Page 20 of The Sea-Mist Cottage Inn
“How is that your fault when you didn’t even know it happened? Dad should have told you.”
I wasreallyregretting not taking the bullshit route. “I share some responsibility because I didn’t push enough early in our marriage for him to consult with me, when he put it off I let him and eventually stopped asking. That established a pattern where he didn’t feel like he had to.”
“But you weremarried. That right there should mean he had to. And you never told him you didn’t want to know, right?”
“No, I wanted to know. My point to you is that I should have kept pushing. It’s important to make sure your partnercommunicates with you. It’s important not to give up because you’re getting ignored.”
“And it’s important not to ignore your partner!” my child insisted. “Mom, you’re blaming yourself for letting Dad treat you bad instead of blaming Dad for treating you bad. That is severely messed up.” He dropped my hand suddenly and stomped off ahead, like he was angry.
“Wyatt, wait!” I hurried after him, but when I reached out to touch his shoulder, he shook me off and spun around. He was crying.
“Oh, honey, I’m sorry—”
“STOP APOLOGIZING!” he shouted through tears growing into sobs. “I’m so mad! I’m so mad at him! We lost everything! He didn’t care enough about us to be safe on the cliff, and he didn’t care enough about us to make sure we were safe if something happened. I loved him so much, and he didn’t care!”
“Wyatt! No!” I grabbed him and pushed past his angry resistance to pull him into my arms. Once he was there, he clung to me, sobbing against my neck. I held him and simply loved him while his storm raged.
When I felt the first signs of calm slipping into his limbs, I began to talk, keeping my voice gentle and soft. “I’m angry, too. But I know your dad loved us. Just as much as we loved him. I know this in my bones.” Now I was crying too—for my son, for the love I’d lost, for the wreckage of the life we’d made. “He was reckless, but it wasn’t because he didn’t care. He was controlling, but it wasn’t because he didn’t care. We are all shaped by way we’re raised and the lives we live. Dad was doing the best he knew to do.”
I leaned back and lifted his face in my hands. “We can love him and grieve and be furious with him, too. We can miss him and also wish he was here so we could punch him in the nose.”
For that last bit, I was rewarded with a soggy laugh and some sniffles as Wyatt got his emotions reined in.
He swiped at my jacket. “I got you snotty.”
I laughed heartily. “Son, that is the least of the disgusting things you have doused me with in your lifetime, trust me.” When he snickered wetly, I smooshed his beloved face between my hands. “I love you, Wyatt John Henry. You are the best thing that will ever happen in my life—and your dad felt the same way. We talked all the time about how we couldn’t believe we made someone so amazing. I want you to be exactly the person you want to be—as brave, as gentle, as assertive, as compassionate, as bold, as careful, as you want to be. I want you to make a life you value and fill it with people who value you for the amazement you are.”
With a sigh and a swipe of his eyes, Wyatt nodded. He said, “I wish you had a mom like I have.”
Well ... I obviously dissolved into sobs at once. He wrapped me up and held me, this time, as I snotted him right back.
I noticed a change in the light and looked over Wyatt’s shoulder toward the beach. Sunset was moments away.
“Hey.” I leaned back. “Look.”
Wyatt turned and looked.
We’d hiked to Hidden Beach. Like most of the Northern California coastline, craggy rock formations dot the water just off the beach and the surf crashes over and around them, especially during times of high tide. At some points along the coast are rocks with features so distinctive they’ve earned their own name—Elephant Rock, Goat Rock, Collapsed Arch Rock, and so on.
Hidden Beach has False Klamath Rock, which is mainly impressive for its size and use by native birds as a rookery. But the rock I’d brought Wyatt to see, my favorite rock at this, myfavorite beach, doesn’t have a name. Most of the people I know call it ‘Slot Rock,’ but you won’t find that if you google.
It’s a medium-size rock in the surf with a slot about six feet deep and a foot or so wide—estimating from the beach; I’ve never swum out there to measure it—in the top. Probably some kind of erosion pattern. If at sunset you stand in the right place on the beach, the place I’d led Wyatt to, the sun will set right in that slot and wrap the rock with light and color.
Alone together on Hidden Beach, tears drying on our cheeks, my son and I stood arm in arm and watched the sun set in Slot Rock.
“I don’t ever want to leave here,” Wyatt murmured, his voice full of awe and sorrow.
“Then we won’t.”
TEN: A Clean Sweep
Ihadn’t been shining my kid on when I told him we would stay in Bluster if he wanted. If he was happy here, the decision was made. That said, I held back a little from my own wholehearted commitment to that plan because said kid was fifteen years old and had about two days’ worth of understanding of this place. The new school year was still about two weeks off, and who knew what he’d think of Bendixen High School and its students.
Once he was settled into something like a normal life here, maybe he’d still love it. Or maybe as he got to know the place, his enthusiasm would cool. So I kept the door of change open in my own mind while I was wholly supportive of his feelings now.
As for school, he wasn’t even registered yet. In fact, I reminded myself to add that to our to-do list for this week.
But before that, the next item on our agenda was getting a sense of how much work the guest cottages needed. If we were going to call Bluster home, then we would need to get the business back up and running.
