Moonglass

by Jessi Kirby

  “I didn’t think I’d have any competition out here on a day like this,” said an unfamiliar voice. I turned around. An older woman wearing only shorts and a T-shirt stood behind me, smiling. The wind whipped her waist-length brown hair around her, and she made no effort to control it.

  “Oh, um, are you looking for sea glass too?”

  “Yup.” She motioned to the rocks. “We haven’t had rock piles like this in quite a while. Yesterday’s waves uncovered them.”

  I nodded and pulled my green piece out of my pocket. “Yeah, I just found a pretty little green one.”

  “May I?” she asked. I handed it to her, and she held it up to the sun between rough fingers. “Yep, that’s a beauty.” I smiled, and she handed it back, then reached into her pocket. Her hand rummaged around, making sure she got all of what was in it. When she brought it out and uncurled her fingers, I leaned in closer. Scattered over the palm of her hand were some of the most vibrant colors of sea glass I had ever seen. Turquoise, cobalt blue, and purple all mingled like jewels.

  “Did you find all those right here, today?” I looked around my feet, hoping for some of her luck.

  “Yeah. I told ya. It’s like somebody cracked open a treasure chest.” She chuckled a little. “I suppose I can share my rock piles with you for today. You seem to be someone who has an appreciation for what the ocean can uncover.” She stuck out her hand. “Name’s Joy. I used to live here, but now I just visit it when I can.”

  I wondered if when she said “here” she meant she’d been one of the residents. Who’d been forced to leave. By the state, which my dad worked for. A little wave of nervous guilt went through me, but when I took her hand, it was warm in spite of the chilling wind, and I relaxed. She had no idea who my dad was or where I lived.

  I shook it. “I’m Anna.” She held on, just a moment too long, her eyes studying mine, until I unclasped my hand from hers. I tucked my arms over my chest. “Aren’t you cold?”

  “Honey, look at me. I’m old. I haven’t been cold for two years, if you know what I mean.” I laughed a little, sure there must be some small joke in her comment, and thankful the strange moment had passed. “I’m gonna head up that way”—she motioned with her head—“so we don’t cross paths and have to fight over the same pieces.” She stepped effortlessly in her bare feet over the stones and continued on with her back to me, head down in quiet contemplation, like the rest of the world didn’t exist. I stood watching, and an image of my mother walking the beach the same way opened up in my mind. I was little, maybe four or five, but the memory was vivid and one I held close and dear.

  We walked together in the warm afternoon light, and every so often she would stoop to pick something up. She’d smile as she rubbed the sand off a piece of sea glass, hold it up for me to see in the sunlight, and drop it into our special blue pouch that she kept for these walks. Our walks had gotten more rare by then, but I’d wait for the days when she’d light up and ask me to join her, and we’d walk for hours.

  The first piece I ever found by myself was on a walk like that. She walked ahead while I trailed a stick in the sand, watching the wavy path it made. A translucent triangle lying in the waterline caught my eye, and I bent down to investigate. White water rushed up almost to it, and I snatched it up quickly and then held it up, yelling to my mother that I had found “a beauty,” just like she always called them. She turned and broke into a proud smile, then picked me up and squeezed me tight.

  “This one is yours, Anna. We’ll start you your own jar.” I dropped it into the special pouch and carried it the rest of the way, searching for another piece, hooked on the treasure and the happiness it had brought to my mother’s face. Out of all the pieces of sea glass in the jar in my room, I could still pick this one out effortlessly. It sat in the bottom of the jar, buried beneath the pieces collected over years of walking the beach without her.

  Water rushed up around my feet, and beneath it I caught a flash of a slick surface. I didn’t reach with my hand but put my foot down hard over the spot and waited until the water receded, leaving an indentation in the sand. I lifted my foot and bent down to retrieve the piece of glass. I didn’t much care for the brown ones, but always picked them up in case they were actually red. In the sunlight I could see that it wasn’t. I was about to throw it back when I saw Joy out of the corner of my eye.

