The darkening sky drew me out. From my vantage at my loft balcony I watched sheets of rain drift over the city and the bay. Dark clouds even further off the coast were moving in fast. The pull of the storm lead me to two-step down the stairs to the parking lot and run across to my prius. I hadn’t felt ready to embrace a storm in a long time, not since what happened before, but today the pull was real. I think I’m ready.
The drive was a short one, and soon I found myself walking on the shoreline, barefoot and bare-headed while the rest of Provinceton took cover. Venturing out to commune with the storm on the deserted beach gave me a sense of whole-ness I hadn’t had for some time. Just me and the sea, and the smallest whisper of the dead man who walked with me.
The curve in the bay sheltered our beach house, though I couldn’t visit anymore without great pain. It was filled with reminders of him, and laying in the sand with just a blanket on overcast days when we couldn’t see the other side of the bay for the fog.
Wes and I would stay well past sunset before heading inside, feeling our way back to the house by familiar berms and boards on the shore. Sometimes we never bothered. The blanket spread out just past the waves, we’d curl into each other and stare up at the stars with the surf forever breaking on the cove. Despite the weather remembering those nights warmed me and gave me enough courage to walk toward the last house on the finger of land stretching into the sea.
Today felt so much like the day I lost him, from a storm like this. Almost exactly a year ago a bitter nor’easter made landfall on our little haven by the sea. Wes and I loved storms. We’d gone to Long Point Lighthouse to watch the waves batter the shore with a picnic lunch and a bottle of wine, letting ourselves into the deserted tower to perch on the half rotten second story deck. The storm had proved to be more powerful than the weatherman predicted– the spray of the sea easily topped the nearly 40 foot beacon. We never should have gone to Long Point.
After being doused with seawater pushed with violent waves we sought the refuge of the lantern room, but it was too late. The deck groaned underneath us as another bout of the Atlantic came to batter us, and the wood railing crumbled away from Wes. I’ve never been able to forget the sound of my world being ripped away from me as the sea swelled to drag Wes away from me. The roar of the swell, the crush of the deck, and my own scream haunted my dreams. He was gone in an instant, swept out into a raging Atlantic.
A grueling year had come and gone with my night terrors only worsening. Long Point Lighthouse still stood, but my life had crumbled. The ocean I’d loved so much now was a symbol of loss. I feared it. Despite knowing we should have never gone to Long Point, I blamed the ocean for taking him away from me. It should have taken us both.
The rain seemed to pattern after my own thoughts as I arrived at the robin’s egg blue cottage I hadn’t visited for the better part of a year. The porch was under a thin layer of sand from the easterly winds and weeds had taken over my planter boxes. Rain pelted the eaves and poured like thick glass over the gutters. I fumbled to find the key hidden under the sand dollar next to the door, but actually opening it was another matter. I hadn’t stepped foot in this house since his passing. I’m not sure I could.
The rumbling thunder caught me there on the porch, the first lightning struck offshore and I could almost hear his laugh. Like a faucet on full blast the rain was pouring in earnest now, dumping heavy sheets of water and the Atlantic blew hard through the cove.
The lightning strike brought back a dose of adrenaline and the picture of one warm July dawn. I felt a stab of loss as I remembered how precious that morning had been to us. The storm had rolled in much like this one. We swam in the swelling sea, nuzzling close at the edge of the shallows when the first drops fell from the sky. His breath was warm against my skin, warmer than the growing light on the horizon. There was nothing but the sound of waves and rain, and we floated in the morning peace. He held me in an embrace then that I still ached for.
Wes. In desperation I’d constantly prayed that my lonely reality was all some terrible dream, and that I was still safely tucked in his arms. If only I were dreaming. If I could go back to that sunrise when the storm rolled in. The undercurrent had started to pull us away but it was nothing to him, and before I realized we’d even left the cove we were back, toeing the shallows again.
I’d always thought that Wes had been born to swim in the ocean. His aquamarine eyes seemed an iteration of the vast seas and it’s where I’d first met him as a lifeguard so many years ago. I always joked with my friends that he was the son of Posiedon and that one day I’d have to share him with the sea when his deity father retired. Remembering that joke turned my stomach now. I should fear the ocean now I suppose, but being on this beach is where I felt his presence the most, and why should I fear that?
