I Left My Love in Catalina

The ferry ride to Catalina Island was rocky as I kept the urn close to my chest. The heavy metal containing my mother's ashes was a pretty thing with swirls of blue and silver and white, mimicking the tides of the ocean and the seagulls that flew above. It was the last gift I had been able to give her; her mind had fled from her so fast over the past few years that any presents had only delighted her in the moment, more because of the novelty than the actual items themselves. A shame, really: she had been such a collector before the dementia had set in and robbed her of her golden years.

When the Casino building came into view, I drew a deep breath. I hadn't seen it in person in over twenty years, back before I had gotten married and had kids, and I wondered if they still showed movies in the theater there. The last time I had been there, Casabalanca had been on a revival tour, and I had been so giddy. So giddy and hopeful and...

His hand was so warm in mine despite the chill of the breeze wafting off the ocean front. He offered his coat, but I laughed him off and said he could keep me warm himself. His smile had shown off the dimples that made him look like such a cheeky thing. I was still learning, but I knew that smile had set aflame many hearts. I wasn't the first, and I probably wouldn't be the last, yet...

The lurch of the island ferry docking caused me to snap out of my thoughts. I shook my head, bewildered by the pathway of my mind. It had been years since I had thought of him. But why should I have been surprised? My memories of Catalina were so entwined with the threads of how I had met the first man I had ever loved. There had been puppy love before, with the boys who were my peers in high school, but he had been in another sphere: a real adult—not a kid by any means of the imagination—who had had a job and everything. I had been the greenhorn in the fleeting relationship that had lasted just one summer. But what a summer it had been...

The cold metal of my mother's urn against my fingers told me to focus on the task at hand. I was here to dump the ashes on the beach, the one she had loved when she had been a girl herself—but she had forbidden herself and me ever to visit again after that August night when everything had gone wrong...

I retrieved my small luggage and hefted the urn more securely in my other arm. The clear blue-green ocean waves lapped against the dock postings as I disembarked. There was no welcoming committee for me—hardly. I wasn't Marilyn Monroe. I wasn't even sure I was a Plain Jane. The years had not been kind to me in that regard. Two kids and counting would do that to you...

Seeing the leaning rows of houses overlooking the portway made me remember the days back before Mom had gotten sick, when I had vowed to myself that I would come back here and live out the rest of my days as an island inhabitant. That had been before David and the kids, before Silicon Valley became the hub we revolved around like a space station orbiting the earth. David had said it would only be a few years, but the kids were already entering elementary school. Where had the time gone? Where had the me I had known gone?

The ghost of that girl surely still walked the pier and dallied in the tourist shops that the locales avoided. The drought had made the island a bit less vibrant, but I still saw the sun-bleached homes and couldn't help but think they were charming. Once, Catalina had been the picture postcard of all my summers. Each one had been like a handprint on my heart, though only the phantom traces of that longing still remained.

I checked in at the Hotel Atwater and found myself bemused by the liquor store right across the street. Perhaps it was just an impulse, but I went in the store and came out with a cheap bottle of Merlot. My mother wasn't here anymore to scold me about drinking. Maybe tonight I would sit at the ocean's edge and give a toast to her as I sifted her ashes along the coastline...

The crack of the slap across my cheek made tears burst instantaneously in my eyes. My mother's eyes were scrunched like she was a madwoman, moved to action by the fact that I had missed my curfew and I had the after-breath of wine coating my mouth. But she could tell when I had stumbled in the door that I had been drinking.

But the way she looked at me—I wasn't her daughter right then. In her eyes, I was a tramp who was doing the walk of shame. If this had been another time, she probably would have taken me outside and stoned me for the trespass against my honor—against the family's honor.

"It's that man, isn't it?" My mother's voice was taut, controlled, but her eyes spoke of wild things. Wild assumptions, wild musings, wild insinuations that I had done myself wrong this night when he had finally taken me out to the theater after weeks of pining and flirting...

"I love him," I whispered, my hand covering my soon-to-be-swollen cheek.

I expected another slap or even a screech from my mother, like a witch from some old wives' tale, but instead something seemed to darken in her usually-pleasant eyes.

"You don't know a thing about love," she said, her voice just as soft as mine had fallen. "You're deluding yourself."

Then, perhaps a bit viciously, she added, "Did you know he's married? Do you think he's going to leave his wife for you? And his baby?"

I hiccupped out a sob, uncertain whether my mother knew better than me or if she was just using hearsay to inflict me with pain. I just shook my head, my eyes still filled with burning tears.

My mother seemed to shrink in front of me as her shoulders sagged. "I taught you better than this."

Those were the last words she said to me before she started packing to leave on the next ferry back to the mainland in the morning.

That night, I found the streets deserted—it was off-season, so even the bars were dwindling in number—and the urn was becoming a pain to take this way and that. Was that my mother's way of haunting me? Being a heavy burden to carry literally while I was on the island? Wonders would never cease.

The short walk down to the beach made me give pause. I remembered standing at the edge of the water so often, the waves just lapping at my toes, but tonight it was different. Tonight, I stood with the lingering remnants of my mother, who had given up the place she loved just to protect me from a life she didn't want me to lead.

I was happy with David and our kids. I had a good job as a tech writer with a growing company. I had a nice house, a loving dog, and enough disposable income for a trip or two each year. I shouldn't have wanted for anything.

Except...

A breath shuddered out of me as I recalled the first and last date I had ever had on this island. I could still remember the heat of his mouth on my skin, the way he had kissed me as if I were the only way he could keep breathing, and the solidness of his body next to mine as I knew what making love was for the first time.

"Do you think we'll watch the stars together as we grow old?" I asked as I looked up at the inky blackness with its pinpricks of light.

His lips brushed my cheek, the scent of wine still lingering in the air. "I don't need the stars if I have you," he said.

And in that moment, whether it was lie or truth, I felt as if fireworks were erupting inside of me. I couldn't imagine ever feeling so strongly for another person again. He was my love, no matter if I was his or not.

I cried as I opened my mother's urn and scattered the ashes along the coastline. But I didn't know whether I was mourning the mother who had protected me so fiercely, no matter the cost, or a life I could have had on this island. Either could have been true, or perhaps both.

The past had caught up with me, as it always does, but there was still so much more life to live.