Post "Raised by Another". Kate's POV. Kate reminisces about her mother. Lost belongs to all those wonderful people who keep me up at night trying to figure out what's going on. Enjoy.

Lost – Sinking
By Mystic
February 2005

It wasn't a lie, what I told Jack. When I was younger my mother would pack us lunch and we would go out to the ocean, just the two of us. We would stand in the sand and wait until the waves came in. I was seven, maybe eight. She'd braid my hair and we'd bundle up against the cold outside, then make it to the coast of Washington State. It was always the same crappy old beach that no one thought to visit. Mostly rocks, not good for much of anything really.

It was the best kind of beach. I never liked the ocean and I never liked crowds. There was no swimming at this place, which worked for me since there was no lice to worry about or things that sting or rip currents that could drag us away. We'd make a picnic and then take off our shoes and race each other to the edge of the water, shrieking at the freezing cold sea froth that met our naked toes.

Mom would always get there first, of course. She'd smile back at me as I kicked sand and pouted to no one and she'd say, "Quit your whining and get over here, kiddo."

I don't know why that always made losing feel better.

So we'd stand side by side and watch the ocean. The waves would come in like ice and we'd close our eyes and take in the sensation knowing all too well the possibilities of being sick the next day. That's what usually brought the sadness, I think. Knowing my father would get angry if we were sick. He would tell us we played little girl games when we should have been doing something productive like cooking or cleaning. Dad had a rigidness about him, I think brought on by too many years in the army. But mom didn't care about that.

Looking back, I'm not sure what mom cared about. When the winds would pick up and I'd start to shiver, she'd be too lost in the ocean to tell me it was getting cold. She never told me to put on a jacket or to get out of the water, just waited until the sun went down and it was time to go home. I used to watch her when I was younger. She'd get that distant look in her eyes and I knew that all she was thinking about was being anywhere but here.

I used to think it was because she never wanted to have me. I'd been told that by enough family to understand it as truth. My parents were young parents, forced together by a child. The older I got though, I came to realize that it wasn't that she wanted to get away from me, it was that she wanted to get away from my father.

Eventually, I stopped looking at her and started staring at the ocean. Maybe that's where I get my look from, the one Jack makes fun of sometimes. When I'm just so lost in my own thoughts that I have no clue what's going on around me. It's relaxing in a way. Or at least it used to be when I was younger. Things seemed so much simpler when I was eight years old. They weren't, but the mind of a child can't be bothered with much complexity, or at least I couldn't be. I'd let my daydreams take me away and when I'd look down, I'd be a foot under the sand and still sinking.

Maybe that's why my father pushed me so hard. Taught me to fight, to hunt and track and all the crazy things the army Rangers taught him. He thought I needed to learn these things. To be a stronger woman than my mother? Was that why it didn't hurt as much when he hit me? When anyone hit me? My mother cowered; I touched, absorbed, and kept on going.

The sand here is warm. Everything here is warm. It's easier for my mind to drift back to days I'd rather not think about here. Sometimes I think this place makes you think about things you thought you'd left in the past. Makes you crazy with the thoughts. Don't know which was worse, being on the run with my thoughts, or standing still with them. But the thing that remains the same is the waters coming in and taking away the same. And I'm still sinking.

Finis