Sandcastles

The beach seemed like a good place to die. The ocean water had always calmed me, and what better place to live my final few days? I hadn’t considered the journey out to the island would almost kill me in my broken-down body. Hell, the walk from the hotel to the sand was torture. I shuffled to the water’s edge every morning for almost a week. Each time took a little longer. The movement through the sand shocked my arthritic knees. But the wobbly walk of an old man with shrapnel in his left leg wasn't my biggest problem. I was terminal. Six months left to live.

I fell into a beach lounger close to the shore and knocked the last of my wheezing breath from my rotten lungs. I dug into the pocket of my camp shirt and produced a pill bottle, popped it open, and broke the tablet with my teeth. The bitterness sucked the moisture from my tongue. I polished off the last dregs of my beer and swished it around my mouth.

I glanced down at the pill bottle in my hand. The pills rattled around in the bottom. For pain management, the pretty brunette doctor had told me. I can’t remember her name, but her eyes were blue. Hadn't that always been my issue? Focusing on the wrong parts of the opposite sex. I began to zone out, imagining all the things I could get her young frame to do, then clicked back in when she said I was out of options. There were no more surgeries or therapies. We had tried them all and failed. I slipped the bottle back into my pocket. Maybe tonight, I could find a little pot from the locals. It would be my last night, after all.

“Oh. Dang it,” A tiny voice cried out. I glanced at a small girl beside me, hunched over her feet and touching her big toe. A plastic pail and shovel were cast aside, and wet hair hung tangled in her face. “Dang it.”

Her eyes darted around and caught mine. She was very solemn for a 6-year-old on a resort island in a bright blue one-piece with ruffles along the shoulders. “I already messed up my polish.” She lifted her toes with her hand to show me and fell back onto her behind. “See?” Still holding the foot, she seemed unfazed about the clash with the ground.

“I do see.” I frowned down at the toes. The bright pink polish on her big toe was scratched to hell.

She studied me for a minute. “Your toe polish doesn’t look good.” She pointed a chipped pink fingernail at my toes. The dark bruises forming under the nail beds were ugly and growing bigger each day as if the toes would shrivel up and fall off like raisins. “I could help you. I am good at painting. But you have to ask nicely. That’s what Mommy says. I can get my polish from the room.” She patted her hand across her belly in a proud, matter-of-fact gesture.

“I'll consider it.” I thought about my toes painted pink in the cold morgue, sticking out under a sheet, and a few young interns making jokes over my husk of a body, and I shuddered.

“Your mustache looks sad.”

Can a mustache look sad? I raised my eyebrows at her. I had forgotten that kids said ridiculous things. Running my hand over my face, I felt the rough hairs poke into my palm. Janie used to cry out when I kissed her on the cheek, a shrill exuberance about the course hairs touching her soft baby skin.

I considered the amount of pain that kept my jaw firmly set and my cheeks hollowed out by sickness. Yes, I suppose my entire decayed form carried an air of weariness. I shrugged at her instead of explaining. These were things a child would find out eventually.

I thought about Janie, who painted my nails every weekend I bothered to show up and sent me to a construction site with a fresh manicure on Mondays. The guys laughed and poked fun, but I didn’t care. It was eerie how the young child beside me looked just like my baby girl Janie. I had to look away from her to get my eyes to stop misting and my fists to unclench. I pressed my tongue to the roof of my mouth to search for traces of bitterness. I glanced around the beach. She seemed to be alone.

"Where are your parents?” I asked once I collected myself.

She pointed over my shoulder to a couple in a heated discussion on the path leading to the hotel. “There.”

They looked a lot like Alice and me when Janie was little. It could have been a scene plucked right out of my past. A young couple was battling it out, and a child was left to her own devices. But she clung to the shadows to watch and see her neglect unfold along with our hatred for one another. Had I known the damage it would cause, I would have never acted like that.

“Have they been like that all morning?”

She nodded. “They are always like that. Mommy said this trip is the last chance for Daddy.”

“Is that right?” I mumbled and lifted my beer but remembered it was empty after tilting it to my lips. Witnessing fights always made me edgy.

The girl sighed and swung her arms, slapping herself with the loose limbs. “I guess he isn’t good at games.”

“Why do you say that?” I glanced back at her.

“Mommy said Daddy cheats.”

I tried not to smile. Dad was playing games. A waiter approached us, and I tipped my beer up to him. He nodded in acknowledgment.

“Where is your mommy?” She asked, running her hand through her tangled hair to try to pull it off her face. Her eyes matched her swimsuit.

How did I answer that? My Mom died 20 years prior, alone. Sick and confused. I hadn’t gone to her in those last years, and I wish I had. A parent dying alone would become a family tradition. Janie had no idea how sick I was, not that she would take my calls if I tried to tell her. I cleared my throat three times before answering the sweet child. “My momma didn’t come out with me this time. I’ll see her after the trip.” I slid my hand into my shorts pocket and ran my thumb over the insulin bottle. It was surprisingly easy to buy from my neighbor, who smuggled in from Mexico. It would be a painless death and a reprieve since I hadn’t been pain-free for most of my life. I couldn’t let myself fade into dust. I would select the date myself, and I was ready to go.

