I’ll Meet You at the Ocean

The smell of freshly mowed grass almost made me sick. Its underlying stench of gasoline mixed with the herbaceous musk of the grass was reminiscent of past summers in this neighborhood. I liked the smell then. Our house’s lawn was littered with unkempt weeds and wild grass that was overgrown and decayed at the same time. It was only early afternoon. The sun pelted my skin as I undertook the excruciating walk from my car to the front door. The heat permeated all over and made me more uncomfortable than I already was, but the day was not over yet.

As I raised my hand to knock, I found the door slightly ajar. Normally, this would have been cause for alarm, but considering the circumstances, I didn’t really care. As I pushed it further open, I realized I was holding on to my growing stomach. I paused for a moment before entering, met with the silence from within.

The curtains hung lifeless against the shut windows. They blocked out the natural sunlight that would’ve made the house feel like a home. Instead, the cool air inside wrapped around me as if a snake constricted me to one spot, my lungs deflated. I tried to step noiselessly on the heavily worn hardwood floor as I walked through the living room. Perhaps I didn’t want to scare her. I glanced at the various photo albums on the coffee table that lay open on pages full of a small boy. Some pages had vacant spaces where pictures had clearly been removed. Random piles of photos had been strewn out on the table. My eyes were drawn to a photo of us when we were kids running from the waves at a beach. We were clearly soaked, with wet sand stuck to our legs. Our smiles took up our whole faces. I remember how much he used to smile, and I could almost hear his laugh.

My eyes drifted to the painting on the wall, which had been in our family for as long as I can remember. I used to look at it all the time when I was little. My mother had told us how her grandmother painted it a long time before we were born, and felt she had somehow predicted the future with the two of us as the subjects of the painting: a young girl and a younger boy walking side by side on a beach, their backs towards us as they approached the ocean together. At least that’s where I always imagined they were going. A sudden clank in the kitchen grabbed my attention and I turned towards the unnatural fluorescent glow.

“I’m in here.” Her voice was flat in the air as if repeatedly rehearsed for when she inevitably had to talk to someone. I didn’t answer, just followed the voice. I stood at the doorway taking in her form; her black dress lightly brushed against the floor as she crouched for something inside the fridge. Her body was mostly blocked by the door, but her hunched posture made it look like she would hide inside the fridge if she could. I vaguely recognized the dress from Grandpa’s funeral years ago. I was only five then. When she finally emerged, she quickly passed me a plate: “Can you hold this?”

The plate was full of newly made chocolate chip cookies. It was lovingly wrapped with clear plastic and tightly encircled by freshly curled blue ribbons as if to protect it from the outside world. She hadn’t made eye contact with me, but I could tell she had been crying as she patted her eyes with a paper towel and claimed it was “just allergies.”

My eyes were drawn to a photo of us when we were kids running from the waves at a beach. We were clearly soaked, with wet sand stuck to our legs. Our smiles took up our whole faces.

“I thought they’d be nice for the reception. Can’t really go wrong with those.” She lightly pinched her nose dry and crumpled the paper in her hand to throw away in the wastebasket. After a moment of pause, she asked, “How’s the baby?” Perhaps she figured she should ask.

“Everything is good, growing every day!” I couldn’t bring myself to tell her I was having a boy. Thankfully she didn’t ask or I wouldn’t know what to say. The silence between us was painful, and I didn’t know where else to look except the plate of cookies in my hand. “He always liked these.” It was all I could muster. She just took the plate and said nothing.

The festivities, if you could call them that, were filled with tears and laughter all at once, which became overwhelming. I stared at the stupid decorations framing the table full of food and snacks. I understood this was meant to be a celebration—it’s what he would’ve wanted—but I just couldn’t bring myself to celebrate anything. The snack table provided a temporary distraction as I awkwardly grazed to avoid any more condolences or concerned questions from people I had seen too much of, but that didn’t last long. Every time I would hear “I’m sorry for your loss,” or “He was a wonderful person,” or “I wish I knew him better,” it made me feel simultaneously closer to and further away from him at the same time, which made me angrier. I caught my speech growing terse. Eventually, I took a seat at an empty table in a corner, away from the noise. My eyes became drawn to the photos laid out carefully on the table towards the front of the musty rec room. They depicted the same boy from the coffee table photos I’d seen earlier; a few showed us together, both young and free, when things were simpler.

Mom ran around like a bat out of hell. She collected and tossed any trash left unattended, and supplied food to anyone who appeared just slightly peckish; I know she hadn’t eaten, much less sat down. The crowd slowly dwindled to a select few family members, and she held on to two plates with random assortments of food and treats left over. She made eye contact with me, then approached my safe corner of the room where no one had bothered me and placed the two plates on the table. She had piled my plate high, while hers was rather bare in comparison. “You need to eat something. Trust me.” She started to play lightly with the food on her plate but failed to put any in her mouth.

“You should eat too, you know,” I replied. She looked at me briefly.

“Shut up.” A slight grin formed on her face that was gone as quickly as it came.

We sat in silence again, lost in our own company. This time, she broke the silence.

“Oh, here. I saved one for you. They went really fast.” She haphazardly pulled something from her pocket, wrapped in multiple paper napkins, and placed it next to the plate I had begun to eat from. I pulled off the napkin to find one of her chocolate chip cookies, slightly melted from the warmth in her pocket. “I know how much you like them.”

When I picked it up, the warmth seeped into my fingers, the chocolate sticking to my hands as I carefully broke it in half to give her the other half. I set it down on her plate. She didn’t refuse it or accept it. We sat there in silence, lost in our own thoughts.

The drive home was quiet as ever, as the light hum of the car echoed around us. I watched the houses flash by and thought about how each person inside each home had just another average day, while my mom and I had to sit and reminisce about someone who was no longer here. Tears welled up in my face, but I couldn’t really bring myself to cry.

Suddenly, my mom broke the silence in the car: “You want to go somewhere? I don’t want to go home right now.” I didn’t even ask her where she had in mind, and frankly, I didn’t care. I couldn’t be in the house either. It had become more like a mausoleum than the home I remembered growing up in.

It made me feel simultaneously closer to and further away from him at the same time.

After some time on the road, the glint of the ocean under the moonlight peered over the horizon. She parked the car and we got out. We removed our black heels and took them in hand as we stepped out onto the sand. The wind was cool against my skin, and my feet tingled in the cold sand. The coolness felt comforting as it enveloped me, and I stopped for a moment to let the feeling wash over me. Just then, the tears started to flow, and I fell down and cried. My mom knelt down beside me and held me as I felt her body shake the same way as mine. We just sat like that and held each other until we felt okay enough to let go.