Elizabeth on a Good Day
She danced in the wash of the waves, avoiding their grip on her ankles, bare toes in sync with the rhythmic pull of the moon. Like applause they rolled in crashing claps to collapse on the shore, then faded back into the mass of the ocean leaving wet stains like tears on the sand. Elizabeth bowed deep in appreciation, her skirt held out in a fan of windblown sail.
From the windows he watched her. She disturbed his concentration on his work, skittering like a mouse along the edge of awareness, burrowing in like the needs of a child to be seen, praised, protected. Whatever he could give, he tried to give her but she always clamored for more. Never asking, just letting him into that instant in her eyes, like a glimpse inside Pandora’s box, then closing herself against the reach of his words.
She turned her head to whip the hair back from where the wind had painted it on her face. She saw Robert watching, laughed and waved. He smiled as wide as his mouth could make it as if the space between him standing at the window and her windblown figure on the beach would diminish it as it traveled the distance. He waved the same way, exaggerated, with a pendulum sweep of his hand. He waved even as she turned back to the water, the wet foam slipping up and around each sun-browned bare foot, splashing and sliding back to the ocean.
Elizabeth sucked in her cheeks between her teeth, bit down hard just to feel how it hurt. She drew in a deep breath of the salt air, imagined it rushing down her throat, filling her lungs, splashing back as she exhaled. She took a step further into the incoming tide as it dragged at her feet, now reaching foam fingers cold and wet on her calves.
Robert watched for a moment more. She looked fine. She looked happy. Elizabeth had a love of the ocean that went beyond what he could understand. It filled the empty spaces he missed and he was grateful. He was glad they’d decided to come out here for the summer. She was safe here. He could relax. He sat back down and opened the laptop, waded through words, clung to numbers.
Before she walked into the ocean, she turned around one more time. She saw what looked like a shadow of him sitting. She wasn’t sure, it didn’t move, it wasn’t watching. She was disappointed because she had wanted to wave goodbye.