“Oh, you’re lucky. My Mommy makes me go to bed at 8, even if there’s no school on vacation. I tried to stay up last night, but she said we couldn’t go to the aquarium today if I didn’t get in bed.”

“It’s good to mind your mom. Mom’s know what’s best.” My mom knew what was best for herself but not for her children. I settled back in my chair, and the pain in my left hip flared. Leaning forward, I shook out another pill and crunched it between my teeth.

The waiter brought my beer, and I swished my mouth. The day became watery around its edges, and I knew I had tipped it into the perfect blend of doctor-ordered pain management and alcohol. I closed my eyes, letting weightlessness slide over me.

“Do you know how to build a castle?” The girl was squatting and holding the bucket as sand poured from it. It was loose and too dry to form a structure. She pouted as she looked at it. “Daddy said he would be right over to help, but he won’t. I know it. Mommy will make him too mad, and he will go away for the rest of the day. I hate when she does that. When he comes back, he walks funny and stinks like cereal. He makes lots of jokes, so I guess he feels better. But he never makes castles like he promised.”

Ain’t that the truth? How many promises had I made Alice and Janie? How many other places did I find to help me feel better? Bars, gambling, women. I was a lousy husband and an even worse father. I didn’t know what to say to this girl. I didn’t know what to say to my daughter. “Sometimes, Dads make promises they want to keep, but they don’t. They still love you.”

She huffed at me and shrugged her shoulders. She turned her gaze back to her parents, who were still locked in the fight. She shook her head, unbelieving.

“What’s your name?”

“Cindy.”

“I will help you build a castle, Cindy, but you can build it yourself. You don’t need my help or anyone else’s. You have the tools, and I’m going to guide you. Ok?” If I got down on the ground, I knew I wouldn’t be able to lift myself back up. Besides, the best tool in my childhood was learning to do things for myself.

“Really?” Her eyes lit up.

I nodded and took out my pack of cigarettes. Cindy narrowed her eyes at it.

“Nonna says those will kill you.” Her tiny fists punched into her hips as she told me off.

“Your Nonna is a smart lady.” I lit it, sucked in a long pull, and struggled to breathe. My lungs were peeling from my ribs in thin layers. “You better never start. First things first, dig a small well and fill it with water. Go on.”

Cindy ran for the waves clutching her bucket, giggling. I titled my head back, smoked, and rested my eyes until she patted my shoulder, ran a small hand under her nose, and whispered she was done. I glanced back at her parents, still in battle.

“All right, then.” I held up my beer for the waiter and explained to her the fine line between too wet and too dry for the perfect sand castle walls. She nodded solemnly and followed my instructions.

She was a sharp little thing. She turned bucket after bucket over, the next one better than the last, a tiny city of cylinders at her feet. It was haphazard and in no way resembled one castle. But she loved it. She danced around and clapped as she jumped over lumps of sand. My heart cracked a tiny bit. Those Saturdays spent at the race track were wasted. Who had taught my Janie to build a sand castle?

“It needs an aquarium. Do you know how to build one of those?”

I nodded. “Dig a nice big hole for it, then fill it with water.”

“It needs pretend fishies. What’s your favorite fishy?”

“A goldfish.” I held my fresh beer against my chest, rolling the coolness across my sunburned skin.

She laughed, big and loud, open-mouthed, her teeth tilted to the sky. “That's not your favorite. Those are silly.”

“What's yours?”

“Same as Daddy’s. Tiger shark.”

Same as Daddy. Isn’t that the rub? He doesn’t deserve her love, but he will miss it when it’s gone. And Mom, her days, nights, and dreams were given to this child and husband; invisible servitude.

I glanced down and saw a tiny white shell half buried. I leaned to the side and sifted the sand through my fingers. It was perfectly shaped and unblemished. I held the treasure out to her.

“Here. For your aquarium.”

“Oh my gosh. It's just like Ariel’s.” She placed it with reverence in the muddy aquarium. “There might be more.” She crab-walked around, digging her tiny fingers in the sand, pulling broken shells free, and placing them carefully in the water.

“You know, your parents do love you. Very much. They are human, too. They are distracted right now.”

“I know.”

She looked over at me, pushing her hair from her face to look me right in the eye. Her bottom lip trembled, and she bit it, then returned to her search. I nodded. I wasn’t good with feelings. I played with the paper label on my bottle and watched her dig more shells free.

“Cindy!” Her Mom called out. “Let's go get changed for the aquarium.”

“Ok!” She shot up and dusted her hands off. “Will Daddy come too?”

“Not today. He’s… He has a meeting.”

Cindy sighed. “Ok.”

“I hope she isn’t bothering you.” Her mom offered me a strained smile, fake even behind sunglasses.

“No,” I croaked. “No bother. She reminded me of my little girl when she was young.” I was unsure if she had heard me; she moved back to the path.

“Will you be here tomorrow? For more castles?” Cindy’s eyes held so much hope, her smile radiant.

“How long are you here for?” I stuck my hand in my pocket and rolled the insulin in my palm, thinking.

“The whole week!” Cindy bounced on her toes.

“Well. Ok, then. I’ll see you tomorrow.”