by Amanda Foote
“All the time,” I said. “Every time I look at Bliss. I ache with it.”
“That must be hard,” he said, touching my arm gently.
“It is,” I replied, looking at Bliss, “and it isn’t.” I sat up slightly. “This might go without saying, but just in case, I’m gonna say it anyway. You know that we come as a package now, right? Me and Bliss. If you want me, you get her too.”
He smiled, so knowingly, as he always does. “I can’t say it isn’t daunting, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
I glanced out at the ocean then, moved by how vast and wise it seemed to be. It held untold secrets beneath its surfaces that some of us would never uncover. People are that way too.
Whole minutes passed as I stared at it until quite suddenly, I realized I wasn’t counting them. I wasn’t sure how many minutes had gone by at all. I wasn’t sure how many times Liberty Bell and Bobby had splashed each other or how many times Bliss had thrown sand at the birds. I wasn’t sure how many times Dillard had kissed me or even how many times I’d wanted to.
It made me realize one very important thing, and it’s something that would push me through the darkest moments of missing my parents and Cadence for years to come.
I lay back down on the towel and reached beside me to grab a handful of sand. I let it fall through my fingers, grains of tiny crystals falling by the thousands. I felt Dillard’s chest rise softly and slowly beside me and I smiled. Bliss crawled around on the sand and Liberty Bell had just pushed Bobby with full force into the water. I laughed, and I realized I was happy. I vowed to remember moments like this. Because sometimes you can forget how incredible time is, and how some things, timeless things, like love and flowers and sisterhood and the ocean, cannot be measured by minutes at all.
