Local Girl Swept Away by Ellen Wittlinger

needed Lorna at least as much as she’d needed us—no doubt about it. But I could see that our need for her and hers for us was not as out of balance as it might have seemed.
    As I hiked through the dunes I thought of Lorna asking, “Why do you take the same picture over and over?” I’d tried to explain, but she was an impatient listener. The thing was, every time I clicked the shutter I became more aware of the subtle variations in my surroundings, the small secrets that rose to the surface and were sucked back under. I loved the way a photograph could stop time, put a frame around it. It captured a moment and held it forever, even if the world kept changing. Lorna was like that now, too, mounted, matted, framed, alive only in photographs.
    The last time I’d been on the dunes, it was so hot I emptied my water bottle before noon and had to hike to the ocean to cool off. But today it was overcast and rainy, the clouds so dramatic I couldn’t make myself leave until I was so wet my shoes belched water every step of the walk home.
    “For God’s sake, you’re dripping wet!” Mom greeted me the minute I came through the door.
    I don’t think I’ve ever come into this kitchen without seeing my mother at work, chopping up vegetables or cleaning fish. This afternoon she was tossing handfuls of potatoes into a big black pot that sat on top of our ancient stove. She waved me back into the doorway.
    “Take those shoes off before you come in here. Don’t you have enough sense to get in out of the rain?”
    “I’m in, aren’t I?” I toed off my soaked sneakers.
    “Go upstairs and change clothes, and then come back down here. I want to talk to you.”
    Damn. As the youngest of four, I was used to flying under my parents’ radar, but since my older brothers had all (finally) moved out of the house last year, Mom had begun paying more attention to me, which drove me slightly crazy. I slipped into dry clothes, toweled off my hair, and padded back downstairs barefoot.
    “You hungry?” Mom asked. Which must be the most-often asked question in this house. When my brothers were around, the answer was always yes.
    “Not really. I took an apple with me.”
    “An apple’s not a meal. Make a sandwich,” she ordered. She opened the refrigerator door and got out two packages wrapped in white butcher paper, enough salami and American cheese to feed all three of my relocated brothers.
    “I’m not hungry, Mom. I had an—”
    “I don’t want to hear about your
apple
. There are fresh rolls in the breadbox. No daughter of mine is going to starve herself.”
    There was no use arguing about it. I got out the bag of rolls. For years Mom had been getting up before dawn six mornings a week to knead dough into round loaves for the Portuguese Bakery. Our breadbox was always stuffed with baked goods. I cut a roll in half and topped it with a thin slice of cheese.
    Teresa handed me a plate. “Where were you this morning? Dunes again?”
    I nibbled at my sandwich and nodded.
    “I don’t know what’s so great about sitting out there in the middle of that big sandbox hour after hour.”
    “God, Mom, people come from all over the world to see the place we live—it’s beautiful! Have you even been to the beach in the last decade?”
    “I’ve got too much to do to sit around on my butt and get skin cancer.” She took a bag of carrots from the fridge. They looked a little dried up to me, but I didn’t say anything.
    “Do you even own a swimsuit?”
    She wrinkled her nose. “Why would I need a swimsuit? I can’t swim.”
    “Really?” How had I not known this? “You grew up in Provincetown and you never learned to swim?”
    “We’re surrounded by a dangerous ocean, Jackie, not some fancy swimming pool. There’s nothing beautiful about that ocean to me.”
    This was a conversation I’d spent my life trying to avoid—the lethal effects of the killer ocean. I perched on the lip of the chair and scarfed down my roll, which