A Spot by the Sea

On the corner of 10th and Cherry street there stood a mystery that called to me in my youth. Where many eyes would pass with haste, I spotted something in my unhurried curiosity at the young age of eleven. Behind a row of cottonwoods, if one waited for the wind to blow, you could see the narrow peak of a house, and a single circular window. From the first moment I laid eyes upon it, I was fascinated by it. Its mystery beckoned to me.

No one lived there, that much became clear quickly. My parents knew as much about it as I did, which was nothing.

My mother asked around, but the consensus was that it was long abandoned and visited only by teenagers looking for a place to hang out. One woman, Bertha, the oldest woman in town, said a man had lived there that had loved a woman so fiercely he passed just days after her passing some fifty years before. But little stock was placed in Bertha. She often did not know her own name, her address, or the current year.

On the eve of my fourteenth birthday I walked along Cherry Street, stopping to gaze up at the hidden house. As I stood there a feeling of hurry overtook me, as though I was running out of time.

With bravery I didn't know I had, I set off for the house.

Branches and vines whipped at my face and pulled at my clothes, but forward still I pressed. When it cleared, I looked upon a small but proud two story colonial style home, with light gray edging and white woodwork all the way around.

Time had laid hands on every piece of the home. Leaves covered the porch, and spider webs and bird nests were found everywhere spiders and birds could get. Yet it was beautiful, it was fantastic. It was splendid in the way only age could make a place, excellent in the way you could only imagine what tales it had to tell.

Fear shook my hands as they reached for the gold handle of the oak door that guarded the home. Unlocked, it pushed open with a small whine, sounding so foreign in this holy quiet place. The marvelous wood floors were covered with leaves, yet the house held its pride. The master bedroom was off to the left, kitchen and dining room to the right. Directly in front was a winding staircase. I don’t recall deciding to go up them until my feet hit the landing, pulled along by some force unknown to me.

At the top of the landing were two small bedrooms. A hall led to a white door that stood just barely ajar. My heart began to beat so quickly I thought I could hear it, and my mouth went dry. I knew on the other side of the door was the window I had so often wondered about, daydreamed of someone looking back. My feet began to move though my brain screamed no. I put my hand to touch the door and with all my bravery pushed it open. The room was lit with brilliant sunlight.

A vaulted ceiling looked down upon light yellow walls that were lined with bookshelves, and on the shelves were rows and rows of old leather bound volumes. Two hundred at least. The most beautiful collection of books I’d ever seen.

And there, under the window, was a rocking chair. I let out a cry I didn’t know I was holding back. The chair was positioned to look perfectly out the window. I looked out at all the cottonwoods I had seen from the other side, and saw a beautiful view over the rolling hills of Eastern Oklahoma, the hills where I grew up, the endless sea of green.

Time had worn on the books but many of them had held their own well. I ran my hand along the spines and felt love for them that I wasn’t sure was completely my own. On the shelf nearest the rocking chair were books I did not expect to find in the landlocked state of Oklahoma. Books upon books concerning the ocean. They looked the most well loved of all. Their spines bent so many times the titles were nearly impossible to read. I wondered who had spent all this time looking at this green ocean before them dreaming of blue waters elsewhere.

I explored the books until the sun was almost down. As I put a book back on the shelf I slipped and dropped it, while trying to catch it I knocked a different book off the row beneath. It was a small black book that carried no title, nor an author. It pulled all the edges of my curiosity. I don’t know what compelled me, but it felt like something I’d been looking for. Waiting for. I’ve never been a thief before.

But I took it.

When I made it home I waited until right before bed to examine my find. I held it in my hands, curious how something so small could have such a hold on me. Finally, I opened it to read it.

My love, the light has left this home without you. I stand in what was ours and I wonder what there is here for me without you to enjoy it with, to be with, to be near. I would have danced with you in the kitchen more often if I had known how short life really is. I would have kissed you twice as often. Three times as often.

I’m not sure why I’m trying to write. You got me this notebook so long ago, for all my big words you had joked. And I never took the time. Now all I have is time. But you are not here to read the words.

Of all the many things I’ve thought to say in these few days without you, the thing that comes back the most is how sorry I am I never took you to the ocean. I didn’t tell you I was saving money to retire away from here, get us an apartment by the shore. I wanted it to be a surprise. But you got so sick, so quickly. We just couldn’t beat time.

My love, without you here the house grows cold and the world outside bears no interest for me. I’ve sold off nearly everything in the house but I can not touch these books, the chair you sat in day after day, looking out the window. I have nothing to do with this money and I have no will to go anywhere that you are not. I feel my heart failing without you to remind me how to breathe, how to keep going.

You would laugh at this, but I knew you would find the money if I put it anywhere else in the house other than where you so often were. Right under your nose. See? I do have my surprises. I picked the largest novels I knew you would never pick up. The collection of Proof of Facts has all the money I saved. My dear Marie, I am so sorry for everything I could not do for you. I am so thankful for everything you did for me.

I hope that heaven resides on the shore and I hope there is a rocking chair there for you and a library of endless books for you to read aloud to me.

I am not far behind you now.

I will see you soon my love, save me a spot by the sea.

Yours forever,

Louise

My hands are numb, my breathing short. Marie. Marie who sat in the chair and dreamed of the sea.

The next day I return. In the room upstairs, there is a collection of Proof Facts on the bottom shelf by the door. As I open the books I am both amazed and devastated at the sight. The pages cut away and within five copies of books is $20,000 dollars. I steal for the second time, though I have no guilt. I have no intention to spend it.

I go back several times to visit Marie’s library until one day the door is locked and there’s a sign on the door.

“PRIVATE PROPERTY: DO NOT ENTER”

The city has bought the property and the house is set to be destroyed. I think of breaking in to take the books, but I have nowhere for them. The house is brought down in the early fall. I cry the entire day. But as I cry, an idea comes to me. Softly, as though it’s been there the entire time. Just waiting for the wind to blow, for me to see it. A place for my passion.

“Mother, I’d like to go to college.”

“I’m happy to hear that, college is expensive, though. We’ll help you as much as we can, but you’ll have to get a job to start saving." She smiles at me, "What do you want to go for?”

“I already have $20,000,” she laughs, but I do not. “I want to be a biologist. A marine biologist.”

When I turn 15 I get a work permit and I get a job in town, at a small book store. I work there for years, for a woman named Martha. A few months after I started working there, conversation came upon the house.

“On Cherry Street? Oh, that house was beautiful. Bertha was friends with the woman who lived there long ago. Marie was her name, I think. She died of cancer in her 50’s. So young, such a shame. She had a beautiful collection of books. When they took the house down they offered them to me, but there’s not really a market for books like that in this town. I sold them to a book collector online. Has a store down in Florida.”

My heart stops. Marie’s books made it out? My body begins to tingle, as though I walk so close to fate I could reach out and touch it.

“Florida, really?”

“Yeah that’s where all her books went. The collector had a little book shop above a bar. Right on the shore, overlooking the sea.”