****
Later, when she awakened in the dark and heard rough, even brutal gusts of wind buffeting the front of the house she reached over and touched Ben’s shoulder. His hand reached up to cover hers. She snuggled closer, enjoying the shared comfort.
Saturday’s bloody red dawn gave way to swiftly moving clouds and crashing waves that beat violently at the land. The ocean was an adversary today and the wind was its ally. Fitful and gusty, at times assaultive, the wind sand-blasted the few beach walkers who’d been beguiled to venture outside by peeks of blue sky between scudding clouds. Juli, herself, was mesmerized by the quickly changing landscape and light as the storm pushed northward.
Ben stood beside her on the porch, each with their arms around the other, protected from the worst of the wind as long as they stayed near the wall of the house.
“Are you sorry?” he asked.
“Sorry? She shook her head. “No, I’d say it was a lucky thing we were already married.” She laughed.
He tightened his arm around her. He started to speak, but coughed instead, then cleared his throat. After a few minutes of standing together and suffering the sandy blasts, Ben spoke near her ear. “Keep away from the water today. I guess I don’t need to tell you, do I?”
“No, you don’t. The beach is too breezy for me, never mind the water,” Juli added, as a walker’s straw hat was whipped away, sailing as high as a kite into the distance. “It’s just as well most of the vacationers are too busy packing up to be out here.”
She felt the sag in Ben’s stance. “Why don’t you go on in? I’ll join you in a few minutes.”
He kissed her on the temple, then released her and went inside.
With Ben gone, she’d lost more than a wind buffer. The ultra-white nearer clouds racing with the dark clouds along the horizon, contrasted with beige sand and the savage ocean and found a wild core inside her. It echoed in her heart, the part of her heart not touched by Ben’s need, but by her own troubles. At times nature’s elements probed that restlessness, stirring it and drawing it forth. Juli drew her arms closely about herself and shivered.
There was a rap on the window. She turned and saw Ben. He waved at her and she turned to go inside to join him, but before she reached the door, she heard a noise on the other side of the porch divider, a bump and sounds of frustration.
“Are you okay?” She peeked around the divider in time to snag an inflated duck that tried to fly away.
Victoria was fussing with a net bag, fighting to stow beach toys as they tried to blow away. “Charlie got into them. They were all packed. I should let them blow out to sea. Thanks,” she said, taking the ducky. “I’ve got it now.”
“Are you leaving tonight or in the morning?”
“Early in the morning. With kids, you have to get it packed up ahead of time.”
“We’ve enjoyed having y’all as neighbors for these two weeks. Have a safe trip home.”
“Thanks. You, too.”
Juli went inside to join Ben.
Ben was seated in his usual chair at the table by the front window, working on his puzzle. He never seemed to make much progress.
Juli went to the kitchen just as someone screamed. She was turning back toward Ben, to ask if he’d heard something, but he was already up and moving out the door.
“Ben?” She crossed the room and looked out the door. He was running down the crossover. Running? What on earth? Beyond, down on the beach, she saw figures moving at the water’s edge.
As surely as she knew something was wrong, she knew what it was—a drowning.
The door was still swinging wide as Juli flew through chasing Ben. He was moving faster than she would’ve believed possible. He was in the sand and heading toward the ocean as she reached the steps. Juli saw Victoria and her daughter, drenched and knee-deep in angry waves.
Two yellow water wings bobbed out in the water, staying about a foot apart and riding the waves as they swelled and dropped.
Could she see a child’s hand? An arm? Too much spray and too distant.
Victoria was pulling at her tangled hair with one hand and pointing out to sea with the other. Ben never paused as he ran past the women and splashed into the churning Atlantic Ocean making for the yellow bits of plastic, tiny in the ocean that might still have little Charlie attached.
Juli’s feet hit the rough steps, then the sand, running to the rhythm of her frantic thoughts—thoughts that condemned Victoria for not watching her child and for not going into the waves herself.
Ben was Juli’s and precious.
She heard Ron’s deep voice yelling in alarm behind her. As she raced past, the distraught mother reached out to her, crying and screaming. Juli ignored her and followed Ben into the ocean.