Through Sally's Eyes

You turn the car off, but you don’t get out yet. You can’t. You’re afraid of these memories. But you’ve come this far and it would be a shame not to see it through. Besides that, getting out of the city was no easy feat, and you could have turned around and gone back any number of times. You’re here.

  You look over to the passenger seat, to the empty seat where he should have been sitting. He. Your son. He should have been there, smiling at you, pulling you out of the car, his green eyes shining in excitement. But he isn’t there; you don’t know where he is. He’s been missing for two months. On his seat is a notebook and a pile of papers. No picnic basket, no beach blanket, no Percy.

  None of that.

  Finally, you steel your nerves and get out of the car, bringing the notebook with you. The fresh sea air blows toward you, lifting you and pulling you closer to the beach. Your feet follow willingly, even though the rest of you aches to get back in the car and run away.

  Somehow, you find yourself halfway between the same old cabin and the blue waves. The waves have never changed as long as you’ve been coming here, but the cabin looks different now. A hurricane several years ago left it in worse shape than you remember it, but it’s not the physical difference that stands out. What you see is the memories, bringing your son to this place every summer, watching him grow up here. But he isn’t here anymore and you’re beginning to wonder why you’ve even come when another memory surfaces in your mind.

  You remember meeting Percy’s father here. It was a long time ago. You were so much younger. He was charming and handsome and everything you were looking for, yet nothing you thought you deserved. It was so hard to believe that after everything you’d suffered, something so perfect could finally be yours. Even if it only lasted a few months. You hold onto that memory is if it’s tangible, something physical you can cling to, and not just an emotion that exists in your mind.

  You didn’t feel that kind of happiness again until Paul.

  But that’s the reason you came to Montauk. You wanted to find the happy memories, and feel those happy feelings again.

  So you sit in the middle of the beach, halfway between your favorite memories of Percy and your favorite memories of Poseidon. The notebook stares you in the face and you feel a twinge of nervousness; you haven’t written anything decent in months and the publishers are getting anxious. What if you can’t come up with anything good?

  A breeze blows in off the ocean, playing with your hair and gently kissing your face the way Poseidon used to. It’s a reassurance. Maybe you can do this after all.

  So you put pen to paper and try.