An Elite Group

Sloane bit her tongue as Luke whined for the hundredth time about vacationing in Myrtle Beach. Because that was such a hardship for a ten-year-old boy.

She didn’t have time off, so she was working in the morning before he woke and at night after he went to bed. They’d coasted into town on fumes. Her sister, God bless her, was giving them room and board, but it came with a side of pity, which Sloane despised. She had sand in all the wrong places, and sunburn everywhere else. The only two emotions she was able to feel were annoyance and exhaustion, yet she somehow managed to paste a smile on her face as she looked down at her son. “But you love the beach. You begged me all school year to go this summer.”

“No. I wanted to go see Aunt Wendy in Hawaii. She studies sharks. Aunt Megan works with a calculator.” He kicked the sand.

The wind caught the grains and blew them into her eyes. As the tears ran down her face—not all of them from the grit burning her retinas—she searched for the words that would make things better.

Her former sister-in-law was a marine biologist. She used to send Luke stuffed sharks, books about fish, and educational videos about the ocean. The kid was hooked. For years, his dad had promised him a trip to visit Wendy in Hawaii. Sloane thought maybe they’d go for their tenth anniversary. She got a divorce, instead. Her son never got his vacation. Probably never would. The jerk was there now, however, with his mistress-turned-wife and step-kids.

A fact she swore she’d never tell her son. As much as it would blow back on her ex and hurt him, it would hurt Luke more. Positively devastate him.

“Well, bud, until they build a bridge to Hawaii, I’m afraid we’re stuck with beaches I can drive to.”

“It’s not fair.”

Life seldom was.

“Come on, kiddo,” Megan said. “Myrtle Beach is great. We’ve got everything Hawaii does except the volcanoes. And who needs those?”

He dropped his towel.

Sloane cringed. When he was wet, all that sand was going to stick to him.

“Can I go in the water now?”

“We just got here. Don’t you want to get some sun first? Maybe build a sand castle?” She wasn’t hot enough to get in the cold water yet.

“I can go myself.”

“Absolutely not.”

Sloane hadn’t seen a look of mutiny like that since he was a toddler. She fully expected him to throw himself on the ground and start kicking and screaming.

Megan opened her chair, then dropped her bag on it. “I’m hot. I’ll take him in.”

“You sure?”

“Geez, Mom. Don’t you want me to have any fun at all?”

She sighed. That was all she wanted. And apparently the one thing she couldn't do.

“I got it, sis. You need to relax. I packed a jug of mojitos in the cooler.”

“It’s not even noon.”

“It’s five o’clock somewhere. And you could use it. Besides, you’ve been up since four-thirty. It’s practically dinnertime for you.”

“That’s an exaggeration.” But only a little.

Her sister shrugged.

“Come on!” Luke tugged his aunt’s hand.

Megan followed him to the water.

Sloane watched them for a few minutes. They were out a little deeper than she was comfortable with, but her sister had worked summers as a lifeguard for several years, and she’d lettered on the swim team in high school and college. Luke couldn’t be in safer hands.

It didn’t take long for her to pour a mojito. Then another. Followed by a generous third.

The sun warmed her on the outside while the rum warmed her from within. As the hour grew later, the sand grew crowded. More people entered the water, jumping waves or trying to skim-board along the shoreline. A girl with flippers, a snorkel, and a fake shark fin entered the ocean. That struck Sloane as a terrible idea, yet a giggle burbled from her lips every time someone shrieked and splashed as the girl swam by.

She looked down at her glass. Empty. Maybe three was too many on an empty stomach.

But she was hot, and it was vacation.

Sloane poured one more icy beverage.

Megan and Luke popped out of a crashing wave, then dashed up the beach. Her sister’s face was white. Her son’s eyes were wide.

“Mom!” he shrieked.

The effects of the rum were instantly gone. Sloane sat up in her chair, her blood and body chilled despite the heat of the day. “What’s wrong?”

“Get the first aid kit.” Megan snatched Luke’s towel from the ground. She barely shook the sand from it. Instead of wrapping it around him, she pressed it to his leg.

As Sloane rooted in her beach bag, she gave her son a head-to-toe assessment. Blood trickled down his calf. “What happened?”

“I was bitten by a shark!”

Her hand wrapped around the emergency supplies she carried everywhere, but she stilled. “You what?”

“A shark bit me!”

The people on the blanket next to them glanced over.

She pulled the kit from her bag. “Come here. Let me see.”

Megan let go of the towel as Luke stepped forward. Obviously the water had made the blood run, because now the trickle—and that’s what it had been, a trickle—had stopped.

Sloane remained silent as she wiped the “wound” with an alcohol swab, dabbed it with antibiotic ointment, then put a bandage over it. Not that it needed any of those things. It was barely a scratch. The entire time, her son babbled about being in an elite group of people—shark bite survivors—and being excited to call his aunt and his father.

The people next to them smirked and went back to staring at the ocean.

She ended Luke’s verbal onslaught when he asked if they should notify the press.

“I don’t think this is the kind of story they’d want to cover, bud.”

“But they always cover shark bite victims.”

“Usually just the ones who lose a limb.”

His face fell. “Do you think this will scar?”

No. “Probably.”

That brought the smile back. “Can I call Dad now?

Sloane handed her phone to Luke, knowing the jerk wouldn’t answer when her name popped up on his caller ID.

A few seconds later, her son turned to her. “Voice mail. Should I leave him a message?”

“Up to you.” The broken bits of her heart shattered into a million more pieces.

Megan looked at her, eyebrows up, mouth turned down.

“Don’t.” She shook her head.

Luke had been leaving his father a message that would go unreturned, and he’d missed their exchange. He looked up and asked, “Can I call Aunt Wendy?”

“Sure, bud.”

When he started happily babbling into the phone, Sloane thanked every angel and saint in heaven that her former in-laws were good people even though her ex somehow missed that marker in his DNA.

Megan poured herself a mojito. “I know you think I over-reacted. I guess the ocean made the bleeding look worse than it was. But I saw a fin surface then dip. I was just about to make Luke get out when he freaked.”

“You didn’t see a fin. You saw a little girl wearing a fin.”

“I think I’d know the difference.”

“Not if you were scared. Sharks don’t bite people for no reason. Wendy taught Luke all about them. We’re not their natural prey. They don’t hunt us. They don’t even like the taste of us.”

“I’m telling you, I saw a shark out there.”

“And it just swam up and bit Luke?”

“Yeah.”

“Unprovoked?”

“I don’t know. Why do sharks bite people, Sloane?”

“Confusion or curiosity, mostly. I can’t see any reason why a shark would have been confused or curious about him. He wasn’t in blood, wasn’t wearing any colors that would have made a shark think he was a fish they’d typically eat. And, in case you didn’t notice, that wasn’t a bite on his leg. It was a scrape. A rough wave probably took a sharp shell past his shin.”

“I’m telling you, I saw a fin.”

“And I’m telling you, it was a little girl wearing one.”

“That girl?” Megan pointed to the kid who had been terrorizing swimmers earlier.

“Yeah. See?” Sloane sat back in her chair, a satisfied smile on her face.

Her sister nodded toward the ocean. “Then explain that.”

A dark fin broke through the water, skimmed the surface, the retreated into the depths again.

Luke pointed. “Did you see that, Mom? That’s what I survived!”

The blood drained from her face. “I saw it.”

“Isn’t it awesome?”

It was something.