-10-
Alice
July 2nd - July 4th, 2023
Lighthouse Cove, Maine
"It's crazy, right?" Rose sighs, her eyes closed as the three of us take our places in the chairs on her balcony. "How being here makes it all just…disappear."
"Even after all this time," Bella adds with a yawn. It is seven in the morning and she is the definition of the weary traveler; she hasn't slept in well over twenty four hours at this point and is starting to show the signs of it as we watch the sunrise.
"Every July feels more like the start of my New Year than actual New Year's Day," I chuckle quietly. Rose and I had drifted off to sleep some time a little after midnight, the day catching up to us as we caught up with each other. We figured getting a little nap in before Bella arrived at the house would be enough to hold us over until we crashed again. We wanted to watch the sunrise together, even though we're all mostly quiet and thinking about the comfort of our beds.
But this is what we wait for all year. Some have Christmas in December; some have Valentine's Day in February.
We have Lighthouse Cove in July.
"We all know how much can change in a year," Rose says. She opens one tired eye against the rising sun to look over at me. "You okay?"
"Yeah," I exhale, the contemplation heavy in my voice. "Leaving is never easy. The guilt just…always wants to win. But then I remember all the good that this place, and you two, does for me. And it makes getting on that plane just a little easier."
"And Peter wants you to go," Bella reminds me. "Every year."
"I know," I reply. "And Bree is always okay with me leaving because it means she gets to be spoiled by her grandparents. She saves the 'missing Mommy' part for the end of my trip."
"She'll be fine," Rose adds. "Besides the therapy you've already put her in, spending time with her grandparents is a healthy dose of medicine in its own rite."
"For everyone involved," Bella says.
"I know," I answer. "I know all of this. I just…feel like I'm about to walk down a new path now in my grief. Fuck, I sound like my therapist. Sorry."
I shake my head to try to clear all of the somberness away; we've all been awake for far too long at this point to jump into subjects as heavy as this one.
"Walking down a new path…like the guilt you've been feeling?" Bella ponders, and I nod in return. It keeps me awake at night. She thinks for a moment before turning away from the sun on the water to look at me. "Peter's been gone for almost two years, Ali. And he was sick for a whole year before that. That's almost three years of your life that you've been dealing with some fucking unfair shit."
I laugh at her word choice but encourage her to go on. And in true Bella fashion, she does.
"You're feeling guilty because this is what you want in your life," Bella says. "You want to be able to go on vacation and laugh again – but you're afraid to move on without him. But also, at the same time, there's a part of you that knows you deserve the life Peter wanted you to have. With or without him."
"You just have to decide if you're ready to jump over to the other path," Rose says, wrapping me up in her blanket. "And it's okay to go back to the other path every now and then. The important part is you keep putting your feet forward to whatever place you want to go to."
"Where do you want to go, Ali?"
"To bed," I laugh, and once our giggles morph into yawns, we all head inside to our rooms to catch up on some much needed sleep.
But Bella's question still lingers in my mind as I drift off in my room.
Where do I want to go?
. . .
When I wake up a few hours later, the sun is streaming through my blinds without reservation. It seems high, hot, and unforgiving – and it's exactly what I want at this exact moment.
I want to go to the beach.
And food.
I definitely want something to eat.
Once I have my bathing suit on and a casual, white beach dress thrown on top, I'm halfway into the kitchen when I remember we have yet to go food shopping for the house yet, even though Carmen, the owner of the house, has it stocked with enough of the staples for none of us to go hungry. There is fresh coffee to be brewed, eggs to be cracked, and orange juice to be drunk, but I choose to grab a banana and a yogurt before heading to our deck that leads to our beach. I place my breakfast, even though the time says it's closer to lunch, on the island in the kitchen before grabbing my beach bag. I had packed all of the essentials for my day at the beach the night before, so it doesn't take me long before I'm hoisting my bag over my shoulder with my beach chair in tow. Before I take off, I stop at the refrigerator door, smiling as I look at a blank whiteboard with a black expo marker magnetized to the front of it. We use this whiteboard every trip, leaving messages for the three of us to read. It especially comes in handy on days like this when our sleep schedules are out of sync and we don't want to text someone out of a much needed snooze. The whiteboard does the trick, and today I pick up the marker with a smile as I tell the girls I left for the beach and to find me there whenever they're ready.
The sand is hot beneath my feet as I walk to where the water meets the sand. This is where I find myself, twenty minutes later, sitting in my seat, just staring at the spot where the water recedes back into the current.
In so many ways, this specific spot on the shore is me.
On one side, there is turbulence and rough seas. Storms that have left me weathered and changed – much like the ocean and coast itself.
On the other side, the part of the sand and land that the ocean has not yet reached, is unblemished. Untouched.
A clean slate just waiting to be written upon.
Maybe it's not the guilt of moving on that holds me back. Perhaps it's learning how to be both of these parts, the damaged and the undiscovered, that I don't know how to navigate on my own.
And maybe, just maybe, that's okay for now.
