Fiction

Counterbalance
By Peggy Duffy

Weighted by umbrella, blanket tucked beneath his armpit, he follows her along the beach, bare feet blistering in the noon-baked sand. She zigzags empty-handed up and down the shoreline, looking for the right spot. There is no perfect spot, he wants to tell her, but before he can she waves her arms in signal to him. He throws down the umbrella and spreads the blanket at her feet. The wind blowing off the ocean undoes his efforts. She shoots him a look, renewing his incompetence. Working against gravity as well as the wind, he impales the metal stake of the umbrella through the white sand and into the hard earth below.

"You're shading my stomach." She is stretched out, bikini-clad, skin slick with oil. He readjusts the umbrella. One side of the blanket lies beneath the full sun, the other in an oval shadow.

"I think I'll go for a swim," he says. "Join me?"

"I'm working on my tan."

"The waves look great."

She props herself up on her elbows. The sun is reflected off the ocean in her dark glasses.

"No, I'll pass." On her stomach now, she flips through a magazine.

"You don't love me anymore," he teases, an attempt to arouse her affection.

It works. She looks at him and smiles that winning smile that never fails to appease him. He'd do anything for her.

"Of course I love you, silly," she giggles. "I just don't want to get wet."

He's torn. He wants to spend every minute with her, but she's returned to her magazine. Thwarted, he sits down. The fun seems to be gone from their relationship. It feels off-balance. Last summer, they played Frisbee at the water's edge, dodged waves, and swam far out into the ocean. They searched for seashells washed up along the shoreline. Now she's changing, becoming more independent, needing him less.

He observes a young couple, small boy in tow, spread their blanket in the pocket of space beside him. The boy looks to be five or six and wild with excitement. Already he and his father are running toward the surf. Soon the boy dashes back, pearls of water clinging to his skin, and begins to scoop out a hole in the sand. The father carries over pails and shovels, sits, and digs alongside his son.

He watches the boy and his father with longing, takes his eyes off the pair and looks at her reading her magazine, recognizing what he didn't see before. "Remember when I used to bury you in the sand?" There is a plaintive note in his voice, but he no longer feels a need to be consoled.

She removes her sunglasses, tilts her head so that when she meets his gaze it is through half-closed eyelids-it is a look she has been practicing-and pronounces with the careful reserve and insight acquired over her entire fifteen years, "Oh, Daddy, you know I'm too old for that now."

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