Of Poseidon

Chapter Five

Dawn breaks unwelcome and hazy against the bay windows of the living room. I groan and pull the quilt over my head, but not before I see the stoic face of the grandfather clock in the corner. I picked the living room to sleep in because it’s the only room in the house with just one clock. All night I allowed myself to admire the driftwood clock, so long as I didn’t look at the face. The last time I failed was two a.m. Now it is six a.m. Which means, for the first time since Chloe died, I have slept for four consecutive hours.

It also means the first day of my senior year will be starting in two. I am not ready for this.

I throw off the covers and sit up. The bay window shows me that it is not light, not dark, but gray outside. It looks cold, but I know it isn’t. The wind whispers through the dune grass just off our back porch, making it look like a gathering of hula dancers. I wonder what the sea looks like this morning. For the first time since Chloe died, I decide to check.

I open the sliding glass door to a warm August breeze. A quick jump off the last step of the back porch and my bare feet sink in the cool sand. The beach is private, and I wrap my arms around myself, taking the path between the two huge dunes in front of our house. Past them is a miniature hill just big enough to block my view of the ocean from the living room. Had I slept in my room last night, I could already be soaking in the sunrise from my third-floor balcony.

But my room is full of all things Chloe. There is nothing on my shelves, on my desk, or in my closet that doesn’t have something to do with her. Awards, pictures, makeup, clothes, shoes, stuffed animals. Even my bedding—a quilted collage of pictures from our childhood we made together for a school project. If I took everything out of my room connected to Chloe, my room would be pretty empty.

The same as I feel inside.

I stop a few feet from the wet sand and plop down, drawing my knees to my chest. Morning tide makes a great companion when you don’t want to be around people. It soothes and comforts and doesn’t ask for anything. But the sun does. The higher it gets, the more I am reminded that nothing stops time. There is no escaping it. It slips by no matter if you’re looking at a driftwood grandfather clock or the sun.

My first day of school without Chloe has arrived.

I wipe the tears from my eyes and stand. I scrunch my toes in the sand with each step back to the house. Mom waits for me on the back-porch steps, smoothing out her robe with one hand and holding a travel mug of coffee in the other. Set against the gray-shingle beach house, she looks like an apparition in her white robe—except apparitions don’t have long ebony hair, shockingly blue eyes, or drink espresso. She smiles the way a mother should smile at a daughter who is overwhelmed by loss. And it makes my tears spill bigger and faster.

“Morning,” she says, patting the wood next to her.

I sit and lean into her, let her wrap her arms around me. “Morning,” I rasp.

She hands me the mug and I sip. “Make you breakfast?” she squeezes my shoulder.

“Thanks, but I’m not hungry.”

“You need some energy for your first day of school. I could make pancakes. French toast. I’ve got the stuff to make some good garbage eggs.”

I smile. Garbage eggs are my favorite. She hunts down whatever she can fi nd and puts it in my eggs—onions, bell peppers, mushrooms, hash browns, tomatoes, and what ever else might or might not have a place in an omelet. “Sure,” I say, standing.

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I smell the concoction from the bathroom and try to guess what’s in it as I step out of the shower. Smells a lot like jalapeños, which brightens my mood a little. I fling my towel on the bed and pull a shirt off a hanger in the closet. I didn’t feel like shopping for new school clothes, so my classmates will have to accept my old standby—T-shirt, jeans, and flip-flops. That’s what everyone will be wearing in two weeks anyway, when the new wears off their carefully planned outfits. I twist my hair into a sloppy bun atop my head and secure it with a pencil. I reach for my makeup bag and stop. Mascara is not a good idea today. Maybe some foundation would be okay. I pick up the bottle—the shade is “porcelain.” I slam it on my dresser in disgust. It’s like putting Wite-Out on a blank sheet of paper—pointless. Besides, I can be porcelain all by myself. I’m practically made of porcelain these days.