If they say they hate this town and want to go somewhere else, we will leave—just like that—sell the house and pack up the minivan and let it decide where we should go next. Every morning, we will wake up somewhere new: the parking lot of a drive-in slinging hashbrowns and flapjacks for brunch, the trailhead of a hike nestled deep inside a national forest, the rocky shore of a beach on the Oregon coast, hundreds of miles from anything we have ever known and loved. This morning under the gold-tipped firs will be their first time seeing the ocean. Smelling the brine, hearing the waves break against stones. I will watch them discover how it feels to dig their toes into the sand. How to roll up their pants and let water crash on their shins. They will refuse to collect seashells, at first, believing themselves too cool (too mature) to engage in such a childish activity, until one of them stumbles across a piece of sea glass, its edges long and wavy like a dagger, and they start slipping keepsakes into their pockets (a gray pebble flecked green; a piece of driftwood bleached white in the sun; a mussel, its shell pried open, stripped of meat). For a day, at least, this will feel like home. We will throw open the trunk door and dangle our legs out the back as the sun sets. At night, we will build ourselves a bonfire. Toast marshmallows on sticks we gather from the sands. Say, Where will we go tomorrow? as if we have any control over the future.
Ruth Joffre is the author of the story collection Night Beast. Her work has appeared in Wigleaf, SmokeLong Quarterly, TriQuarterly, The Journal, Baffling Magazine, and the anthologies Best Microfiction 2021 & 2022,
This is so vivid and beautiful!
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