Now I noticed the people gathered along the left edge.
Teenagers.
A woman beside the cooler.
Someone crouched in the sand.
Dad’s thumb had worn the photograph smooth around those tiny figures.
Not over the ocean.
Over them.
“He wasn’t looking at the beach,” I said.
Mom shook her head.
“Not usually.”
Dad left Hawaii at twenty when an opportunity opened on the mainland.
Nobody forced him out.
His foster family encouraged him to go.
He expected to return.
But one year became several.
Oregon became a job.
The job became a life.
Then Mom.
Then me.
“So why didn’t he go back?”
Mom looked toward the window.
“At first, money.”
That made sense.
“Then?”
“Work.”
“And after that?”
She went quiet.
“He thought he’d waited too long.”
“Too long for what?”
“To show his face.”
I frowned.
“They were his family.”
“He didn’t use that word easily.” Mom picked at the corner of a condolence card. “The longer he stayed away, the more embarrassed he became about staying away.”