Sighing, I reach into my bag for my camera, unable to resist the way the sunlight dances across the tops of the whitecaps of the waves. Sometimes, this is all it takes for the urge to capture life around me to appear. A single image, a single frame in the blink of an eye, has me adjusting my lens to the exact exposure I want.
Click.
And just like that, the sun's reflection on the ocean water has been frozen in time.
It probably won't ever leave my camera. I haven't opened up my photography room at my house in so long – too many images I never had the chance, or the capacity, to bring to life when life all around me was essentially put on hold or stopped completely. In fact, there are probably pictures on this camera I haven't —
"Excuse me, do you mind taking our picture?" A woman asks, interrupting my thoughts from walking down that dark path again. I'm grateful for the distraction, and I turn to her with a smile.
"No, I don't mind," I reply to the woman kindly, standing up with my camera hanging safely around my neck. "I'd love to."
She returns a smile in stride, motioning with a hand towards a large number of people not too far down the beach from where we are.
"Thanks so much," she gushes, and we begin walking towards the rest of them. "You were the only one here on the beach for me to bother to ask!"
"You're not bothering me. I'm glad I can help," I reply, my dress wrapping around my thighs from the breeze off the water. "Do you have a camera?"
"This will work," the woman says, handing me her phone. "I'm Maggie."
"Alice," I reply, but stop to hand her back her phone. "I can use my camera, if that's okay with you."
"Oh, that's kind of you!"
"I can use both your phone and my camera. I can email you the pictures from my camera if you'd like. No charge," I laugh lightly.
She never gets the chance to answer me before we're interrupted.
"Leave it to Maggie to find an actual photographer on the beach," a male's booming voice laughs as we approach the group. There must be twenty of them all standing here on the beach.
"She always finds a way to get things done around here," another voice chimes in.
"Just let the poor girl take our picture, okay?" Maggie says in exasperation, rolling her eyes at them as she focuses on me instead. Her friendly smile never leaves her face. "You just tell us what to do and I'll make them listen."
"When has that ever worked for you?" A third voice jokes and laughter erupts from everyone, myself included.
"Hush before you all make Alice run away!" Maggie hands me her phone again. "Ready when you are!"
I find myself laughing right along with them all, enjoying the family's good nature as they shift closer together for the picture.
"Can you two move in just a little?" I ask the two teenage girls on the left end of the group. I nod with a smile when I see they have. "Great. And you," I pause, pointing to the tall man on the opposite side of the girls. He stands on the end of the right side of the group, his hands casually inside of the pockets of his jeans. "Can you turn slightly to your right?"
He looks straight at me before nodding. Thick, short waves of hair rest comfortably on the top of his head, and I watch as the sun reveals natural blond highlights most people would pay a large sum of money to have. He shifts in the line, eyebrows raised in question as he obliges my request.
"How's this?"
"Perfect!" I call back, my eyes focused on him through the safety of my lens.
I feel safe there behind my lens.
Because when I look at him without any barriers between us, I almost forget what I'm there to do in the first place.
. . .
The next few days pass by in a blur of sun, sand, laughter, and afternoon snoozes on the beach. Paradise, really.
It doesn't take long for the island to decide which path I am to follow.
Well, the path I am to follow for the next two weeks.
"We're on Island Time," Rose reminds us frequently. She says it again as we make our way to the ferry as we're getting ready to head to the mainland for the town's annual 4h of July celebration. Brighton Bay pretty much shuts down for the festivities and fireworks each year, the strip of restaurants and public beaches essentially kicking off the summer with a banger we look forward to each year. "Time doesn't exist."
She's right. Time doesn't matter how long I've grieved or what lies ahead for me. Time is now – and I plan on making the best of the time I have. If Peter's death has taught me anything, cliche or not, it's that life is too short not to live it.
So, here I am. Living it up on a ferry with my girls and Carlisle Cullen as we eye the mainland beneath the sunset. We can hear the music from the middle of the water, and I see Rose start to move to the rhythm even as she sits in the seat next to me.
"No Edward tonight?" I ask Carlisle, looking pointedly at Bella while she brainstorms ways she can throw me overboard and make it look like an accident.
"No, not tonight," his father, Carlisle, replies with a laugh as he maneuvers the ferry with a precision he has mastered over the years. "Figured we'd give him the night off so he can check out the strip. At my age, you've seen one, you've seen 'em all."
"I definitely need to check out that band," Rose says excitedly. "I can hear them from here!"
Standing, I move to the front of the boat to catch a better view of what awaits us on the mainland. It's cool on the water, but not too cold that I'll be miserable in the blue summer dress I chose for tonight. It's simple, sleeveless, and falls to my thighs. It matches the smoky eye Rose had applied to my face before we left.
It's…fun?
God, I can't believe the last time I could describe myself as fun.
It's such a silly concept. Fun.
But I repeat the word to myself over and over again as we approach the celebration. Fun. The smell of salt water and lobsters and fried foods and cotton candy. Fun.
The tall man with the curly blonde hair from the beach two days ago smiling at me when I see him at the bar. Me waving back, and him walking over to me in return.
Fun.
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