worth saving—that was the underlying idea. MAKE CALIFORNIA FREE AGAIN, a sign said. IS GROWING FOOD WASTING WATER? said another.
“Put your hand out,” Hazel said. I rolled down the window and felt the cool edge to the air and the freeway sign turned to the 101 and soon we were taking an exit called Avila Beach, driving through hilled and narrow wooded green trails, magnificent houses like I’d never seen, with verandas and balconies, long drooping ivy falling from them, adobe villas and storybook cottages. We wound our way through the forested area until suddenly the blue ocean emerged beyond the trees and the road opened up into a town and seagulls flew over us and kids walked sandy-footed on the side of the road eating popsicles with towels draped over their backs. I felt light-headed. Realized I’d been holding my breath for some time.
We parked and got out and Florin said before anything happened she needed a sandwich and we walked into a deli and someone made sandwiches in front of us and we took them to the sand. The sand was hot under me, but the closer we got to the water, it took on the texture of cool clay. I let my feet just feel that and we sat and ate the most delicious sandwiches I’d ever tasted, seedy mustard with salami and olives, balsamic and pepper, and I didn’t want anyone to see the emotion on my face, for all the gratitude I felt for them in that moment was bigger than anything I’d ever known. What could I have hoped for in this life that wasn’t before me? The waves crashed on the shore and I’d like to say I thought kindly of my mother then, missed her, or wanted her to be there with me, and though for the rest of my life I would feel that way at different times, seeing a particularly arresting vista, or eating a heavenly crème br?lée, right then I felt only the sting of resentment, that all my life she had deprived me of this place, this absolute paradise just a few hours from our desert kickdown town.
“We thought we’d have a little baby shower for you here, hon,” Daisy said. In the bright, special sun of Avila I couldn’t see her scars anymore. She only gleamed. I opened the presents slowly, savoring each one, the sweet footed pajamas and the little yellow sun hat with SPF protection built in somehow and the small bottles of shampoo, “samples so you can try them out and pick a favorite,” Florin said, and Hazel got me a muslin blanket with the moon phases on it and then they presented me with the beautiful gauze shift Hazel had worn the night I met her. “For after you have the baby. You’ll want to feel nice,” she said. I was silent. I almost couldn’t handle it. I needed time to freeze so I could grow a heart big enough to accept the day.
I got up and walked the beach. I let the water kiss my feet. It was cold but cleansing and I gulped the pure air. I waded in and let the water cover my belly so Artichoke could feel the ocean. I would take her here, I decided. I would take her exactly here one day. She would know the roar of the waves and she’d build sand castles and be like the children walking careless through the town with sunburned cheeks, with their blind hope for life. As long as I stood in that water, I had it. I felt it. I knew that God was bigger than my own understanding, and the thought was not frightening, but a sudden comfort. If after all my believing years I still didn’t understand God, then that meant there was life outside of my own, that there were still yet other things I didn’t understand, but could come to know if I wanted. I could let the possibility of the world slowly unfurl before me. Any thought that I could give this baby away evaporated as if it had never existed. A new power ran through me, something of the earth. My tears fell into the salt bath. I felt right then that anything great could happen.
“I don’t want to go back,” I said.
Hazel smiled a sad smile. Florin sighed. We linked arms and trudged through the water for a long ways, then returned to our picnic.
“We wish you could just stay