Strong Like the Sea, стр. 35
Sitting crisscross beside me, Uncle’s voice is calm and quiet. “There’s no shame in being afraid. Only a fool fears nothing.”
If not being afraid makes someone a fool, does being terrified make someone smart? “I didn’t mean to panic. I forgot the kayak was there.”
“No, it’s okay. Sometimes people worry about regular things, like crowds, or the dark, or spiders.” The sand runs out onto the pile below Uncle’s hand and he scoops it up again. “It’s normal. But sometimes something unexpected overwhelms us and creates a new fear inside us, something fierce and wild that springs out at us when we least expect it, again and again. That kine harder to kill—more like cockroaches scurrying inside cracks and behind walls.”
Great. So now I have the ocean and cockroaches to worry about. I slump onto the sand beside him. Sometimes I forget that I haven’t always been afraid, that this isn’t normal. Without turning my head, I watch Uncle from the side of my eye. Here, sitting at the edge of the sea, he is more at peace than I’ve ever seen him. Steady and secure. Even his hands seem to drink in the stillness; only the faintest of tremors remain. Slowly, I draw my feet up like his. “So, why would the ocean make you feel safe?” The sea is a lot of things, but safe isn’t one of them.
Smile lines crinkle at the corners of his eyes. “Seems strange to you, I know. But there was a time in a war when I thought I’d never see another drop of water. Sand everywhere. Dry and blistering hot. Every breath pulled moisture from our lips and left our tongues as dust. I’d never breathed anything like it. With sandstorms and sweat, sand coated the inside of our ears, stuck between our teeth, and crusted the inside of our noses. Salt and sand burrowed into the pores of our skin.”
“Crusty sand up your nose? Sounds scratchy.” How many tissues would it take to get all that out?
“Rough as sandpaper, yeah. It rashed our skin like sunburns. We carried over a hundred pounds with body armor, helmet, and equipment. Our sweat washed sand into our eyes as temperatures soared over a hundred degrees. Every. Single. Day.”
“If you didn’t have water, how did you get the sand out of your eyes?” I swivel toward this gentle new Uncle.
“We blinked. A lot.” He blinks at me really big and silly a few times. “Took a while to get it out sometimes. At the end of the day, we shook sand out of our clothes, our boots, our socks—but we could never get rid of it.”
The kayak tilts against the sand, and Uncle tosses a shell into the sea. “I used to dream of water.”
Did Mom know this about Uncle? If she did, she never told me.
“After some bad things happened, I got sort of mixed up inside my head until I started to believe that I would only be safe if I could be near water.”
“Like home base?” In my fast escape, the shore felt like that to me.
“Exactly like that. As long as I’m near the ocean, I’m not afraid.” He gazes out at the brilliant blue sea and breathes deep. “Loud noises still bother me sometimes, and when they do, I go out to my ocean and let the waves carry my fears away.”
I dig my heels into the damp sand. What would it be like to have endless beach with no water? I’ve never been more than a day’s walk from the ocean in my entire life. It’s always there, always waiting. Lurking in the background. But I think I used to like seeing it there, peeking through the trees like an old friend. I’d forgotten that. “So when you’re out on the water, it’s like your happy place.” Like my Castle Tree. Or like Dad’s golden ratios.
“Exactly.” Uncle nods. “Now you know how I chose my profession. So, what about you?”
“Me?” That’s a weird thing to ask. “I’m twelve. I don’t know what I want to be yet.”
“No. I mean, you swim like you were born to water. But something happened, I think. And now you’re afraid. Will you tell me why?”
It’s strange that I never noticed the laugh lines at the corners of Uncle’s dark brown eyes before. Were they always there, hiding under all the frowns? Are they different lines, or do they take turns going up or down?
“Alex?”
“What?” I hug my knees and count the snail shells between Uncle and me. Twelve. There’s twelve shells between us. How many shells are between Mom and me? A million? A billion? More? Shells march from my feet to the water, not straight like a line, but here and there, a zigzag of snails and sand.
“If you tell me your story, I promise to help you find whatever clues your mom left for you. I’m good at solving codes and riddles—who do you think taught her?”
I look up, the shells forgotten, and he nods. “It occurs to me that the reason she wants you to help me is so that I can help you.” He cups the side of his mouth and whispers. “She’s sneaky like that.”
So . . . Mom wants me to help Uncle so Uncle can help me? Mom’s sneaky, all right.
“See? You know what I mean. You can lend me your hands, and I’ll lend you my ears. It’s a fair trade, but only if you talk to me.”
Talking about the bad thing is almost as scary as going into the ocean. That’s why I don’t talk about it. Never ever . . . except something about Uncle makes me think that maybe just this once, I can.
I twist my hands in my lap. “I don’t like to remember it.”
“You’re stronger than you think. Take your time.” Uncle watches the horizon instead of me, and somehow that makes it easier.
“So, Dad had