THE SAND IN HER SHOES
April 16, 2008
© Fred Dumpling. Redistribution is prohibited.
The worst part of going to the beach is having to put your shoes back on.
She and her brother sit in the car, their legs dangling out the open doors, their feet rubbing together, rubbing with hands and with napkins, until only a gray-brown layer of dust remains. Then her brother slides his feet contentedly into his sandals, and she grimaces, feeling the grains of sand that had mysteriously worked their way into her own flats and in between her toes. She pulls one off and shakes it outside the car, beating one hand on the top, but the sand refuses to come out. Finally, she sighs in resignation and returns her foot to the shoe.
As she settles back into the car, a small object strikes her on the side of her head. Her hand flies up to touch the spot, and she curses, even though it doesn't really hurt. She glares at her brother, who smiles and holds up a hard candy wrapped in red foil. Comprehending, she looks down and finds her own offending candy by her hip, where it had landed. Her hand drops from her head to take the candy between two fingers, and she smiles back at her brother.
On the ride home, the candies melt in their mouths as their parents make conversation in the front seats.
Years later, she is reading for the fifteenth or sixteenth time the letter informing her of her brother's terminal illness. She knows the words by heart, just as she knows the feel of the crease in the paper and the smell of the heavy black ink. She reads it anyway, and when she is done, she returns it to its place in her drawer, and she rests her head in her arms.
She takes a walk on the beach that evening. A group of middle-aged women play volleyball in sarongs and bare feet. A little boy runs naked from a flustered woman carrying small shorts. She walks along the flat brownness near the water, and the tide erases her footsteps as she goes. Then she stands still, looking out across the sea, and the water washes sand over her feet, again and again, until they are buried up to her ankles. She crouches there, resting her chin on her knees, and she lifts a hand to wipe the salt water from her face.
When she returns to her house, she heads first for her desk. She removes the letter from its drawer and puts it in a box. She takes his caps from her closet and puts them in there, too. She finds the CDs he's given her, the movies, the books, and the death certificate dated twenty years earlier, and she piles them in the box, which becomes boxes, sealed with duct tape and dotted with tears. She wipes down the counters and dusts in the cabinets, purging, cleansing, emptying.
At last, her tears reach their end. Her sobs fade in her throat. Her house is immaculate, the furniture spotless, and all that remains is the sand in her shoes.