  “You ever heard of mermaid tears?” she asked, eyeing the piece of glass poised in my hand. When she said it, I saw my mom again, this time seated next to me while we buried our toes in the sand. She told the story while I imagined beautiful, lonely women swimming beneath the waves.

  “Sea glass, right? Something to do with mermaids and sea glass.”

  She nodded reverently and took the piece of glass from my hand, then held it up in the wind and the sun. “The story is that each piece of sea glass that washes up on the beach is a crystallized tear that a mermaid has shed for a lost love.” I could hear my mom’s lyrical voice telling the same story as I sat next to her, my arms around my knees. I hadn’t thought of it in forever, but the memory took shape as I listened to Joy.

  She went on, turning the brown glass between her fingers. “They come from the ones who are unfortunate enough to fall in love with humans, and the mermaids are in for a lifetime of sadness because they can never be with their true loves. Only on the nights when a full moon shines on the water can they come to shore.” She looked from the glass to me. “And those nights are magical, but as soon as dawn comes, they have to swim back into the ocean, leaving a trail of rainbow-colored tears behind them.”

  I bit my lip, silent, as images of these beautifully lonely creatures entangled themselves with flashes of my mother.

  “You should never feel sorry for mermaids, though,” she went on. “They’ve been known to take that beauty and that sadness and pull down the object of their love in a second, if given the chance. There’s a poem by Yeats:

  A mermaid found a swimming lad,

  Picked him for her own,

  Pressed her body to his body,

  Laughed; and plunging down

  Forgot in cruel happiness

  That even lovers drown.”

  She looked out over the water, and I followed her lead. I could remember being little and thinking that mermaids were gorgeous and strong and free, because my mother had told me so. I’d gone to bed many nights wishing I would grow a tail as I slept so I could go find her, out among the waves, waiting for me.

  Joy handed me back the piece of brown glass and curled my fingers around it, then looked directly at me. “I always loved the story of the mermaid tears best, though. It’s stories like that that make the little things beautiful.”

  I blinked and swallowed a lump. “I knew that one. My mom actually told it to me a long time ago, and I kind of forgot until just now.” I looked down and traced a circle around a rock with my big toe, hoping she wouldn’t notice my watery eyes.

  Joy put her hand on my shoulder. “Honey, I told Corinne that story, many years ago, almost in this same spot.”

  Air rushed out of me at the mention of my mother’s name. I whipped my head up to face her. “You knew my mother?”

  Her face softened. “I sure did.” She stopped for a moment. “She was around here a lot in the old days, and we got to know each other, on account of us both liking to walk the beach.”

  I stared at her, a million questions surfacing in my mind. But I didn’t trust my voice to ask any of them. Joy started walking, and I went with her, pulled, like the tide to the moon. She turned to me and laughed softly. “You know, she learned all she knew about sea glass from me—from the best places to find it, to the rarest colors, to the story of the mermaids. She learned it from me, walking this same stretch of beach.” I could only nod, willing her to go on. I ceased to be aware of the wind and cold and walked as if I was underwater. Joy’s voice and the prospect of hearing more about my mother were the only things that filtered through. She looked over at me, and I saw sym
pathy and concern, the two hardest things in the world for me to take. “You look a lot like her, you know? Except for the brown eyes. That’s your dad in you. Hers were the truest green I have ever seen. Sea green.”

  “That’s what everyone says.” I wiped my nose with my sweatshirt sleeve. “I wish I could really remember, on my own. We have a million pictures, but I feel like I don’t have her in my mind without them. Just little bits, here and there.” Joy squatted down to pick up a frosty white piece of glass, and we kept walking.

  “You do, somewhere in there.” We took a few steps in silence, and I wished that I believed her. “You know the clearest picture I have in my mind of her?” I raised my head, interested. “It was a day when we were walking around out here. She had come back for a visit, pregnant with you.” She smiled. “She could barely bend over to pick anything up. All of a sudden she let out a scream, and I just about thought she was going into labor right here on the sand.” I felt the lump in my throat recede. “I turned around, ready to holler for help, and saw her squatting down on the sand, arm stretched out behind her, like to steady herself.”

  “What was it?”

