Prelude
She
met me at the breakers, her fingers laced through sandals and her jeans cuffed.
I watched her walk on just toes, a trail of butterfly prints taking flight in
her wake. I smiled.
This
was a total dare.
Who
could get farther from shore, and who would finally reach the edge where land
ended and ocean enveloped us in its terrible vastness?
“Let’s
do this,” Amber said, letting go of my hand and pulling her auburn hair into a
ponytail.
I
watched, mesmerized, while she continued on, her eyes shimmering in
water-reflected sunlight when she glanced back.
“C’mon,
Joel, at least make it a challenge I have to work for,” Amber said, breaking
the spell.
I
caught up to her just as she reached the end. She shot her arms up in triumph
and turned, while a wave crashed against the breaker and soaked her completely.
Amber
shrieked, and then sputtered, “Victory!” albeit a soggy one.
“Come
on, I’ll race you back,” I said, making use of my lead.
“Hey,
that’s cheating!”
Back
on sand I retrieved a paper lantern from my backpack, the reason for our meeting
at the shore. The day marked the anniversary of my grandfather’s death. Since
Amber was there when it happened, we agreed to meet once a year to share this
task.
I
pulled out a lighter and dipped it inside the lantern fastened to a small
wooden skiff. Once it was lit, we walked it down together.
“We’re
thinking of you, grandpa. Horse rides, milking cows, and fireflies.”
“And
sweet tea on the porch at sunset,” Amber added.
We
set the skiff down, waiting for the waves to pull it out into the current from
our open hands. Then we stood silent, watching the light flicker, and the skiff
bob in the jostling sea. I sent my love out to the silence, although it looked
like I just stood there quietly thinking.
Sometimes
you have to put your love out there before it returns to you later.
“Think
we can make it?” Amber asked, turning back toward the lighthouse.
“Let’s
go for it,” I said, and we took off, running at full speed up the sand to the
base of the lighthouse. We entered the stairwell and took them two at a time,
laughing, huffing, and grabbing the railing on the way. I felt a knot burning
in my side, and a pang of something else filling up inside me, like light or
energy wanting to burst from my fingers and toes. I couldn’t explain it.
At
the top, we came around the lamp as it swept the shoreline, an enormous eye
illuminating everything below. We could see the lantern still chugging away
from shore.
Then
it got eerily quiet.
I
turned to Amber, and had to immediately grab the railing as everything started to
rattle and shake, a terrible thundering sound crashing like a tsunami all
around. We turned, and felt the building itself give way and crumble into dust
and debris with us inside.
#
That
was the only time I had that dream, although parts of it seemed like they were
things that could happen or might happen sometime later.
When
I was a child, my father read me stories and tucked me in at night. A few
times, I had night terrors, and woke screaming from a bad dream. He came up to
my room and sat in the dark and held me, rocking and whispering, “Shh, shh.
Daddy’s here. It’s okay. You’re safe now. Shh. It was just a bad dream…”
Back
then, I used to believe him.
I
also believed him when I asked him why we had to have nightmares at all, and he
answered, “Dreams are just practice for real life. We can make them whatever we
want them to be. When you realize you’re having a bad dream, just tell it to be
something different—you can fly like a superhero, or go on every ride at an amusement
park.”
But
that was before my nightmares began, and before he left me to fight them on my
own.
Click HERE to continue reading CHAPTER ONE of THE PACKING HOUSE.
Read the QUERY for THE PACKING HOUSE here.
