Sea Glass: Marie and Lauryn

Chapter 36

The sun had not yet risen. Instead, a thin veil of light stretched across the horizon as Marie drove. The route took her south along the River Lagan, through still streets that gleamed faintly wet from a nighttime rain. She felt that Belfast was a city that felt older in the mornings, like it had been awake long before anyone else. She passed rows of brick houses with sleeping windows, silent corner shops, and stone churches with spires that pierced the brightening sky.

Behind her, in the quiet of the hotel suite, Lauryn slept like the small child she so often became as she escaped reality in her dreams. She had barely stirred when Marie slipped out of bed, only giving a faint sigh when her arms found empty space. Marie had knelt beside the bed then, resting her lips against Lauryn's forehead before leaving a note for her on the bedside table that she was just going for a run and would be back soon.

As she turned further away from Belfast and toward Lagan Valley, fog clung to the lower hills. The leaves scattered on the road were a painter's palette, full of copper, russet, ochre. She entered a small gravel parking area next to the trailhead, where a small wooden gate led into a clearing, a trail winding through it. Beyond it, the landscape opened wide. Meadows dappled with morning mist, ancient trees swaying in a breeze that smelled of river water and moss.

Marie stepped out of the car and stood still for a moment. She could hear birdsong, faint and bright in the quiet. A pair of blackbirds darted from the hedgerow nearby. The air was sharp and clean in her lungs, the day bright and new still. She stretched slowly and deliberately, the cobwebs sliding off as she started off at an easy jog, her long, lean legs stretching out beneath her.

The trail wound beneath golden canopies and over earth softened by fallen leaves. Her feet found rhythm without effort today. She felt the beat of her heart settle into something steady, something deeper than exertion. As she moved, the landscape blurred around her and felt like she was sinking into it.

It let her be.

This was why she loved running. She had started right after she had lost her second child to miscarriage, recommended by a grief therapist to clear her mind. And it did, each and every time. Even when it was painful or she was tired or she had a lot stirring in her brain. It quieted her inside.

She ran past stone walls swallowed by ivy, past the glimmering surface of the river where morning sunlight now began to flicker through the mist. A deer watched her from a distance, still as a statue.

An hour and ten kilometers later, she slowed her pace, breath coming hard but even, and stood near the water's edge. Her fingers found the braid draped over her shoulder, rubbing the end between her thumb and forefinger as she thought a moment.

She thought of Lauryn, curled up in bed with Felix, her head finally resting in the space that her imagination created in her sleep. Of the way her girl had struggled the night before. Of the strength it had taken to be there, to let her family see her, to let herself be known. She let herself feel it now, just a little, her throat tightening. The ache in her chest, the overwhelming tenderness, the fear that still lingered around the edges of her love's mind. 

She closed her eyes, placing a hand on the rough bark of a tree beside her, and exhaled. Opening her eyes after a few moments, she saw that the sky was lighter now, washed in pale blue and rose gold, stretched wide above her.

Marie turned back toward the car, pulling the keys from the zippered pocket of her windbreaker. Her legs were warm and loose, her heart lightened by movement and solitude.

When Lauryn opened her eyes, the first thing she noticed was the slight chill in the room and the lack of warmth beside her. Though, unlike when she was little, she didn't panic.