Eve Alone

Part Two

The clock on Eve's phone read 7:19pm as she gazed at it before slipping it into the pocket of her jeans. As she breathed in the cool night air she became aware that she was walking at a swift pace and mindfully slowed it down. The streetlamps and well-lit houses illuminated everything around her as she made her way through the streets, drawn by the welcoming sound of the waves as the ocean became closer and closer.

When she arrived at the Sound, she took the short dirt track through the trees until she came out to where it opened onto the sand. For a moment she stopped, taking in the view of the moonlight shimmering on the water, before reaching down to remove her shoes and carry them in her hand as she ambled down the hill to the waves.

The sand was soft and cool between her toes and the effect was immediate: she felt calmer, grounded.

She fixed her eyes on the sand in front of her to avoid stepping on any sticks or broken shells, until she reached the firm, wet sand and here she halted. She closed her eyes again, dropped her shoes beside her and brought her hands up to run her fingers through her hair, squeezing it between them before interlacing them behind her head.

In this position she took a few slow, deep breaths of salty night air. On the last one, she opened her eyes to gaze out at the water. The tide was lazily washing each wave in to about half a metre in front of her feet before returning them back out to sea and wherever it was they came from.

Eve allowed her gaze to drift across the water and then around her to discover an empty beach. Not a soul could be seen anywhere-the chilly autumn night must have encouraged the customary evening-strollers to stay indoors and for this she was thankful.

Eve, alone, was here in this moment.

She could take in the full beauty, the serenity, by herself.

Eve was silent, sensitive to the fact this was the first time that day that she had had any real peace and quiet. She loved her boys, but they were a definite handful and drove her crazy.
Freddie still required the majority of her attention, while Henry talked without drawing breath  to draw some to himself. The sheer volume of questions was enough to exhaust Eve by mid-morning, most days. Every time she assumed she had the chance to sit down for a few minutes one or both of them needed something else from her.

The guilt crept up on her as she allowed herself these thoughts. Her breath huffed past her teeth as she turned to meander a short way from where her shoes lay on the sand; walking right, in the direction of the old wooden dock. Her gaze shifted from the sand in front of her, to the lapping waves and out to the gentle bobbing water, then up to the starry sky and the radiant crescent moon.

A "Banana Moon," as Henry called it.

Was she selfish, wishing she had just a little more time to herself? Was she being a bad mother or ungrateful for the two happy, healthy children she had been blessed with. Maybe she was taking things for granted. Maybe she complained too much about Mike. Maybe...

Eve froze.

Her eyes had fallen on something on the shore, about fifty metres from where she was standing. She couldn't quite make out what it was, almost white by the light of the moon, but there was something familiar about the shape that set Eve's heart beating faster. She attempted to move forward, her foot arresting in midair before committing to taking the step, the other following with reluctance. Her eyes never left that strange form on the sand ahead of her. As she forced herself forward, she squinted to try to  better distinguish any features.

Was is it?

Once she had covered about half the distance, Eve froze again, permitting her sight to adjust. The shape began to take on a proper form. Her heart jumped up into her throat and choked a gasp from her lips as it dawned on her what it was it looked like.

"Shit!" Eve whispered into the oblivious waves as she compelled herself to go further, breaking quickly into a run. "Shit! Shit! Shit! No, no, no, no, no!"

Her voice continued, becoming louder until she was almost shouting. Eve was praying she was wrong about what it was she was seeing, but with every step closer she was sure she wasn't.

A little head, a little body, about the same size as Freddie...but how?

It's a baby! a voice was crying in her head.

Or was she crying that out loud?

The baby was still, naked, quiet, its back facing her and its little legs curled up away from her out of sight. The water washing in on the sand almost crept all the way up to reach it but just fell short before falling away again. Tears were blurring Eve's vision, her throat hurt from the huge uncontrollable lump that had formed there and she had never known her heart to ever pound so loudly in her ears.

A part of Eve didn't want to ever make it to that part of the beach, as she ran as if in a dream: all her movements uncoordinated, limbs swimming through the thick air, her body out of her control and she was covering no ground. On the other hand, she was desperate to already be there, helping, handling the situation in any way she could; if there was any chance of helping or handling.

As she came to the last few metres, Eve struggled to draw in a deep breath, filling her lungs, ready to scream for help. As she reached the spot on the beach where the baby lay and she was able to distinguish all the baby's features in the moonlight, the scream halted in her throat and faded away to nothing. The phone she wasn't aware she had taken from the pocket, slipped from her hand, unnoticed. Her pace had slowed right down until she was almost stopped and her body drew her forward of its own accord. She had to see- she couldn't trust her own eyes. The baby didn't have any legs. The baby had a tail.