  “Well, it wasn’t labor that she was screamin’ about. She had found herself a red piece of sea glass.” A split-second image flashed in my mind. My mom letting me hold her red piece of glass, her telling me it was the rarest color. “It wasn’t just a crumb, like I’ve found. It was a real beauty. She had a lucky eye that day.” Joy’s sunburned face creased as she smiled, and I saw her for someone genuine who had probably meant something to my mother.

  “Hm.” I brought my hand to the thin chain around my neck. “I have a piece of red. Did you ever hear of moonglass?”

  “Can’t say I have.”

  “Well, I think it’s something we made up, my mom and me.” I pulled out the red pendant and held it away from my neck. Joy stopped walking and let the glass rest in her hand, just beneath my chin.

  “It’s beautiful,” she said, rubbing her thumb over the smooth surface. “No rough edges at all. Moonglass?” she asked, letting it fall to my sweatshirt.

  “Yeah.” I looked down at it. “When we lived up in Pismo and my dad worked nights, my mom and I would sometimes go for walks when there was a full moon and the tide was low. And one night I bent down to pick up what I thought was a rock, because I used to like to collect those, too, but it was a piece of sea glass. Since we were out at night, we called it moonglass.”

  “I’ve never thought to look for it at night,” Joy said. “But that makes sense. A full moon brings the lowest tide, so that’d be the perfect time to look.” She nodded at the necklace. “Was that the piece you found? Don’t tell me you found a red piece of glass on the beach at night.”

  “No.” I looked down at the sand. “Not that night. But it is a piece of moonglass.” I paused. “I found this one on another night. Just lying out in the middle of the wet sand, all by itself. The lights from the pier were shining off it.” I moved it from side to side on the chain and looked down at the ground. “My dad had a hole drilled in it and made it into a necklace a while after. It’s the one and only red piece I have.”

  Joy stooped down to pick up another green one, just as I saw it. “Well, honey, you keep that one close to you. That’s a lucky treasure indeed. Probably was fresh from a mermaid on her way back out to sea.” A wave of nausea washed over me just as the cool water rushed up over our feet. I shut my eyes for a moment, willing it away. When I opened them, a movement just in my peripheral vision made me turn.

  It was the crawling man. He was just as I had seen him before, bent in a painful-looking bear crawl, head down, crosses swinging and pulling at his wrinkled neck. Joy noticed me looking and shook her head sympathetically.

  “Never misses a Sunday. It could be pouring rain with waves thundering down onto the beach and hurricane winds, and he’ll be out here, as predictable as the moon or tides. Every Sunday.”

  He didn’t acknowledge us as he passed by but kept on his slow, methodical pace with resolve. I tilted my head to try to get a glimpse of his face, but it was shadowed except for the silver stubble on his chin. “Have you ever talked to him?”

  Joy chewed her lip and continued to watch him. “No. He doesn’t talk to anyone. I figure he doesn’t think he deserves to. See that? His shirt?” I nodded. The single word stood out, bold and black in the wind. REPENT. “He blames himself for something, and in his mind there’s no other way that he can make up for it besides reminding himself. And this is how he does it.” We both watched him. “Everyone has their cross to bear, but his are right out there for us all to see. It’s his guilt, strung around his neck.”

  I didn’t say anything, suddenly aware of the weight of the red sea glass around my own neck.

  “I’ve thought of talking to him,” Joy went on. “Thought, all he needs is someone to tell it to, whatever it is. Let him get it off his chest so he can move on.”

  I stood, silent, watching the crawling man make his way, slowly, painfully, up the beach, doing his penance for something only he knew about. I knew the feeling. Nausea rolled hard through my stomach, and I turned away from Joy and dry-heaved over the sand. I felt a warm hand on my back as I stared hard at the sand in front of me.

  “You better be getting back to your house. Tell your dad I said hello. And be good to him.”

  I stood up and wiped my mouth. “What do you mean?”

  She looked down the beach toward our cottage, then back at me. “What I mean is, it can’t be easy for him to be back here. I could see it all over him the other day. So give him some time.”

  I looked at her in disbelief. I’d appreciated a story about my mom, but this was overstepping. She had no idea. And no place.

