“Wasn’t that a nice eulogy?” asked the woman in front of Lucy. To tell the truth, Lucy had no idea what the woman had said. The sound of the twenty-one-gun salute had made her cringe as though the bullets were entering her own body, and then her mind became a whirlwind of thoughts, her ears numb to anything but the voice of her own thoughts. “His words were comforting, although he didn’t pay your father enough tribute. He was a fine man, that Lieutenant Brewer,” the woman continued, patting her on the shoulder before moving along. Lucy stayed rooted to the spot by her father’s grave until the last mourner departed and the gravediggers covered his coffin. No matter how long she stared at the inscription on the tombstone, tears wouldn’t come to her eyes, as if they were frozen in their ducts.
Immobilized, Lucy wondered what she would do now. She had no other family left. Her mother died in a car accident when Lucy was barely a year old. Because her father channeled his bitter anger into becoming the best naval officer he could possibly be, Lucy’s grandparents were left to raise her, and so she grew up beside the sea in Atlantic Beach, North Carolina. Although, because of his dedication, the Navy offered him extended leaves of absence on several occasions, Lieutenant Brewer was always eager to return to sea. For a long time Lucy assumed he didn’t want to see her. She struggled to understand why he so often mailed her birthday presents but seldom showed his own face on such special occasions. As she grew older she realized he simply couldn’t visit her for long without remembering her mother. Escaping to sea became his means of coping with a grief he never fully relinquished. But why can’t he let me grieve with him? Lucy often wondered.
Now, determined to avoid such a life as her father led, at age twenty-two, Lucy Brewer had graduated from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington with a degree in English Education and returned to Atlantic Beach to teach English at East Carteret County High School. As Lucy sucked in a deep breath of crisp October, she realized this ache in her heart probably wasn’t going to go away. She was too much like her father for that. Not only did her sun-bleached blond hair, olive complexion, and intense brown eyes match her father’s, but their nearly identical personalities would undoubtedly drag out her grieving process, preventing her from leaving the seaside to begin a new phase of life. Why couldn’t I have been more like my mother? she thought. Or maybe she was—she’d never know since her father had refused to talk about her and her grandparents were reluctant to divulge what they knew.
Lucy’s insides roiled with a mixture of bitterness and hurt as she contemplated her relationship with her father. Although she knew he was proud of her, Lieutenant Brewer had missed her graduation five months earlier. She’d searched the crowded rows for his familiar face, but it never appeared. Why am I not surprised? She’d asked her self. This is just like him! He’d said his ship would return in time, but of course, it hadn’t. He’d pulled the same no-show stunt at her high school graduation as well. She was the only graduate there with no parents in attendance. He meant well, but the Navy was his first priority—it was his family now.
When Lucy’s grandmother died during her freshman year of college, he’d barely made it ashore in time for the funeral. He’d missed her grandfather’s altogether when he’d suddenly passed six months after his wife— undoubtedly from a broken heart. Lucy still held that against him. Her father was considerate though—she’d give him that. Once her grandparents had passed away, he’d wired her the money he’d saved after his fifth eighteen-month tour at some obscure location at sea, which she’d used to redo the cottage she’d grown up in— the one she now lived in alone.
The day after the funeral life returned to routine. Lucy walked up and down the beach as usual, scanning the horizon for ships and breathing in the salt air. Her golden retriever, Isabel, always followed her faithfully, and chased birds up and down the beach. Yesterday, she’d somehow embedded a large prickly pear in her paw, so today Lucy had left her at the cottage to allow the injury time to heal free from sand. As Lucy raised her hand to shield her eyes from the sun, she drew in a quick breath, mesmerized by the emerald ocean that glinted with a thousand diamonds as the sunlight hit its surface. While she watched, a tiny seagull dove in to the gentle waves and came up with a small fish squirming in its beak. A sand piper ran through the shallows and sinky sand, not five feet from where she stood, poking and jabbing at sand fiddlers that burrowed desperately into the golden sand to escape the ice pick beak.
Not a cloud dotted the deepest blue October sky that faded in color as it blended into the horizon. Just on the edge of the horizon, right where it seemed the sea might fall away over some distant waterfall, lay a large vessel. Lucy strained to see it better. It certainly wasn’t a cruise ship, and it seemed too large to be either one of the shrimp boats or Coast Guard patrol boats that frequented the shoreline of the island. Could it be a cargo freighter, or perhaps a Navy warship like the one aboard which her father had spent the majority of his days?
Something jabbed at the bottom of Lucy’s foot, causing her to shift her weight and move to see what was causing her pain. As she bent down to get a closer look, she lifted a spiraled piece of a conch shell out of the sand. A sad smile played across her lips. Lieutenant Michael Brewer had given Lucy a beautiful, whole pearly-white conk shell laced with rose on the inside when she turned seven years old. “Lucy,” he told her, “I want you to keep this conk shell beside your bed, and every night lift it to your ear before you go to sleep. Then, you will always be able to hear the sound of the ocean wherever you are. Just as I am out at sea, you will feel closer to your Daddy, sweetheart.”
