1
Fox
The blaring music of “Wish You Were Here” by Pink Floyd jars my ass into an upright position. I look at my alarm clock, seeing the time is one o’clock in the morning. I’ve barely been asleep two hours, and I know there’s no going back to sleep for me now. It’s an issue I’ve learned to live with for a couple of years now. The Navy Seals will do that to a person, even if I haven’t been active duty in years. It’s permanently ingrained in me—sleep a few hours, get up, and start the day. Today will just be one of those days. The sheets are gathered at my waist. I slide my legs off the edge of the bed, knowing I’ll need a full pot of coffee to get through today.
I stand up, stretching my naked body, my knee giving me hell this early in the morning. Another one of those parting gifts from the Seals. I guess if I didn’t want to be woken up so early in the morning, I should have closed the windows. The weather here in Kelson Beach, South Carolina, this early in the spring, it’s nothing short of amazing. Crisp cool air streaming in the early morning and late evening, the days getting into the seventies and lower eighties with the ocean air whipping around the house. It kept me from closing up my newly refinished home. A smile plays on my lips. When I first bought this place, it was more of a landing pad for during the day—one room, a kitchenette, and a small bathroom was all it consisted of. My brother, Chance, made it into the home it is today. His wife, Peyton, and our mother came in for me in the end though, decorating it. The only thing we all agreed to disagree on was my need for wanting real hardwood floors. I won that one, while they grumbled how dumb it was, saying it would get warped. I live on the beach. A hurricane could come and flatten it with one storm. If I was going all in for this place, it was going to be my way.
The curtains are floating in the breeze, something light and sheer my mother picked out. All I said I wanted was neutral tones and no unnecessary bullshit. I look out the window trying to catch a glimpse of the house next door and the singer I can feel the pain resonate off.
“Damn it,” I groan. My eyes land on a woman, her body wrapped around a guitar, blonde hair the color of the sand, flaking with iridescent colors of different shades in tones of honey falling over her face, obscuring it from my view. It’s the way her body shakes while strumming the strings. I’m betting she’s crying over a lover with the way she’s crying.
A part of me wants to go over there, check on her. The other part is telling me ‘fuck that noise’. If it’s a broken relationship, I’m not touching that with a ten-foot pole. Instead, I close my window and shut the curtains. I guess I’ll be turning the air conditioner on after all. My feet don’t want to move though, instead, I stand at the window longer than I should, my arms raised over my head, leaning against the frame, my naked body on display if she were to look over here.
“Don’t be a dumbass, Fox,” I say to my quiet house, listening to her sing a few more chords. Only then do I walk away from her. Something I’ll probably regret later on, but there’s no way I can intrude on something that’s clearly gut wrenching. I make my way into the kitchen—coffee is calling my name—and then I’ll have to finish closing the house down, turn the air conditioner on, maybe watch some television, allowing me to maybe catch a cat nap.
Today is going to be a typical Monday, not just because of the new neighbor next door, but also because of The Wet Spot surf shop I co-own with a friend, Cruz, though he’s more of a silent partner. He spends his time down on the beaches of Florida. Not sure how much longer he’ll be staying quiet though, we were talking the other day, and he asked if I’d be interested in expanding another surf shop. Crazy fucker. He’s barely home as it is. He’s still jumping out of airplanes and working for Uncle Sam.
My coffee pot sputters to an end. I grab a mug and pour myself a cup, then head to the couch. Too bad the girl from next door is from what it sounds like pouring her heart out over more music from the nineteen seventies rock, and it’s not my fucking business, at least that’s what I tell myself even though I’m itching to make my way to her. There’s something about her voice—it keeps me from closing my eyes. Instead, I sit down, drink my coffee, and listen to her.
2
Melanie
I finish the last chord of the Pink Floyd song I’m strumming my guitar to while singing the lyrics. It’s one of those songs my father grew up doing this exact same way. It’s probably also why the tears are streaming down my face, my voice has a tremble, and I am a hot fucking mess. The few glasses of wine I’ve had to ease the ache tonight aren’t helping either.
Thinking about my father, the memories surrounding the two of us. A single dad at the age of twenty-three, taking care of a daughter on his own, it was unheard of where I grew up. My grandparents passed when he was younger, which led us to a family of two. He didn’t have women traipsing in and out of our lives, which I’m sure had something to do with the damage my womb donor inflicted on us both. Of course, he went on a few dates, but none he brought home. Even after I graduated high school and college, he still never brought anyone home. And yes, I was living at home and still do at the age of twenty-five. Now, though, it’s just me in that empty house, surrounded by everything that encompassed him, Mitch Parsons, an old soul who loved me and rock and roll. That’s why I’m here, at the beach, trying to escape the memories, to breathe some life into my body and mind. To heal some of the hurt and anger I’m facing. He wasn’t supposed to pass away so young and so suddenly.
A fucking brain aneurysm rupturing at the age of forty-eight. Who would have ever guessed that? I would have never in my wildest imagination thought something like this would happen to him, hell, happen to me. My dad was meant to walk me down the aisle, give me away, watch over my children, be a proud grandpop. Now, all of that is gone, and a piece of my heart is gone with him.
I sing the same song over and over, for what has to be going on an hour. I’ll be lucky to have a voice tomorrow. Not that it matters. I’m here by myself, renting this beach house month to month until I figure out just how to cope and deal with everything Dad left behind, and I do mean everything. The house, his cars, the investment portfolio that blew my mind. If I could get him back for just one more day, I’d give everything away. I’m a daddy’s girl through and through. Though he may have passed a month ago, the ache still hasn’t eased from my chest.
When I finish the last chord of the song, I rest the guitar beside me in the empty chair. The tears never stop coming, they continuously fall as I sit back in the lounge chair looking up at the dark sky. Stars are illuminating it, along with the moon. Surrounded by the smell of the ocean air, the noise in the background as the waves reach the shoreline, I should be at peace here. Instead, I’m wallowing in my emotions. I’m going to give myself one week, then I’m going to attempt to put my big girl panties on and learn to at least breathe again, if not learn to live. My father would hate to see me this way right now, but it’s the only way I know how to survive. I could be eating my way through the pain or snorting cocaine, another side effect my mother decided to leave us for, besides the bass player in some punk rock band. At least that’s what she said when she had the balls to show up at my father’s funeral. Rain was pouring down, so I was holding an umbrella in my hand, about to say my final goodbyes, when she had to interrupt that by talking about herself.