That damn ball. Look at it. It’s blown so far down the beach, I’ll never get it.
“Mom! Momma…look! It’s flying!”
“What?” I thought she, Mirra, my lovely eight year old girl, so self-assured and happy at the water’s edge was referring to the ball, but instead, she’d been pointing to the neighbours’ beach, where her friend Hillel had finally gotten his kite up and off the beach and into the air, after so many attempts that Mirra and I had given up watching.
Mirra ran barefoot over the multi-coloured pebbles that made our beach shine with intricate webs of texture and complexity, and in a trice, she was standing next to her friend. I watched the two of them together, the innocence of their age a perfect image against the moody water of the bay. It was calm today, but I was never sure how long that calm would last, and had issued so many warnings about the ever-changing and uncertain danger of our playground that I was sure the words were now just words, and had little, if any, meaning for my enterprising young daughter.
I loved to see her play with friends. Soren and I had wanted to have a quartet of children, in our minds they would each play a different stringed instrument and play for us in our old age, but one, one child, had been more than enough for me. Soren had seen the wisdom, once I said ‘no more’, though I knew he was sad about it sometimes.
“Momma, mom! Look!” Mirra’s voice carried to me on the wind, and I noticed that there were now little whitecaps at the mouth of the bay, and a small hum of wind in the tops of the trees up past the house.
“I see! Good job!” I called back to them, but Mirra and Hillel were too distracted with the pull of the cords and the crazy dip of the rainbow coloured kite as they worked together to figure out what they needed to do to keep the skittish creature in the air.
I looked the other way, down the beach to where I’d last seen our beach ball. It was floating at the water’s edge, bouncing off the rocks, being kicked back into the water, and then hurled back at the shore. That yellow ball, its thick plastic faded from age but still light and easy to throw and catch, had been in the family a long time. I’d grown up with it, and now we, Soren and Mirra and I, used it to play with on the beach or in the yard, and were always careful not to let it escape.
That ball had always had a tendency to want to roam, and it took some doing to try to keep it within bounds. I sighed.
I better go get the thing. If only I had more energy.
The ball smashed against the rocks one more time, and then, when it was drawn out with the next wave, it disappeared out of sight.
I struggled to my feet. Mirra and Hillel, were standing at the water’s edge, the kite at their feet. They were pointing to something on the far shore. They stood close to each other, so close, that for a moment, I thought they had put their arms around each other. I looked the other way, for the ball, and it was still just in reach, but seemed ready to be carried off out to into the now churning water of the bay.
Which way to turn? Ball or kids? Kids or ball? If only I had more energy.
I turned back to look at the house, which stood solidly above the beach and little lawn where the water had never ventured…yet.
When I turned back to look at the water, it was calm, but the kids, and the ball, had gone.
What was I thinking? Where the heck was I?
I turned toward the house, gathering my towel, sunglasses, and empty water bottle. Time was, they’d have been there. But that had been a long time ago.