51
I can’t sleep. I don’t have any feeling of anxiety at all, more like excitement. I feel really good. It’s that kind of good you feel when you’ve had the stomach flu and you wake up the next day and it’s over. You forget how good it feels to be well. I spent practically the whole day outside. My muscles are the right kind of sore, and my skin feels alive from the sun. I try to think of how I can bring this feeling into my real life. I want to make room for surfing. I want to try things, wobble and fall down.
I look up at my tree of life, lit slightly by the moonlight. I don’t like to critique my nine-year-old self, but it’s a bit childish. One shade of brown for the trunk and all those branches. My dad was right, it needs texture. I rub my forefinger and thumb together to conjure the feeling of wood and remember the dead-tree museum in the dining room.
I get out of bed and knock on my parents’ bedroom door. When there’s no reply, I go in and tiptoe to my mom’s side of the bed. I kneel down and put my hand on her arm. “Mom? Everything’s okay.”
“Why are you talking to me?”
“Do we have a glue gun?”
“Of course. Over the microwave.”
“Can I have the sticks in that basket?”
“Of course,” she says, and turns over.
I smile looking down at the two of them sleeping. The only two people in the world who would have absolutely no follow-up questions about why you might need a glue gun and sticks in the middle of the night.
By six a.m. I am out of sticks, but most of the tree and its branches are covered. At first, I was gluing them to the wall in uniform lines, but as I went on I started placing them in a more organic way. I used to do things like this when I was a kid. I used to just follow myself into the night, into an idea that was going to either work or not. As I look at the wall now, I know that what I’ve created is not beautiful. It may even be a mess. But it’s something.
I sleep for a few hours and find my mom at the kitchen table doodling and nursing a cup of coffee. “Wild night?” she asks me.
“I don’t know what got into me. I just had to cover that tree in my room with texture. And your stick collection was exactly the thing.”
“I can’t wait to see it.”
“You may need to burn the house down.”
She laughs. “I don’t want to hear that you’re tired today, because there’s a lot to do. I was going to start addressing these envelopes. You have an appointment at Ginnie’s to taste the cake at one and then at the Old Sloop Inn to look at linens at two.”
“Great,” I say. “Wyatt said he’d come with me.”
“How’s your head?” she asks, and I misunderstand the question. I’m about to say it’s clearing up, that I caught a glimpse of myself and I want to see more of her. I want to say that I’m afraid if I let her out she will fall madly in love with Wyatt and ruin my life. But she’s looking at the Band-Aid on my forehead.
“Oh, it’s fine,” I say. She goes back to her doodling. I open the freezer and find a frozen peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I unwrap it and hold it, cold in my hand. I love that she’s still buying these, waiting for her little girl to show up and eat them. “Mom, I’m sorry I’ve stayed away from the beach for so long.”
She looks up at me and puts down her pen. “Me too. But I feel you coming back.”
“Same,” I say, and kiss the top of her head.