I remember it like it happened yesterday, even though it was long enough ago that I couldn't have been born yet. It was the twenty second of June, 1998, on a sun-drenched beach in Fort Myers Beach, a small town tucked in between Cape Coral and Sanibel. The sky was blue, and the warm breeze was blowing in from the Gulf of Mexico. The sun was baking down, and I was completely focused on making a perfect sand castle. Bella, my vibrant red-haired, freckled faced mother, had just walked out of the ocean after a dip.
"I wish Paul was here," she said, and I knew what she meant. My older brother James was supposed to meet us down there, but he got held up at work.
"I know," I said, and I threw the last of my sand part into the circle of sea.
Bella looked up and down the beach and said, "he better not be detouring and missing us." As if on cue, she looked up and down the beach, and then down at a selection of small bags and carriers. "Hey, I think that's Paul!"
I said, "really?" and my mother nodded. I knew what was in the bags and carriers. I had packed them myself.
"He better not have detoured to a bar, but it's Paul!"
My mother stood up, brushed off her sun-heated body, and then smiled, as I waved. Of course, it was really James and he was grinning widely, holding our bags and carriers in a bunch. He was still in his black suit and tie from work, as he always was. When he dropped everything down on the sand in front of us, he said, "what's this? I come to the beach and you're building a castle? On vacation?"
I said, "yes, James. I want to make a sand castle, like dad, and Bella, and Paul."
He scoffed and said, "it's supposed to be girls who like reenacting fairy tales, not guys. You can't tell me you're building a Dornkirk castle instead of, you know, a small, cute little pink castle, like the ones we all grew up on."
"That's done," I said, not bothering to put my castle back in the box. I was off to play in the ocean again, as I was always on vacation at the beach. "So what's all this about?" My mother said to my brother.
"Paul got held up at work, otherwise he would be here too."
"Then why didn't you just call Paul, instead of wasting money on a taxi?"
"Because," my brother said, "if I call him at work, he can pretend he has to go to his desk."
"Exactly," my sister-in-law said, "why hasn't he finished putting his shirt on to go back to work?"
"He's making sure that you don't burn down our new place," James said. "He couldn't take the chance that you're unreliable.
