Salt Water What Remains

I pushed through the heavy water, each stroke a meditation I'd learned by necessity. The ocean embraced me, its cool touch a stark contrast to the fevered grief that still lived in my chest. At fifty-two, I'd discovered that swimming wasn't just exercise—it was how I processed the unprocessable.

The shore held Charlie's ghost. Six months after the funeral, his orange baseball cap still sat on the deck railing where he'd left it last June. He'd worn it to every one of Toby's little league games, cheering from the bleachers until our son stopped playing at fourteen, stopped coming to the beach house at sixteen, stopped calling after the argument about his stepfather that neither of them would ever resolve. I'd watched them drift apart like separate continents, helpless as the tide.

I touched bottom, then kicked toward the surface, breaking through into sharp morning air. A baseball bobbed near the dock—some child's lost toy from yesterday's beach crowd. I grabbed it, the worn leather familiar under my fingers, and remembered how Charlie would toss one to me across the water, both of us fully clothed and laughing, in that foolish way of people who believe they have forever.

The sun bled orange across the horizon as I swam back to shore, the baseball tucked under my arm like a small, heavy hope. My phone buzzed on the beach towel—Portland area code. I let it ring.

Some things you carry through the water until they're light enough to let go. Others, you keep swimming toward, even when you can't see the shore anymore.