The Secrets my Mother Kept

1:47 p.m.

The Birthday lunch sat untouched on the dining room table. Mom's favorite plates - the blue and white ones with the waves around the edges - had been set out with careful precision. A weak attempt at normalcy.

Four perfect sandwiches. Five perfect plates. It had been two years since the last time they set Alexander's Mom's plate, but Alexander couldn't help but think about just that as he stared at his Dad's empty plate next to his Aunt Sydney.

No one had touched their food.

Sydney checked her phone for the third time in the last several minutes, hoping for some kind of word from her brother by now. Alexander stared past the plate, watching the pendulum swing back and forth out of boredom, each tick back and forth feeling like a small betrayal.

Dad had promised….

“Alright, that's enough.” Grandpa Marcus said, interrupting the silence that had turned Awkward around the 1:30 mark of the clock. “Eat up, Alex so we can go to the lake.” Grandpa Marcus continued, taking an aggravated bite out of his sandwich.

Alexander nodded, that first bite of his sandwich feeling the most traitorous.

“Excuse me” Sydney said, she slid out of her chair putting all of her attention on her phone as she excused herself from the dining room. Alexander couldn't help but overhear her aunt frustratingly get his father's voicemail.

“I don't want to go to the lake without Dad.” Alexander said sighing Into his plate placing the sandwich back down after a half attempt at a bite. Sydney walked back into the room.

~ ☆☆☆ ~

The beach at the lake was empty. The sky was a dark grey, and the air smelled of rain. Grandpa Marcus stood ankle deep in the water, in his hand, and fishing rod. Alexander played in the rocky sand at the shore with his aunt Sydney, Grandma Brittney sat on a portable pull out beach chair she brought from home along with an umbrella. In her lap was a book Alexander had no interest in. A long book. A wordy book. It may have been her favorite book in the while entire world, but to him it was long and boring.

They had been at the beach now forty-five minutes before the rain started to pick up again. As the rain fell faster, Alexander could almost feel it sync between the waves at the shore and the way the wind danced against the surface of the lake. He knew how rain and wind worked, but in this moment something inside of him felt in control of both as he watched the rain disappear under the surface of the water. Alexander caught himself starting to stare at the way the water moved, pulling his attention within the current. It was his aunt that pulled him out of it.

“Having fun?” She asked the boy. Alexander blinked. What he had been staring at collapsed back into a calm stillness as he looked up at his aunt's blue eyes.

“Huh? Oh yea…” Alexander answered. He looked back at the water, the concentrated controlled feeling faded and distant now. “Yeah”

Sydney spoke again.

“Whatcha doin?” She asked.

“Collecting rocks” Alexander said, a sense of defense in his voice. Sydney smiled, relieved that her brother's absence wasn't having too much of an effect on the rest of Alex's day.

“You okay?” Sydney asked anyway. Alexander nodded nealing into the water again to collect more rocks. “Can I see what you've found?” She asked. Alexander nodded

Alexander reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of smooth stones. Most were gray or brown, ordinary lake rocks, but he'd been selective. Each one had been touched by water long enough to develop a perfect smoothness.

"This one kind of looks like a heart," Sydney said, picking up one of the darker stones. She was trying too hard to sound cheerful, the same way she had at lunch. "Your mom used to collect heart-shaped rocks, remember?"

Alexander took the stone back maybe a little too quickly. Of course he remembered. The windowsill in the kitchen still held her collection, gathering dust. Dad never moved them, never even cleaned them.

"I'm not collecting them because of Mom," he said, but his fingers closed protectively around the heart-shaped stone anyway.

"No, of course not." Sydney's smile flickered. She watched him gather more rocks, pretending not to notice how his hands trembled slightly. "You know, when your dad and I were kids-"

"I don't want to talk about Dad."

"Alex..."

"Can you just..." Alexander dug his fingers into the wet sand. "Can you just help me look for rocks? Just rocks. Nothing else."