  “Well, thanks,” I said curtly. “Thanks for enlightening me. I’ll give my dad your regards.” I turned and walked hard, wind at my back. As I did, a twinge of guilt worked its way around me like a corkscrew, but I didn’t slow down.

  A woman’s laughter, followed by a familiar male voice, drifted down the steps from the backyard as I approached. I stopped midstep and listened, wavering between being peeved that someone was at the house and grateful for a distraction. And then I recognized a voice I had known since childhood.

  “Holy shit!” Andy blurted out as I paused on the top step. “She jumped from the top of it? Dude …” My dad just shook his head and swallowed a hard swig of beer.

  I leaned casually on the corner of the house and tried not to smile, proud that Andy seemed impressed. He saw me. “Anna Banana! We were just talking about you.” He strode over and lifted me up, squeezing until I felt my headache returning. “Guess you had some night last night. Huh, kiddo? Chip off the old block! You know, back in the day your dad—”

  My dad cut in. “I think she got her little dose of history last night.” He glanced at me and offered a tentative smile. A smile that asked if we could drop it for now. I looked away. “Besides, you were supposed to back me up and tell her how dangerous that jump is. And with lifeguards, too.”

  Andy put on a stern look and raised his index finger at me. “No sixteen-year-old girl should be jumping off rocks, drunk, in the middle of the night. With lifeguards. How’s that?”

  Judging by their tone, they weren’t on their first beers. The mood felt genuinely light with them together, and I was too tired to stay mad. I raised an eyebrow. “Just so you have the story right, I wasn’t drunk. And I think it was only midnight or so. And I thought you were always supposed to swim near a lifeguard. But you’re well on your way to being a strict disciplinarian.”

  My dad took another swig and rolled his eyes. Andy held up his beer, tipping his head. “Well said. Joey, I think the girl can hold her own. Anna, don’t go jumping off any more rocks. You’ll give your old man a heart attack. Now. Let’s call it done and get out there.”

  He looked from me to my dad, who I could tell was almost ready to let it go. He probably thought he should make me sweat it, so I obliged and walked ove
r to him, doing my best to look remorseful. “Dad … I’m sorry I jumped off the rock that you made legendary. I was just trying to make you proud.” I gave a little shrug and looked down, knowing it had a pretty good chance of working, since Andy was there.

  He tried to keep a straight face for a second, then shook his head and turned, trying to hide a smile. “You smart-ass. You’re lucky I didn’t drag the rest of the underaged off the beach too. That woulda made you a real hit with everyone.” I silently thanked God or fate or whatever that he hadn’t.

  “Who’s a hit?”

  I turned around at the sound of the female voice and saw, coming out of the kitchen carrying a glass of wine, a woman that had to be Andy’s. She was exactly what he liked. Tall, blond, big boobs—fake—and tan—also fake. She was definitely enough to match his tall swimmer physique. I bet she had fallen for that and the wavy hair. She stepped gingerly over the uneven paver stones of the patio and stopped in front of me.

  “You must be Anna. Well, you are gorgeous. Remind me not to stand next to you for too long.” She looked over at Andy, waiting for him to introduce her.

  He abruptly clunked down his beer and walked over to us, stifling a burp. “Anna, this is Tamra.”

  I smiled politely and stuck out my hand. “Nice to meet you. So … you’re Andy’s new girlfriend?”

  Andy coughed. Tamra clutched her wine. My dad glanced over at me, and I knew I shouldn’t have said “new.” Andy was always in search of the love of his life, and he met them over and over. His string of girlfriends stretched long over the years that he had come to visit us. Every time, it was a new one. That was just how I thought of them.

  Andy regained his composure, wrapped his arm around Tamra’s shoulder, and grinned. “Yeah, sure. I thought you two ladies could get to know each other while we dive. Tamra has lived here in Newport Beach her whole life and went to Coast High. I thought she could fill you in on school and shopping and all that stuff, you know?” Tamra had smoothed her face over and now wore a polite smile that I guessed she had perfected a long time ago. Even my dad looked a bit hopeful.