A small boy carried his plastic shovel and pail down to the incoming tide and inspected the wet sand as the water slid back into the ocean. He wiggled his toes in it, letting his feet sink up to his ankles. He squinted his eyes and scratched his chin as he knew this signaled he was thinking.

“Johnny?” his mother called, directly from behind him. “What are you doing?”

“Testing the sand!” he yelled without looking back to her.

Johnny bent down and scooped up a small shovel of the wet sand and brought it close up to his face.

“Don’t eat it, baby!”

“I’m not,” he yelled, looking back to her this time. “I’m testing it!”

“Okay, have fun!” she replied and put the camcorder back in her beach bag.

Johnny went back to the sand in front of him, pinching it between his fingers and letting the grains fall back to the ground as he moved his thumb and pointer finger back and forth.

“No good,” the five-year-old said defiantly, before bending over and letting the ocean rinse the remaining sand off of his shovel. He looked back to the boardwalk his father had carried him away from (where the sand had been perfect) and thought about how he would never talk to his father again after such a betrayal.

He looked off to the right, then quickly back at his mother who was sitting on a fold out chair with a magazine up to her face, though she appeared to be able to see above it when, and if, she needed to. Johnny knew he was going to have to chance it if he was going to get to the good sand.

He quickly stepped to his left, checked back at his mother, then made another large step to the side. He was supposed to stay directly in front of his parents while he was on the beach, but he didn’t know where his father was in the ocean (and didn’t care) and his mother hadn’t seemed to notice or care that he had scooted off some.

He took up another shovel of sand for inspection, when a hand clapped onto his bare shoulder. Knowing he was doing something wrong mixed with the sudden surprise, Johnny screamed and suddenly felt very sick to his stomach; images of cotton candy and hotdogs from the boardwalk swirling in his belly came to mind.

“And where do you think you’re going?”

Johnny’s stomach settled as he looked up into his father’s face that was darkened by the sun overhead. He could make out a smile in the midst of Henry Olmstead’s stubble filled face and this was a bit of relief; enough for Johnny to forget all about his vow of silence.

“I was looking for better sand to build my castle with, dad.”

“Better sand?” Henry asked, spinning around left and then right comically. “I think you have plenty to choose from, bud.”

“Well, it’s got to be just right.” Johnny said, “or the whole thing falls apart and I want to make the best sand castle there is, and…. What’s that?”

Johnny pointed at the white disc his father was studying in his hands.

“This?” his father said, very much aware of what too much interest could do to his idea. “this is a sand dollar.”

“Is if worth a hundred pennies?” Johnny asked, dropping his shovel into the pale and reaching out with his free hand for the dead sea urchin. “Where did you get it? Can we get more and be rich?”

Henry laughed; his son’s curiosity never ceased to amaze him, or his ability to ask more questions in response to his own unanswered stream of questions. Which was slightly perfect in this scenario as Henry knew very little about sand dollars outside of what his father had told him as a child.

“This one is dead, Johnny.” Henry started and Johnny snatched his hand back to his chest, “it’s okay, you can touch it; even the live ones won’t hurt you. But isn’t it neat? The sun dries it out and turns it white like this.”

Johnny’s hand was back on the disc, tracing over the flower pattern on the dead creature’s back.

Henry looked over to his wife who appeared asleep in her beach chair; probably relieved to be off duty when she saw him make his way over to Johnny. She wasn’t very much for the more imaginative things Henry enjoyed telling Johnny, so he had to pick and choose his battles (which he often chose poorly).

“Here, buddy. You can have it. The ocean is filled with them…” he made one more glance over to Sarah, “legend has it…”

Johnny held the sand dollar and stared up at his father ready to absorb anything legend had to say about what he was holding.

“…that these are mermaid coins from Atlantis, the underwater city.”

“What?! Are you serious, dad? These are worth a million billion dollars then! Not a dollar.”

“Yeah, maybe.” Henry said, glad to see this had sparked the reaction he was hoping for. “So, want to help me look for some more?”

Johnny didn’t say anything as his father took him into the ocean and showed him how to fish with his toes for the sand dollars.

The first one they found was brownish in color and still alive, and despite Johnny protesting momentarily that he wasn’t going to touch them if they were still living, the toy bucket was soon filled half-way with the discs.

“I think we’ve got enough, Johnny.” Henry said wading in closer to his son, “we need to leave some in the ocean.”

“But we’re going to be rich, dad!” Johnny said matter-of-factly, while his eyes continued to scan the ocean floor by his feet; though he couldn’t see much with the waves moving his small body back and forth and his feet stirring up the sand below him.

