“How’re you feeling?” asked Rainer. “Need a break?”
She shook her head, watching him in the mirror, bent over her, her skin a wild rainbow of his work and hers.
Finley’s body was a living canvas of ink and bone. It would grow and change, evolve. It would age and fade, it would grow softer, get bigger, shrink and shrivel, as bodies will. Maybe what she was on the outside could never truly reflect what she was on the inside, but when she looked in the mirror she saw herself in all her true colors.
EPILOGUE
Abbey loved the ocean. The gray churning waters of the Atlantic, where it lapped against the shores of Rockaway Beach. The hot lazy days they’d spent there with toes buried down to the damp cold layer of sand beneath the hot, and the blue cooler sweating underneath the shade of their wide umbrella, a kaleidoscope of rainbow colors, were among the happiest they’d spent as a family.
“Be careful of the riptide,” Wolf always felt compelled to warn.
“What’s a riptide?” asked Abbey.
“It’s a current that can pull you under and yank you out to sea.”
They both glanced out at the water, then back at him. Jackson looked worried.
“What do I do if that happens?” he asked.
“Don’t panic,” Wolf told them. “Swim sideways along the shoreline. I’ll come for you. I’ll be watching. Every minute.”
“Okay,” Abbey had said, unconcerned. She was using a plastic cup to build a tilting sand castle.
“How many people die in riptides every year?” Jackson wanted to know. “I mean, statistically, is it common?”
“Just be careful,” Wolf had answered. He didn’t know. “It happens often enough.”
The music coming from their portable Bluetooth speaker was tinny. What was it that they’d been listening to that last day? He wanted that detail. Something alternative and slow, something old. Grace Jones. That was it. “I’ve Seen That Face Before.”
They’d played in the shallows, Abbey with her bucket, Jackson with his net. Jackson, little brainiac that he was, kept walking back to the umbrella for his iPad to try to identify the shells he found. Wolf wanted to tell him not to worry about what they were. Just collecting them was enough. But he didn’t bother nagging. The gulls called, always complaining in their funny way.
“It’s always good here,” Merri said sleepily from her low lounger. She wore a red bikini. She was beautiful; her body toned and caramel, but soft, yielding. There was a wiggle to her ass that was pretty just because it was her wiggle. His wife, the mother of his children; no one and nothing could be more special than that. And yet Wolf had been secretly sexting with an editorial assistant at Outside magazine all afternoon. Nothing had ever happened in the flesh. But he was flirting with it.
That day, so beautiful, so perfect. He’d missed it. His memory of it was more vivid than his awareness had been at the time. And he only remembered it now because Abbey was gone. He hadn’t been watching her every minute, not then, not ever. And the riptide, the dark current that runs under every life, had carried her off.
Today they gathered on the beach in overcoats, hats and gloves, a mean winter sun painting the world a harsh white. Merri held Jackson, who leaned against her, an arm wrapped around her waist. Wolf’s parents stood back, wearing the same stunned expression they’d worn since they learned that Abbey’s body had been among those found up in The Hollows. Merri’s mother, the same auburn--haired, hazel-eyed beauty as Merri, stood behind her daughter, a steadying hand on her shoulder. She wouldn’t even look at Wolf.
They’d tried to keep the church service small, but it had been packed with friends, colleagues, parents of children from Abbey’s school, some of the kids, too. Their friend Bryce who was a singer--songwriter, sang Abbey’s favorite, “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” Everyone wept.
The ceremony was short and tasteful, the chapel air rich with the smell of stargazer lilies. They considered themselves lucky that Abbey had been returned to them. Two other families’ parents were still waiting; one girl had been missing since the early nineties, another since 2003. At least for Wolf and Merri the waiting was over.
Blake delivered the eulogy.
Our Abbey, our angel, gone too soon.
You’ll live in us always.
And more, so many more eloquent words about her light and her joy and her kindness, a beautiful blur of sincere sentiment that Wolf could barely hear, Merri clinging to him, blank and glassy eyed. It was a tragically beautiful affair after which everyone but they went back to intact lives, a program with Abbey’s shining face folded into pockets or stuffed into purses to be later discarded. Not a keepsake.
But on the beach, it was just those of them with the long stretch of grief and rebuilding ahead.