Sliver Moon Bay: The Looking

Sliver Moon
Bay

The
Looking

Sliver Moon Bay: The Looking ©
Ivana Hrubả 2015

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This is a work of fiction.
All events described herein are imaginary, including settings and
characters. Any similarity to real persons, entities, or companies
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THEN

I like watching the ocean. The
fascinating thing about it is that it’s always changing. You never
know what you’re going to get. Then one day you get a glimpse of
its true nature and you begin to wonder. How is it possible that
everything has been like this, right in front of you, all this
time, and you never noticed? And that’s when you start to see
things clearly.

1

The ocean is green this morning
and a little choppy. The wind’s picking up. The birds are out;
waders haggle over same old while seagulls circle above, talking
amongst themselves about the stupid waders haggling over bullshit
down below. The beach feels lonely today with only the waders
poking about in the sand, looking for good stuff to eat. Still,
it’s all good until it starts to rain; big fat drops plopping down
onto the sand, dimpling the water, appear, startling the birds and
making me shiver. It’s going to be one of those days. And it’s only
early. Lilian will be cooking breakfast right about now so it’s
time to start my climb up the dune.

It’s heavy going this morning
so I play a little mind game. I imagine he’s already up there,
standing on the path high above, watching me, scowling under his
hat. He’s following my every step as I trudge along the sand
without looking up. For a little while but eventually I will look.
Despite the sweat freezing my spine. Despite my imagination
venturing into unchartered territory in this game of What If I
imagine I like to play. What if I were a dog? A big one, with
enormous, razor-sharp teeth and the right sort of attitude? What
would happen then? —Course, if I were a dog, he’d be a werewolf.
Game over.

I feel him up there. Looking.
But I won’t. Look. Not until I can’t stand it anymore, which always
happens when I’m about half way up the hill. And I’m half way up
the hill now. —Yep, he’s right there. Our eyes lock. But this time
I win. He turns and disappears up the path. Round one goes to
Sarah.

I think about him on the way
home. About the game we play. I’ve not told anyone about it. He
hasn’t either. I think we both feel that there is no need for
anyone to know. Who would I tell, anyway? Lilian? She’d only worry.
She might panic and tell somebody and then what? —Exactly. I don’t
want to leave Sliver Moon Bay. It’s been good to us. We all feel
it’s good here. Chris goes on about it all the time.

‘We’ve really become a family
here,’ Chris says, with a look, a poignant one, at me, every
time.

What am I meant to say to this?
—Okay, I get it, Chris. You’re tired of my teenage ways. I should
just be the daughter I used to be. Well, dude. Things don’t work
like that anymore. On a day like this we’re as good as it’s ever
going to get.

Twenty minutes later we’re all
sitting down to breakfast. Chris’s feeding Starling her eggs while
Lilian and I eat ours watching Starling eat hers. Starling’s doing
a great job smearing bits of scrambled egg around the tray of her
baby chair. It’s really cute but Lilian’s watching her with her
usual expression. Worried slash thoughtful slash whatever’s in the
mix, medically speaking, at the time. Today it looks like Valium.
Lilian’s calm today so I’ll be babysitting. Again. Ah, well. At
least it’s the weekend so I won’t be missing school. Lilian’s
leaning a little too close to the baby chair. She might cop a
handful of egg in her face but my money’s on Starling behaving
herself today. Today Daddy’s with us. Starling likes to please
Daddy so she won’t throw a handful of breakfast at Mummy.

Starling’s looking super cute
this morning, smiling at Chris and me, and managing to ignore
Lilian nodding in her face with that hangdog expression. I wouldn’t
blame her if she did lose her temper but she won’t. She’s a good
girl today, sitting in her baby chair, opening her gob for Chris
nice and wide. She looks like a baby bird, snug as a bug in a rug
in her nest. She is a baby bird, just born but already pretty clued
in. She’s learned the value of pity and learned how to work it,
with those bulging black eyes and that translucent skin stretched
over her big round skull topped with a handful of cotton candy
hair, to get what she wants. Yes, that’s our Starling, a bizarre
super cute baby bird, the size of a walnut but with the cunning of
an old crow.

