towards him and swallowed him whole. 

———

Cory sank like an anchor into the deep, the scream that tore from his lips lost in a storm of bubbles. 

He thrashed around in panic, trying to claw his way back to the surface, though he couldn’t tell which way was up and each movement caused his lungs to scream for air. This was how he must have felt. The thought flashed through Cory’s treacherous brain, and fresh terror flooded his system. The urge to breath crushed his lungs like a vice until he couldn’t fight it any longer. He sucked in a mouthful of water. 

It took him a minute to realize he wasn’t drowning. And another to uncoil his tightly clenched limbs and peel open his eyes. His chest was heaving from his panicked exertion, but somehow, the water in his lungs didn’t choke him—if anything, it felt cool and soothing, lending his body a comforting weightiness while he floated in the dark. 

Slowly, his eyes adjusted to the dim, wavering light. He was floating a few feet above the seabed, its dimpled surface speckled with spiralling shells of whelk and the domed carapaces of horseshoe crabs. Tilting his head up, he could just make out the water’s surface far above him, distant sunlight painting it gold like the towering ceiling of a cathedral. 

Trying to take stock of his surroundings, he twisted his suspended body around—and found himself face-to-face with the Sea.

His mind raced as he took her in. How could he have ever forgotten the sight of her?

Her body was made of currents of water, twisted and braided together in a seamless flow that separated her bottle glass-green form from the endless ocean surrounding them. Her hair was a tangle of eelgrass and kelp, flared out and dancing around her head like a woman’s billowing skirts. Lips of blushing lady’s slipper shells pursed together in what, on a human, would have been a slight frown. 

They sat—floated?—in silence, each waiting expectantly for the other to make the first move. Eventually, he realized the absurdity of trying to out-patience a literal body of water.

“That was all a bit dramatic, don’t you think?” He was going for insouciance, but it came out sounding sullen and childish.

“Little one,” she bubbled, ignoring his question. “Why have you come here?”

“Come here—you’re the one who brought me!”

More silence. A school of fish threaded through the space between them, and Cory could swear they were shaking their pointy heads at him. 

The Sea sighed, a rush of sun-warmed water that coiled around him and raised goosebumps on his arms. “There is such sadness in you. He would not like to see that.”

Cory heaved a shrug, though the mention of his grandfather was like a stab from a penknife. “It was a long time ago. I’ve dealt with it.”

The lie floated between them, sour and unconvincing. 

The pearls that were her eyes sparkled with pity, and without warning, an answering anger bubbled up from deep within him, as abrupt and violent as an underwater volcano venting heat from the sea floor.

“He trusted you,” he bit out. 

“Yes,” was all the Sea said in return.

Cory huffed in disbelief. “Then how could you take him like that? Like he didn’t matter!” 

He could feel furious tears burning his eyes, but they were lost to the saltwater engulfing him. He glared at her, bitter and fragile.  

The Sea shook her head sadly, dark strands of seaweed hair coiling in lazy eddies around her. “He knew me,” she streamed, her voice as quiet and remote as the moon. 

Whatever that meant, it wasn’t enough.

“You could have taken anyone. You have half the world to yourself, was that not enough for you?” Cory was shouting now, the anger and hurt he had tamped down for so long was rushing over him like storm waters breaching a levee. The unfairness of it burned bright and hot in his chest. “I only had him.”

“As did I.”

Her answer struck him suddenly silent. Her arms were gripped together across her stomach in a tight embrace, and her nacreous eyes were caverns of ancient hurt. As Cory looked across at her, he saw his own loneliness mirrored in her expression. 

Her gaze bore into him, eyes wide and pleading. 

“There are currents that run through me,” she trickled, “deep and dangerous, that no person could hope to sway.” Her voice was a jagged whisper, but he could hear her words as clearly as if her lips were pressed to his ear. “When the wind presses down on me, and whips me into a frenzy, I am helpless to fight against it.”

A single tear of sand crept down her beautiful face, and Cory fought the urge to close the space between them and brush it from her cheek. 

“He knew me,” she said again, the pain in her voice so raw it lodged deep in his heart like a fishhook. 

Cory realized that he had known her too—that long-ago day, standing on the shore, clutching his grandfather’s rough hand in his as the Sea rushed up to meet them.

A child never expects a person to be anything but exactly who they are; and neither had his grandfather. The bright smile that had cracked across his age-worn face when he took in the sight of her—open and wholly without judgement or fear. How could Cory have forgotten that? 

As suddenly as it had appeared, the fire of his anger guttered and died. He kicked his legs—once, twice—until he was floating before her. 

“I miss him too.” 

He held the Sea in his arms, eyes squeezed tightly shut as the ache of his loss washed over him. Her waters swirled around them in a gyring torrent, sweeping their shared sorrow out to deeper waters. 

———

When Cory opened his eyes again, the world around him had changed; the sky vaulted endlessly overhead, and a gust of wind darted past him, brushing spindrift off the top of a cresting wave. He promptly rolled over and threw up more seawater than he could have thought possible. 

Cory flung himself backwards onto the sand. He was soaked through and shivering. This time, there would be no mistaking or misremembering.

After a few minutes, he heaved himself upright, brushing sand from his drenched clothing. His foot nudged something half-buried in the beach—the neck of an old glass bottle, its body swallowed by the sand. 

He stooped down and yanked it free, holding it up to his eye. The world took on a distorted, underwater quality. A smile bloomed across his face; which piece of his grandfather’s art would he add this to? 

Cory turned and made his way up the slope of the beach to the boardwalk. Unable to resist the urge, he stole one final peek at the ocean at his back. 

Far out across the bay, he could see the clean lines of a bird in flight, the tips of its wings almost kissing the water as it glided just above the glassy swells.

It let out a single, piercing cry—triumphant and free.