That morning when the first thread of lightning struck further down the shore we both bolted for the beach instantly. Instead of bobbing with the current now we paddled furiously to leave it. The rumble of thunder above the waves followed as we scrambled up out of the water and raced to the safety of the porch, clumps of beach flinging and stinging at our legs. The adrenaline of beating the lightning mirrored the electricity filling the air.
As we reached the steps we were giggling with glee. He caught me around the waist and swept me up so my feet dangled above the sand. It was all salty kisses as we went up the steps to the railing. Seawater poured off us as we caught our breath. His fingers were smoothing my hair, his palms cupped my cheeks.
“You ok?” He asked. The joy was written on his flushed face for the pull of the ocean and thrill of the race in the storm.
“Yeah.” I couldn’t deny the thrill that coursed through me either. The pounding rain on the roof and rumble of another bout of thunder drowned out my answer. He pulled me close. Flashes of lightning illuminated the dawn. I could not have imagined a place I would have rather been.
Over the past year I had tried desperately to hold onto that memory while I laid in the dark at my new place. Shortly after losing Wes I’d moved into the loft in town. It was a one-bedroom loft I got after I assured my parents I would be ok on my own again… at the time I couldn’t handle being at the cottage by myself. Standing now on the porch I regretted it all. I felt Wes here, more than ever. More than I could hope to at 10 Pearl Street, and almost more than I could bear, but it was better than the emptiness that crippled me in his death. There was a lump in my throat and a sick twisting in my stomach but it was the most I had felt in months.
The low rumble of thunder started up again and brought me into the present. “Wes,” I whispered back to the dark horizon. The electricity in the close, damp air was just like that morning in July but I stood on the porch alone.
The wind against my face with the salt air brought memories back so fresh that I felt if I squinted I could pick him out among the waves. Between the wind and rain I could almost spot him out there, bobbing in the ocean cove. He threaded his fingers through long blonde wet hair and grinned at me in the midst of the gale.
“Come out! I’m lonely out here!” He shouted over the waves. The dark sky warned of the storm still rolling in but he was undeterred. I padded down the shoreline towards the voice, toes squelching in the sand as I stepped into the tide.
The cold hit me like a shock that caught my breath. The water was freezing, like sticking my feet into two buckets of ice. Gooseflesh pricked up on my arms and I fought a shiver. The chill of the north Atlantic hit me to the core and my skirt flapped furiously in a warm gust.
Wes turned away from me and swam further into the sea before glancing back to make sure I was coming. His dimpled boyish smile and twinkling blue eyes were clear even through crashing waves. I breathed in deeply and closed my eyes.
Wes’ voice carried across the storm. “Join me, love.” It was as gentle as a kiss across the flood of memories and time. I opened my eyes. There he was again, waiting for me just past the cove.
“Wes?” I asked, uncertain. I knew he wasn’t there. You’re imagining things. That thought should have made me feel alone, but I was willing to live in a moment of belief that he was here with me.
“Join me,” the voice encouraged again.
I want to. Wind whipped rain over the beach in whistles and shrieks. Waves battered the shore furiously. Hot tears and freezing saltwater mixed on my cheeks, my vision grew blurry and dim. I could join you.
I faced the headwind and squeezed my eyes shut, inching a foot forward in the sand. The beach was littered with beachglass. My toes found the smooth edges of one piece, and then another until I pushed myself forward into the surf without stopping. Icy waves licked at my sides but somehow the cold didn’t matter so much now.
“I will join you.” I told the coming wave. Sharp rain and the spray of the waves pelted my face, but it made no difference. It felt more like his hands cupping my cheeks under our cottage eaves, reveling in an electric storm. I smiled into his palms as his thumbs skimmed down my temples, brushing over my lips and eyelids.
Seawater was swallowing me up, or maybe I was the one swallowing the sea as he swung me into his cradling arms. The sand beneath my feet slipped out from under me. The undertow pulled, but I lingered to gasp the salty air one last time. My throat burned, my lungs and eyes were on fire. It doesn’t matter anymore.
I could feel the riptide coming. It’s him. Wes.
Poseidon.
“I’m here.” I dipped my head and my voice was lost underneath the crashing waves.
Wes pulled me into the current. I should have known. This is where we began. I was so blind by my loss. I missed you so much. There were so many things I wanted to tell him. I’m here now.
“I’ve got you now, love.” His answer was a murmur that thrummed through the ocean current. “I’ve been waiting so long, but I’ve got you now.”