Three years old she’s not your
average toddler, but the doctor says there is nothing to worry
about. She’ll grow just fine, he says, pats her baldy head like an
indulgent grandad. He’s seen plenty of sickly little ones grow up
big and strong, he tells Lilian, pats her as well, on the back of
her hand, to reassure her. I don’t think he’s having much impact
cause Lilian frets a lot, about the lack of visible improvement.
Bemoans the lack of height, weight, hair, eyelashes. Wonders about
the size of the skull. In a word she
fusses
, medicated or
otherwise, and it’s a burden. It’s wearing us down though Chris
bears with it most of the time. I refuse to listen. To me Starling
is perfect. Always was and always will be. She’s my star in the
sky, now and forever, a little starling knocking at my window. And
I will always let her come in, for as long as I’ll live. I suspect
that years from now I will wish Lilian could have seen it the same
way, could have understood how it was going to pan out, from the
day she gave birth to her—but it wasn’t meant to be, was it? I have
a feeling I will wonder. For now it’s better to live in the
present.

Starling’s chirping about
something just now. To Lilian. So Chris takes this chance to serve
me the usual. He’s going away for a few days to work on a fishing
trawler so he has a lot to say to me.

‘Be careful at the beach with
Starling, Sarah,’ he starts. ‘The surf’s going to be rough this
week.’

‘I will be careful.’

‘It’s gonna be windy today. A
lot more windy than usual.’

‘I know. You told me last
night.’

‘Watch out for the tide.’

‘I will.’

‘And don’t let her wander too
close to the water. She’s not to go near it, you understand?’

‘I get it,’ I replied and I may
have sighed. I don’t know. I don’t remember but it’s entirely
possible cause sometimes I just couldn’t help myself even though I
knew it was disrespectful and this sort of behaviour set Chris off
but Chris has said the same thing to me over and over for the past
three years, every time he’s left home to go fishing, and I always
felt there was no need to repeat himself so often.

‘Am I boring you?’ he turned to
me, pausing with Starling’s spoon in mid-air just in front of
Starling’s wide open mouth.

Well, what am I to say to this?
—Exactly. So I shook my head. Chris stared and Starling thrust her
head forward and her chin collided with the spoon. The egg
splattered on the table and speckled the front of her t-shirt, and
Starling began to cry.

‘Hope you’re proud of
yourself.’

Again, what am I to say to
this? Just then Starling raised her hands towards him, wanting to
be picked up. He pulled her from her baby chair and the two of them
disappeared into the bathroom.

It was just me and Lilian. I
could tell she’d rather have had this over and done with. She began
cleaning up the mess.

‘Don’t worry about it, honey.
He’s just nervous about leaving us.’

Well, duh. Course he is
nervous. He always acts mean before he goes away. Big deal. We’ve
had a long time to get used to it. I only wished Lilian would stop
excusing his behaviour. Chris and I never really got on and
probably never will, ever; there’s always been this tension and
Lilian knew it but it wasn’t as if she was prepared to do anything
about it so why even mention it? It’s not like I ever held a
grudge; I always told her everything was cool whenever she tried to
apologize for him, just to stop her embarrassing herself. And me.
So now I said that everything was fine and Lilian gave me a hug and
we went about our business; Lilian cleaning up the breakfast things
and me waiting for Chris to go.

He took his time. He came out
of the bathroom, all sulky looking, with a sulky looking Starling
in his arms. What a pair.

‘Lilian. Where’s the pink
dress? She wants it now.’

Ah, the pink dress. Starling’s
favourite. Chris brought it for her from one of his fishing trips a
while ago. It has tiny little fishes printed all over it and
Starling fell in love with it the moment she laid eyes on it. And
now she wants it. I hope Lilian knows where it is.

But she doesn’t. She looks up
from the dishes, confused. ‘Did you look in the basket?’

Chris gave her a look so Lilian
left the dishes and we both began looking for it.

Well, we couldn’t find it
anywhere. Starling sulked a bit but I told her I’d take her to the
beach if she wore her blue dress so she put it on and looked happy
about it. I only had to put her favourite sandals on and she was
good.

Finally, Chris leaves, after
kissing Lilian once and Starling about a hundred times. At fourteen
I’m not expected to kiss him so it is just a nod and a grimace for
me accompanied by a take care and see you soon. And off he goes,
with his overnight bag and his fishing gear.

And we can breathe. When the
cat’s away…

‘Sarah-honey, I’m gonna have a
lie down for a bit, okay?’ The bedroom door closed behind her and
then it was just me and Starling. We’re going to the beach.

2

The second time around, the
morning’s still windy. The sky is grey with only few grey clouds in
it, hanging low. Not a great day to be out but at least the wind is
warm. We can still build a sandcastle on the beach. So I strap
Starling into her basket on my trike and off we go, through the
back yard, through the forest, seeking freedom. On the way Starling
chirps, watches everything, touches branches along the path. She
loves the forest ride; likes to catch glimpses of the sky through
the tree canopies above us. She calls them upside down trees. She’s
such a funny little bird.