Summer Shorts - Anthology

That Familiar Place

That Familiar Place 

by michellewrites

"Nothing is ever really lost to us as long as we remember it." –L.M. Montgomery

It was the sound of the waves crashing against the large rocks you always heard first. The ins and outs of the ocean as it swooshed and crashed.

Swoosh swoosh crash. Swoosh swoosh crash.

It was rhythmic, so much so that sometimes I would find myself humming along unintentionally as the distance between our car and the beach dissipated, the boardwalk and sandy ground appearing bit by bit. It had always felt like being home, as if Clifton Beach was the place we were meant to be all year instead of just the two short months that came slowly, bookending our summer. I hadn't been there since I was twelve, the last year my family had been whole. After that summer, the arguing and verbal thrashing which ceased only in the two short months spent in the colourful striped rental homes that lined Clifton Beach overtook our lives. Jenny went to live with our mother while I stayed with our father. Jenny and I never spoke of Clifton Beach to our parents. They had moved on, yet I remembered and so did Jenny.

In his new home, after the divorce, our father had taken the liberty of disposing of any memories that reminded him of our shared family summers. Beach equipment had been discarded, family photos boxed, sealed, and abandoned in the attic near unused clothes and old tattered books. When Jenny came over, as she always did on the second and last weekend of the month, our conversations always ventured to Clifton Beach. Even in the dead of winter—the trees in the front yard covered with a heavy sheet of snow, the branches quivering under the weight—did our past summers occupy our thoughts. We were careful, always speaking in hushed tones and quiet voices that ceased abruptly if our father came within close proximity. Those happy summers spent at Clifton Beach seemed to have been dreamed or fantasized, a mere illusion in contrast to what remained. Most of the time I could barely believe the stories and memories as they rolled off my tongue or came streaming, eagerly and vividly from Jenny's recollection.

There was the year when I was ten and Jenny seven that our parents had let us stay up with them well into the early morning watching as the fireworks for the annual end-of-summer party danced and fizzled through the sky. I still remembered how the ocean had looked that night, taking on all the different shades that illuminated the surrounding darkness. Orange, purple, red. Jenny had liked the red best. Then there was the way our father in his ritualized manner would prepare breakfast for all of us on Sunday mornings. Jenny and I would hear the sizzling of the hot pans and the clashing of aluminum bowls, the outside still dominated by darkness. The noise, or commotion as our mother liked to put it, always woke her up. "Vacations are for sleeping in," she'd say, her hair matted as she'd survey the disaster that was our rental kitchen. She would take in the scene, her eyes finally making their way to the kitchen table which held more food than four could consume in one sitting. Her posture would relax then, shoulders slumping slightly as a smile warmed her jagged expression.

My father's response mimicked hers, his voice light and playful as he'd say "breakfast is served." Jenny and I, always first to be seated at the table, would let out the collective breath we'd been holding. We never could pinpoint the magic of Clifton Beach or why at home this scene would have erupted into a battle of words no one ever won. Here, in the striped yellow and green house, everything was different. We were different. At home, we never ate breakfast together. At home, our father was never around long enough to sleep let alone eat.