Member-only story
Sandcastles
Fiction Friday
Pentimento Beach. Its real name is Pentianimo Lake — something to do with a First Nations legend — but their Mom calls it Pentimento because it’s easier to say.
They go there the summer Abby is six, and Charlie is nine. They even stay in a cabin near the beach. It isn’t anything like the fancy cottages on the sunny side of the lake — the ones that have flush toilets, glassed-in porches and lush green lawns with Adirondack chairs that sit in the shade under big maple trees. Their cabin is on the other side, where the light only peeks in from between the mountains for a couple of hours each day before it disappears again.
It doesn’t matter, though. It is a real vacation. Abby and Charlie spend every minute in the water while their mother lies on a blanket reading magazines about fashion and romance. Their father spends most of his time at the pub, but sometimes when he’s around, he tinkers with the old speedboat — the one that came with the place, and tries to get it to run.
When it grows dark in the evenings, Charlie and Abby sit outside on the grass on plastic lawn chairs while they count shooting stars and tell each other ghost stories.
Sometimes Charlie draws the pieces of gnarled wood he finds on the beach, and Abby tries to weave together the reeds and grasses…
