They have hardly taken two steps on the beach, and everyone is complaining about everything.
The sun is too high in the sky, the sand too hot on their feet, the chairs too heavy on their backs which, by the way, are soaking with sweat, and not to mention their necks cramping from the heavy tote bags slung over their shoulders, stuffed with extra towels and sunscreen and hats and sunglasses and paperback novels and crochet hooks in case someone gets bored and decides they want to learn in the next several hours, which no one will, but hope springs eternal in Valerie Dawson and also what if?
Was all of this necessary? her adult children ask. But Valerie doesn’t hear them, or rather, she hears them the way one hears seagulls or tourist traffic—present but not requiring response. She is talking about how they used to have a wagon with those huge inflatable tires that could probably tug a boat, or a small country, or her heart, which is what it felt like: dragging that contraption and those children and that life across so many summers.
“It was so much easier.” Valerie wipes her forehead trying to hide her panting.
“I distinctly remember we were always jumping into it, and you threatened to take us home,” her son says.
“No,” she says, her eyes crinkling behind her sunglasses. “You were angels.”
Taylor Olsen is a New Jersey–based writer whose work often explores love, unlikely relationships, and the messy, complicated beauty of everyday life. She has been published by Revolute, PHIL LIT Journal, and Dandelion Revolution Press, among others. A graduate of Rowan University, Taylor is at work on her debut novel while continuing to publish poetry, short fiction, and essays. You can find her at taylorolsenauthor.com.
Modern Flash Fiction 