“Well, I’m not sure we’ll be rich, but I do know I’m hungry and I’m sure your mother wants another of her vacation drinks about now. Come on out of the water and we’ll go get some food and then we’ll come back. I promise.”

“That’s okay, dad. I’m not hungry.”

This was the part of the job Henry didn’t care for as much and he had already been through this bout once before with his son today when he had refused to leave the boardwalk to make their way back to the beach area outside their hotel.

“Johnny, come on. I’m not leaving you out here, we’ll go and come back and fill up the bucket after.”

“No thanks. I’m fine here.”

“Johnny.” Henry said firmly, trying his best to not just go pick up his son and dump out the bucket of their findings.

“Henry,” Sarah said, wrapping her arms around her husband’s waist “it’s his first time in the ocean, let him get away with a little something.”

The anger, which wouldn’t have amounted to much anyways, receded immediately from Henry. He held onto his wife’s arms for a brief embrace, then turned to kiss her.

“You’re right.” He said, “can’t say no to everything. Now you watch him and I’ll go grab us some grub.”

“Don’t forget my vacation drink,” she said, clearly waiting to show she had heard him telling their child she was drinking. Henry smiled at her. “You’re ridiculous,” she said as he splashed off towards the shore.

“So what have you and daddy been up to, Johnny?” Sarah asked turning back in her son’s direction, but he wasn’t there.

“Johnny?”

Sarah looked from side to side, the panic shooting up through her like lightning; her jaw suddenly locked and sore though this was unbeknown to her at the moment.

“Johnny!” she called again.

Then again.

Sarah scanned the water for any sign of her son.

“Henry? Where is he?!”

Her husband was already up to his waist in the water calling for Johnny; holding the cheap neon goggles up to his face as he dipped his head into the waves, swirling underwater in small circles.

Undertow. Drowned. Sharks.

These thoughts and more listed off in chants across each parent’s mind as time continued to drag on. Others nearby began to assist, calling out Johnny’s name, but nobody really knew what they were looking for. What color swimming trunks? How old? They asked Henry and Sarah, but were met with puzzled faces.

And though time had slowed down for them, minutes becoming hours, they knew if their son was underwater, he was long dead by now. They might not want to admit it, and they were definitely not about to give up looking, but the odds of him surfacing and gasping breaths were non-existent. Like Johnny.

The police were suddenly there, reconfirming that too much time had passed, and there was the sound of a helicopter in the distance, or so Henry thought as he fell onto the shore – his body long past exhausted from fighting off the waves – long past the parental adrenaline rush he had been granted.

Where was Sarah? He was too tired to open his eyes.

Undertow. Drowned. Sharks.

“Henry,” she said, and he felt some relief to know she was still with him, but then sadness swallowed him whole again. “Johnny?!”

Why was she calling him Johnny now? He thought, but then he felt sand kicking onto his chest and he opened his eyes to see his wife on her feet again, pushing through the crowd that had formed around them.

He struggled his way back to standing, keeping his balance though the blood had rushed to his head and had taken out his vision and equilibrium momentarily.

“Johnny?” He asked nobody, as he saw what his wife was running towards. He began to run as well.

And then a stranger was handing him his son, wrapped in a towel, and Johnny was breathing, though he kept his eyes mostly shut as if he was in the middle of a nap and being carried about was very annoying and nowhere near as exciting as his parents seemed to think it was.

The crowd began to disperse as Henry promised the police officer closest to him that they would go immediately to the ER to have Johnny looked at. He seemed fine, but just to be sure. Henry agreed to anything and everything they asked of him; never taking his eyes off of his son. And when had it gotten so dark out? He thought, and then the towel slipped slightly from his son’s waist and Henry immediately realized Johnny was completely naked.

Henry adjusted the towel to cover his son and instinctively turned towards the ocean where he half expected his son’s shorts to be tumbling in the incoming waves. At first, he thought he spotted them; a bright dab of yellow grabbed his attention almost immediately, but Johnny’s shorts had been red, he thought, though the yellow seemed all too familiar. And almost when Henry considered walking towards the object, he realized that it was his son’s pail filled with sand dollars; though the creatures had surely washed away by now.

The yellow bucket sat teetering at the edge of the incoming tide; each wave looking as if it might be the one to tip it over completely. And though Henry considered going to get the bucket, to see if it might have a sand dollar still in it, he knew this would not be a day they would really ever want to remember.

So Henry turned away from the ocean, his son in his arms and his wife by his side, and they drove off into the night; hoping they could forget the events of the day as soon as they could.  

Next Chapter: Chapter 1