Counting Shells

It wasn’t complicated. I did what all children did at the beach.

Sand in my teeth and sun under my skin, I would collect shells, counting each one out loud as if the sea would applaud me for reuniting their lost friends. I counted shells and mom counted boats.

That was the rule.

As her chair sank into the shadow of our umbrella, mom sat where the sand met the grass. She said the best view of the water was from a far distance, and every inch closer to the water would be to her disadvantage.

"How am I supposed to count all the boats if I can't see the entire horizon?"

Every so often, I would discover a shell with such uniqueness that I would run to mom to boast over my findings, only for her to lose count when I distracted her. So after a while I learned to wait until our walk home to compare our findings because mom didn't like cheaters.

One. Two. Three. Four. Picking up each one with powdered fingers, I named each shell as if I recognized a familiar face in the salted glaze.

The refined pearl white shell with petal-like edges was Grandma. She always looked so pristine and dazzling in her photos with her long gowns and expensive purses. Mom said she could have been royalty in another life.

The unbreakable, large one with rugged edges was dad. I always imagined him like that when mom would tell tales about his story-book charm and valor as I drifted away to sleep.

The small one with black speckles was Buddy. The dog I wanted so much that he came alive in my imagination, panting in the sand as I counted the spots on his wriggling body

Mom always promised me she would find my Buddy one day and bring him home to me if I kept the apartment clean and my grades high. So during the school year I would read as much as I could, and every summer, I would scrub the sticky floors before I went to sleep.

Although I loved reading, summer was my favorite because we went to the beach every day. Even when mom would come home late from the salon, after sneaking into my room to give me a cherry goodnight kiss on my forehead. I never knew why people wanted hair cuts so late at night, but she said that some big money like lawyers and business men can't get out of the office until almost midnight.

But every morning, no matter how tired she looked, mom would grab two apples, a big jug of water and her chair and we would walk to the shore while I told her about the dreams I had the night before.

Sometimes mom looked so tired in the mornings that she looked sick. But she always had a reason for how she looked.

"I had too many nightmares. You know, like the one you get about the big black shadow in your dresser. I couldn't sleep a wink."

"The subway shut down and I was trapped in the train for so long that I fell asleep. When the train started running again I rode from end to end until my sore neck woke me. I have an awful head ache from sleeping sitting up all night."

"My coworker brought us take out last night at the salon and I got food poisoning. Don't worry, it's not contagious."

She got sick a lot. That is why she had to drink so much red medicine from those bottles. My medicine was red too. Cherry flavored. But I only had to take it a few times cause I didn't get sick as much as mom.

Five. Six. Seven. Eight. I counted shells like bottles. I would fill the bucket to the brim with faces and personalies and mom would count the ships through sun glasses as they mirrored on the edge of the horizon. Sometimes she would concentrate so eagerly that she would suddenly slip into a dream about being trapped on a sinking ship and wake up with burnt skin to match the medicine in her waterbottle.

When the afternoon would start to fade away, mom would yell at me to help clean up so we could go home. I had to hold up the umbrella because mom's legs would fall asleep from sitting so long and sometimes she would even fall over.

Then we would tell eachother about our tallies. Mom saw a boat that looked like a pirate ship. I saw a shell that looked like Miss Leeland from school. Mom saw a boat that had a diving board at the end. I saw a shell that looked like the man that comes to tighten the screws on mom's bed. Mom saw a boat that had my name written on the side. I saw a shell that looked like Mr Jeffrey's that looked after me when mom would go to work.

We'd walk past the icecream parlour and the gas station. Sometimes mom would pretend to not know the way home, but mom was always joking around like that. Sometimes I would take the wrong turn too just to make her laugh.

She would ask me about Buddy and what tricks I am teaching him. I would ask her about dad and when he would be back from his top secret mission. She would ask me who my best friend was at school. I would ask her if she had any of grandma's old gowns. She would ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I would ask her how much her rich clients tipped her for their hair cuts.

Soon, our conversations would come to an end when we would drag our sore feet up seven flights of stairs to our little apartment. I would put a bowl of water on the ground for Buddy to pretend to lap up while mom took a nap. Mr Jeffries would come over with sandwiches and licorice as mom got dressed for work. And then she would tuck me into bed and tell me to dream about all the shells I would find tomorrow.

And as I drifted away with Mr Jeffrey's watching television in the other room, I could still hear the water lap at the shore, boats in the distance, sand hugging my toes, as I count shells.

It wasn't complicated. I did what all kids did at the beach.