Sanibel had always lived by the sea, and this was how she was named–for the beautiful Sanibel Island with its turquoise waters and white sand beach.
“From the moment you were born, you were fresh as a sea breeze,” her mother told her. “You are light and air and the glimmer of the sea.”
Friends from the village brought things to them, perhaps believing that a mother alone could not provide everything a child needed. But Sanibel’s mother, Azure, said they came to see her–Sanibel–because she had the beauty of an African gazelle. They brought her beautiful garments, beads, printed scarves and flowing shawls. Azure accepted these things, which made it easier for her to provide for her daughter.
Sanibel often looked out to sea. At other times she looked inland, as if the thing she was missing may be there instead. She longed for something, but did not know where to look for it. She strolled the beach to find shells, and listened to the hushed roar in their hollows.
The day Sanibel’s mother could no longer take in enough air, from years of smoking menthols as she observed the gulls and painted sea life, Sanibel held her hand and whispered about the ocean. She sang songs of the sea that brought to mind it’s rolling waves, its sunrises, its glorious mid-day heat, and its marvelous birds. And in this way, her mother passed on into the next life, riding on a wave of love and song. Sanibel stayed there long into the night, caressing the aged hands. And by morning light, she faced a different world than the one she had always known.
Sanibel had never met her father. But there were people in the ocean village where she lived who had known him. She no longer had any family. It had always just been her and her mother, living on the income from her mother’s seascape paintings. She was 19 years old, and had no plan for her life.
She sat one day to tea with Marina, a friend who was like an auntie to her. Marina and Azure had painted together and made hemp baskets and shell jewelry, and shared a market stall on weekends.
“Marina, what do you know of my father?”
Marina had gray eyes and Sanibel always believed they had been bleached by the reflection of the sun on the ocean waves. “He went away,” Marina said. “Far away. When you were young.”
Sanibel leaned forward “But why? Why did he go?”
Marina looked thoughtful. “His heart was broken. That is all I can say.”
“My mother broke his heart?” Sanibel looked in the bottom of her tea cup, hoping to see her fortune there. “I don’t understand.”
“No, my sweet. It was no one’s fault.” Marina squinted and look out to sea. Then she looked back at Sanibel with her gray eyes. “Alright. I will tell you the story. I only hope you will understand.”
“I am listening.” Sanibel brought her shawl closer around her, as the evening breeze was cool.
“Please understand,” Marina said. “He loved your mother, and he loved you.”
“Then why? Why would he leave his wife and baby?”
“Because of the legend,” Marina said. “There was a legend told by the ancient mariners and handed down through generations. It was written on a scroll that was kept in a hold in the old lighthouse. It may be there still. I don’t know. The scroll foretold that one day a crew would be lost under a blue moon–all but the ship’s captain.” Marina looked into Sanibel’s eyes as if unsure whether she should go on.
“Yes? And?”
“And in reparation for these lives, the captain must sacrifice his first born son to the sea.” Marina paused again. “Or have his whole family destroyed by forces beyond anyone’s control.”
Sanibel sat up and looked at Marina. “What? But how can that be? Are you sure?”
Marina nodded. “I know how this must sound. We will never know if the legend is true. The only thing we do know is that it happened, exactly as foretold. You father lost his ship on a voyage to the Bahama islands, delivering a cargo of coffee and sugar. Under a blue moon. Your father was captain of the ship, and the only survivor.”
Sanibel shook her head in disbelief. “But why has no one ever told me? Why didn’t my mother explain this to me?”
Marina took her hand. “Because your father had to leave. Once he came back to the mainland and his health was restored, he fled from here. Your mother never thought you would understand. You were just a baby then, with beautiful blonde curls and immense blue eyes, the same color as the sea.”
“But why did he run away, Marina? And where did he go?”
Marina looked down at her hands. She seemed to be thinking about the best way to explain everything. “He wanted to make sure he would never have a son. He knew he could not make that sacrifice. And he wanted to save you, and Azure. And so, he moved away, to the very center of the continent, as far as possible from the sea.”
At this, Sanibel fell into Marina’s arms and cried.
A week passed as Sanibel packed her things and closed up her little cottage by the sea. She did not know when she would return. When the time came to leave, she said a tearful goodbye to Marina and took one last look at the turquoise ocean, then took a taxi to the train station.
The scenery began to change as soon as the train chugged out of town and began to move through prairie, then forest and then mountains. She traveled for four days, passing rivers, rocky hillsides, and prairie full of herds of elk. When she neared her destination, she even saw bison, which she recognized from picture books.
On the fourth day, the train slowed and came to a stop in a town that sat in a giant golden bowl of prairie grass, surrounded by tall mountains topped with snow. Sanibel drank in this scenery, as it was like nothing she had ever seen before.
She waited until every last traveler had left the train, until there was only one person left on the platform, a man with golden skin like her own, wearing a broad-brimmed stetson. There could be no mistake. Finally, she gathered her bags and stepped down off the train. Her father welcomed her into his arms, and held her for a long time.
“You don’t look like a mariner,” she said, standing back.
“I’m not,” her father said, with the smile of a mountain man. “Not anymore.”
They drove through country roads lined with golden grass to a ranch house in the foothills of enormous, craggy mountains. As the crunch of the tires over gravel came to a stop, her father turned to smile at her.
Image credit: Pixabay
“This is it,” he said. “Here you will learn to ride horses. Here you will learn to mend a fence, to lasso a cow, and to help deliver during calving season. If it suits you, you are welcome to stay. If not, you may return to your cottage by the sea. But at the very least, we shall get to know each other, at last.”
Sanibel stepped out of the truck and gazed at the mountains. She had never seen anything so magnificent before. Where the sea had vanished into the relentlessly flat horizon, the towering mountains and foothills covered in forest offered something spectacular for the eye in every direction.
“No,” she said. “Daddy, I won’t be going back. I can feel it. This is where I belong.”
Her father, she saw, had tears in his eyes. “Well then, welcome home.”
That afternoon, as her father tended to business, Sanibel went walking along a worn path that wound up through tall, golden grass toward a stand of pine. She felt so very tired. Was it the long travel that had tired her? With each step, she felt more sleepy and fatigued. No, she decided, it was not that she was exhausted. She was calm. It was the feeling of belonging and being whole. She could finally stop searching.
Art by @alexandravart
Before long, she sat down in the warmth of the sun-drenched field, and picked a long stem of grass that had gone to seed. Then she lay back in the grass, rested her arm across her forehead, and fell into a deep and blissful sleep.
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