Every night for eighteen months Lucy did just as her daddy asked: she listened to the sounds of the sea in her precious conk shell and whispered a fervent prayer, “Please God, bring my daddy home safe from the ocean. I miss him so much. Please, God.” Finally, Lieutenant Brewer’s ship returned and Lucy was reunited with him.
“Daddy,” Lucy said, tugging on Lieutenant Brewer’s sleeve a few days after he returned to port, “When will you have to leave us again and go back to the ocean?”
“Not for a whole year, sweetheart!” he said, lifting her high above his head, his hands beneath her armpits. “Daddy gets a whole year to spend with just you!”
That was before I grew to resent him, she thought, shivering when a particularly cool finger of autumn breeze wrapped itself around her, and brought her back to reality. Lucy glanced at her watch and realized that if she didn’t hurry, she’d be late for her first class of the day. Taking one last longing glance at the surf, Lucy jogged back to her cottage, promising herself she’d go for a swim later that afternoon. One of the greatest things about the Atlantic Ocean was the way water held its summer heat far into the fall, even after the air had grown cold.
Later, as Lucy dove into the surf and fought the waves until she had swam out past the breakers, she paused to tread water as memories flitted like butterflies through her mind. Every time Lieutenant Brewer was furloughed, he spent as much time as possible with Lucy. Maybe that should have been enough to show her how much he loved her, but she often wished he’d just say the words. She remembered how he’d taught her to swim despite her unearthly fear of the sea.
“The ocean is your friend, Lucy,” he’d said, “and there’s no reason you should be afraid of her; only, you must be careful never to trust her because she may change moods in an instant. Learn to know her moods, and you’ll never see trouble on the sea.”
Walking down the beach, hand-in-hand, he’d shown her how to spot a riptide forming and told her how to escape its pull should she ever be caught in one’s grasp.
One day, he’d taken her hand and asked, “Do you trust me, Lucy?”
“Of course I do, Daddy!” she’d replied.
“Okay. Well, we’re doing to get ourselves caught in the undertow of a rip current so you can experience it and know how to save yourself.”
She’d reluctantly followed him into the surf in the receding current between two sand bars. Soon they were being swept out to sea. For nearly half an hour they’d swam parallel to the beach until Lucy was sure she’d drown from fatigue. Just as she was ready to submit to the ocean’s embrace, she felt the tide release its grasp and relinquish its outward tug on them. Stopping momentarily, Lucy screamed to her father as she tread water, “Daddy, Daddy! We did it! We’re out of the riptide!”
“I know, sweetheart!” he said, hi-fiving her. “I knew we would!” When they’d finally reached the shore and lay panting in the hot sand, it was then Lucy understood the alluring friendship her father shared with his beloved ocean. Later, at times, that understanding made it easier to forgive her father’s lack of verbal approval.
After she finished her swim and returned to her cottage for a hot shower, she walked the three blocks to her father’s favorite diner. Whenever he was home, they ate there at least once a day, and all the waitresses knew their orders before they even sat down—two fried shrimp-burgers; French fries with Ranch to dip them in; Cheerwine to drink; and then banana pudding to top it all off for dessert. Although she carried a stack of her student’s papers to grade, Lucy knew she probably wouldn’t get around to them. She went to the diner to feel closer to her father. As she sat in his favorite booth sipping coffee, a Naval officer came in and looked around the room as if in search of someone. When his eyes landed on her, a faint look of recognition crossed his face, and he moved towards her.
“Miss Brewer?” he asked.
“Yes?” she replied.
“Someone told me I might find you here,” he said with a smile. “Excuse me, I’m Lieutenant-Commander Daniel O’Brien, Lieutenant Brewer’s Commanding Officer. It seems that no one has delivered your father’s personal affects to you.”
“No,” Lucy said, “I haven’t received anything yet.”
“Well, here they are,” O’Brien said, handing her a small camouflaged duffle bag. “Miss Brewer, your father was an honorable man. Truth be told, he probably should’ve been my CO. He loved the sea dearly, and he served his country well.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant-Commander,” Lucy said. “I appreciate your condolences.”
“I’ll leave you alone now Miss Brewer, but I want you to know that your father really loved you. He spoke of you often, and well, he carried a worn picture of you with him at all times that he showed off to all his comrades whether they cared to see it or not. He said you would know the ocean better than he one day,” said O’Brien with a crisp salute, and then he left the diner.
Lucy sat for a moment, letting what had happened soak in, then she flagged down the waitress.
“The usual?” she asked.
“Yes please—the usual.” Lucy said with a smile.
