by Nancy Rue
Irish setters barking. The teakettle whistling. The phone ringing.
It all stirred toward normal, whatever that was going to be now, with the sands shifting the way they were.
“You okay, Mom?”
I held my hand out to Tristan. She closed the door behind her and moved into the circle of my arm.
“I’m just feeling a little bit like a sand dune right now,” I said. “Who was on the phone?”
“Detective Malone. He called to welcome me home.” She let her eyebrows lift and settle. “I don’t know him, but he sounded nice.”
“He’s part of your story,” I said.
A shadow passed through her eyes. I’d seen it drift in and out of her mood during the week we’d just been through. Sometimes it appeared for a fleeting moment, but more often it lingered. This one seemed to settle on both of us.
“You want to walk down to the dunes?” she said.
She linked her arm through mine, and we picked our way between the rows of potted poinsettias Hazel had set out on the steps for our arrival. We clung together in the wind as we walked toward the beach.
“Do you think Serena Grace would have liked her memorial service?” Tristan said.
“Oh, I’m sure of it. All dressed up in her little pink thing. All the people who loved her singing to her. Reverend Kate wrapping her in prayers. I think she would have loved it.”
“I loved her,” Tristan whispered.
Our boots churned in the sand as we moved to the sunny side of a dune. That was the only sound until Tristan coiled herself gracefully at its base and said, “There’s more beach grass than I remember.”
“You think so?” I said.
“That’s funny, since it’s winter.” Tristan brushed her fingers across one tufted head. “I used to worry all the time because I was afraid our whole beach was going to wash away.”
“You did?” I said. “I know Max would always get all feisty about it and want to run people off.”
“I think Serena Grace would have been like Max. I hope so, anyway.”
“Not like you?” I said.
She touched the grass with only the tips of her fingers. “Not like the old me.”
“Maybe there was never an old you. Maybe there was always just Tristan, waiting to come out.”
“Is that the way it is with you? Is that why you’re different now?”
I heard myself laugh. Not Marlene Dietrich’s laugh, escaping from a hidden imp. A loose, free laugh that I could no longer hold back. “I let something out, all right,” I said.
“I like it.” Tristan leaned her head against my arm. “I think Serena Grace would have been like you.”
“You know what?” I said. “I hope she would have just been whoever she was. That’s a lot to be.”
“That’s a hard thing to be.”
I watched another cloud pass through her eyes as she moved her gaze to the top of our steps. I turned to see Nick’s tall, smooth form beginning to silhouette in the dusk.
“Do you think he’ll let us?” Tristan said. “Be who we are, I mean? He’s already pushing me to go right back to school and to start dancing again.” She looked away from him. “I don’t know about all that yet.”
I shielded my eyes with my hand, and I could see Nick’s face. It was strained, as it had been for so long. I waved to him. He let himself smile, with a sadness and a longing I could almost hold in my hand.
“Just pray, Tristan,” I said. “Pray that God will bridge the gap between what each of us has and what each of us needs to just be.”
I kissed her cheek and rose from the sand and walked toward my husband.
The difference between Nick and me, I decided, was granite versus clay. And maybe that difference would never be more apparent than when we were talking about our daughters.
But when we got right down to it, everything always came back to God.
Acknowledgments
An entire network of people helped close Tristan’s gap, and mine:
Dale McElhinney, Doctor of Psychology, priceless consultant
Nikki Ivey, Search and Rescue advisor
Mike Redmon, Bethany Beach Police
Candy and Drew Abbott, Fenwick Island, Delaware—perfect hosts
Brenda and Ron Ulman, Gambrills, Maryland—Baltimore research buddies
Pam Palumbo, Bowie Crofton Pregnancy Clinic—invaluable source of information
Cordella Hill, Covenant House, Germantown, Pennsylvania—compassionate guide
Sarah Todd and Keely Cutts, Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania—Philadelphia cohorts
Joyce Moccero, Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania—reader and brainstorming partner
Marijean Rue—research assistant, reader, supportive daughter
Jim Rue—reader, wonderfully non-Nick husband
Don Pape, Dudley Delffs, Lee Hough—tireless confidence builders
Shannon Hill, Elisa Stanford, and Carol Bartley—insightful editors
About the Author
Nancy Rue centers her ministry around our need to be the authentic selves God created us to be. To that end, she has written over eighty books for tweens, teens, and women, and speaks and teaches extensively. She lives in Lebanon, Tennessee, with her husband, Jim.
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