“Abbie, wait.”
Henry’s voice could barely be heard over the thundering of waves crashing in the distance.
An endless stream of tears streaked down Abbie’s face as great racking sobs seized her small body. Pain welled up from her chest until it became impossible to breathe. Still, she ran.
Her father’s shouts faded with every step she took until they disappeared altogether.
Branches grabbed at her arms like the bony fingers of a thousand skeletons, cutting into her skin. She welcomed the sting of every scratch; anything to relieve the pain in her heart.
Her mother’s cold, pale face burned behind her eyes, frozen and empty. Gone were the laugh lines, the sparkle…the life.
Abbie couldn’t bear to see her mother lying in a box for hundreds of people to pass by and say words over. She might be only seven, but she was old enough to know it meant goodbye. A coffin, they’d called it. Resting place. Final.
A wail wrenched from her small chest. It ricocheted off the trees, scattering birds in different directions. She’d give anything to have wings in that moment, to fly away and never look back.
Abbie burst onto the beach without slowing. Her little legs ate up the sand as she ran straight for the water.
Memories of swimming with her mother lit through her mind in sorrowful detail. The laughter, splashing around and exploring the unknown.
A storm was coming, but she didn’t care. She needed to feel her mother’s presence, to beg God to give her back.
“Abbie, do you know why the ocean is salty? It’s all the tears God cries when someone passes away.”
“Mama, what does ‘passes away’ mean?”
“Well, it means when people die, they leave this earth to become angels.”
“If they get to be angels, then why does God cry?”
“For the ones that are left behind who will miss them after they’re gone.”
Abbie sailed headlong into the waves with her sights on the second sandbar. She would swim out as far as she could to be sure her prayers were heard. If God cried enough to create an ocean, maybe He would take pity on her and give back her mother.
The weight of her skirt wrapping around her legs made it hard to move in the churning water. She used her arms to pull herself along in a rowing motion until the current became too strong, forcing her to dive under and swim. Her eyes stung from the salt, but she held them open while memories of her mother’s voice whispered through her mind.
“Abbie, did you know that dolphins can communicate with humans?”
“What is commu…commu—”
“It means talk to them.”
“Have you ever talked to a dolphin?
“I sure have.”
“Really? What did he say?”
“He said for me to tell my daughter to stop peeing in the water where his kids play.”
Her mother’s tinkering laughter echoed through her heart as she fought the tide in search of the sandbar.
Abbie’s arms eventually grew weary and her lungs began to burn, leaving her no choice but to kick her way up for air.
Her head broke the surface to a wall of water so high it blocked out the sun. She opened her mouth to scream a second before a powerful wave crashed down on top of her, taking her back under.
Her body spun head over heels along the Gulf floor, leaving her powerless to stop the undertow. Panic gripped her as sand scraped her face, entering her mouth and eyes. The need to breathe became too strong, and Abbie gave up the fight. Pain. Darkness.
* * * *
Cold. Abbie felt chilled to her bones. Her chest burned, and something was caught in her throat. A spasm gripped her and she heaved.
A voice she didn’t recognize. She screamed for someone to help her, to remove the heaviness from her neck.
Something slid along her arms to her hands. Tingling warmth. Heat spread out from her palms through her stomach and legs. The shivering stopped.
“Salutem.” The strange word came from a deep voice above her. Was she dead?
She slowly lifted her heavy lids and stared up into the brilliant green gaze of a teenage boy. His eyes were a color she’d never seen before, resembling a few of the marbles she’d been recently collecting.
“God?” she wheezed.
He cocked his head to the side as if he didn’t understand.
She tried to lift her arm, but he held it down. His hands were covering hers, palm to palm. He tilted his head to the other side, and more tingling heat pulsed through her skin. The pain in her chest receded.
The boy peered down at her in open curiosity, similar to the way she’d seen her dog do when he spotted an insect crawling through the grass.
“Who are you?” Abbie whispered, realizing the boy had saved her life.
He glanced up at something in the distance before returning his gaze to her once again. She wondered if maybe he didn’t speak English, and pulled one of her hands free of his to point at herself. “Abbie.”
“Abbie,” he repeated in a strange accent.
“Yes.” She touched her finger to his chest. “And your name?”
Shouts could be heard over the crashing of the waves, and the boy suddenly stilled. Abbie watched in wonder as he sprang away from her and dove into the water.
She pushed up onto her elbows in time to see him swim out toward the sandbar with the speed of a dolphin before disappearing from view altogether.
“No, wait.” She rose to her knees at the edge of the Gulf. Her gaze flew over every wave of the rolling water, but there was no sign of her savior. Fear gripped her, and she forced herself forward. She had to find him.
“Abbie!” her father’s terrified voice shouted in the distance. “Abbie, sweetheart, don’t move! Daddy’s coming.”
How could the boy stay under the water so long? she wondered, searching the sandbar and beyond.
Henry was suddenly there, scooping her up into his arms. “Somebody call 911!”
“Daddy, we have to help him.” Abbie tried to wriggle free, but he only held on tighter.
“Help who, sweetie?”
“The boy.”
Her father turned in a half circle, scanning the beach without slowing his steps. “What boy?”
“The one who pulled me out of the water.”
“There’s no one there, honey. And don’t ever scare me like that again.”
He began to run toward the dunes where a small crowd flocked in their direction with cell phones in hand.
“Is she all right?” an older woman with bright red lipstick yelled as she stumbled along the sand. But Abbie was no longer listening.
She twisted her head around, frantically searching for the boy who had magically disappeared in the great pool of God’s tears.