Touching Sand

I smelled the ocean air mixed with Theo’s feverish skin. His forehead was still warm. He’d been up all night wailing while I laid with him, pretending I couldn’t hear. That’s what being a mom is: pretending you don’t exist. 

I blame the murder mystery party. Too many sweaty artists in one room, begging to hold the most important thing I’ve ever created. They kept calling him a Real Life Baby, as if there are other kinds. Theo seemed to like the attention, but I felt guilty, letting strangers paw at him like a joint being passed around. He came home coughing like a Victorian orphan. 

The baby had a smooth ride on the way out. He watched Minions on the 737, drank from my nipple while I sipped a complimentary Coke Zero, reading the ingredients over and over, trying to memorize them. Minutes morphed into hours. Theo pressed his lips to the plexiglass window. 

Good boy. 

Somehow I knew the ride home would be bumpier. I’m still waiting for the day they ban planes. A mass of manmade steel in God’s blue sky. It feels fake every time. 

The sand on the beach looked filthy, but it was the only sand Theo knew. In the distance, teenagers crushed crabs with their surfboards. 

I whispered, “Don’t worry, kid. The ocean can’t hurt you. Only people can.”

I yearned to sprint into the crashing waves, fully clothed. To let them have their way with me. Theo would sit on the shore, squealing like an idiot, clapping his hands. And I’d come back for him, swaddle him in my salty sweatshirt, pretend it was all normal. Instead, I did what any mother would do. I took three hundred seventeen photos of him touching sand for the first time. I scrolled back through my work immediately. Zoomed in on the bags under his eyes. He already looked worn down by Los Angeles. I was a horrible mother, drained of empathy. 

Joaquin hadn’t texted back all day. Maybe the phone kept slipping out of his gargantuan fingers. He was trying his best. He never asked to be a father. After the baby was born, our relationship became nipples and crying and begging the other to shower. The other day, I caught him jerking off to Sydney Sweeney’s Instagram.

Suddenly my fingers had a mind of their own. After bombarding him with photos, I typed: theo went swimming. he drowned :( 

Joaquin called immediately. Frenetic texts poured in: 

Wtf?????? 

Baby answer me!!!!! 

CPR!!! 

I’m calling the police what beach you at 

I swear to god this isn’t funny 

Bro 

?????????????????????????????

I ran my fingers through Theo’s impossibly soft tuft of hair. Kissed his fevered head. Threw my phone into the ocean. The waves tumbled on.