The Seashell Kingdom

My last visit to see my daddy at his little beach house near Mexico Beach, Florida was as fun as ever. My visits to see him had grown few and far between, and the last really long visit I had with him was my spring break the year before I started law school. We had so much fun fishing, cooking the fish, just talking about life, and enjoying the stories he shared from his little black book. I grew to love that black book and started giving him a new one every Christmas. I also gave him a cell phone during the last visit so he could call me more.

I was now in my third year of law school at Florida State University, and it was nearly impossible to find the time to go see him as much as I had when I was younger. He had called me every other day after getting that cell phone and each time asked when I could come visit again. We were planning my next visit, and the last time I spoke to him, was the day before he died. Daddy passed away in his sleep two days before I was to arrive to spend my spring break with him. In our last conversation we laughed and talked about the upcoming week, about going fishing every day, and how we were looking forward to seeing each other again. He said he had some new stories for me, too.

Daddy and mama were really young when they married, and were divorced the summer of my fifth birthday. My mama's version of the story was that it just didn't work out. She said she loved my daddy, but just could not live with him. Neither of them ever said anything bad about the other but I always suspected there was more than they were telling me. Daddy was contented to live in a quaint little beach house close to the Gulf of Mexico, where he could eke out a living taking tourists out on fishing trips, and selling his "fish tales" as he called them, while my mama longed for a more glamorous lifestyle. She married a wealthy businessman when I was in the sixth grade, and we moved into a big house.

As I park in the sandy driveway outside of the little two-bedroom house I take note that the place could really use a coat of paint and a new roof. On the day that would have been our first day of fun, I get out of my car to walk the little path of oyster shells to the door, there’s a warm sea breeze, and my thoughts drift back to my childhood visits, to a time when we would go out early every morning to "fish the flats,” as he called it. My thoughts so vivid, I can almost hear him whistling a nautical tune as we'd get the gear together for the day's adventure. When we had caught enough fish for supper, he would let me swim near the sandbar and then we'd head home to clean the catch of the day. When I was really young (six years old), I'd watch as daddy fried up the delicious Flounder (a funny-looking fish), Trout, and "doughboys" as he called them. I called them "hush puppies" because I like the way it sounded. When I was older, I helped him make supper. After we feasted and had cleaned away the dishes, daddy would relax in his favorite chair to write in his little black book, and read me his latest story. I always enjoyed going to stay with daddy. He had some of the best stories ever!

As I open the door and walk in, it's strangely quiet, and I immediately spot his latest little black book next to his chair. Daddy has four bookshelves, in the living room instead of a television, and on three of those bookshelves are all the little black books from all the years of his life. As I sit down in his chair, I see a piece of pink tape on the spines of each of the last 40 black books. Curious, I pull the first one and open the front cover. The date is June 23, 1998, the day I was born. I take it back to the chair, and start to read the story of my life, and that part of my daddy's life after I came to be.

After an hour of reading, I place the book on the table next to the current one and notice the corner of an envelope sticking out from the back cover. I pull it out, noting my daddy's handwriting, "For the Seashell Princess." That's what he called me because I loved collecting seashells. I think he must have every one that I ever picked up as a child. I open the envelope and pull out five crisp one hundred dollar bills. I pause for a moment remembering what daddy use to say about those stories. He called them the stories of the Seashell Kingdom. He was the great and benevolent Seashell King, and I, of course, was the beautiful and kind Pearl, the Seashell Princess. I also realized that daddy had started writing the stories about the Seashell Kingdom, before I was ever old enough to understand them or collect seashells.

I looked at the bookshelf again. I walked over and started looking through each of the last 40 black books, the ones with the pink tape on the spines, and there was an envelope in all of the last 40 black books, and each envelope had the same message, "For the Seashell Princess" written on it. All 40 of the envelopes contained five, crisp, one hundred dollar bills. There was all total $20,000 for the Seashell Princess. The great and benevolent Seashell King was gone, but in that moment of grief and recollection of his life, I rejoiced knowing that I would have my daddy’s lifetime of stories, some before I was born, and many after. The $20,000 would be enough to publish those magical stories that captured the wonders of the Seashell Kingdom.

These days whenever I see a little black book, I think about those days, and for a transitory moment, I am once again the Seashell Princess and my daddy is the great and benevolent Seashell King in the enchanted Seashell Kingdom on the Florida Gulf Coast.