Carved from Sand by M. L. Buchman

Author:M. L. Buchman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Buchman Bookworks, Inc.

8

Mary Elizabeth Thomas was always a logical girl, Morgan mused, no surprise that she was still that way as a woman. He decided that the collar line of her Sou’wester should fall a little lower down her neck, she had a great neck. He selected a round-cornered rhombus Venetian plasterer’s trowel from his tool bag, and reshaped the entire curve of the jacket. With an offset cupcake icer, he extended the hint of a curve made by her jugular vein, then blew air to clear the flaked-away sand.

A careful spritz of water, from a full foot back so the merest mist wetted the surface, and he studied the result. Yes, it was her.

“You’ve changed, and haven’t,” he didn’t turn to look at her. It wasn’t that he didn’t need to—he didn’t as she was so firmly fixed in his mind. It was that he didn’t quite dare.

“Oh this should be good.” And that hint of the old teasing tone they used to share was back.

He moved on to the shape of the Sou’wester where it would be plastered against her shoulder. “You still interpret everything in the most immediate way. I have groceries, they’re heavy, that must be what he’s talking about.”

“You don’t know me.” But after a long moment he heard the knapsack hit the sand with a clank of cans.

“No, but I knew you. Closest thing I had to a friend, I studied you a lot. I don’t think we can change that much.” With her shoulder properly in place, he stepped back to study the angle of her arm as she gripped the wheel. He’d pedaled out to the tall bronze statue of the Gloucester fisherman along the Boulevard before sunrise this morning to make sure it was clearly fixed in his head. Did Mary see how much of that determination was in her as well?

“You remained the artistic boy following his own vision no matter what it drew down upon your head?”

He paused without turning.

“Sorry,” she said quietly. “That came out sounding wrong. It was a skill I always admired in you. Your willingness to be yourself and to hell with all consequences.”

And wasn’t he paying the price now? The American medical system had caught them, stepping in to help only after Dad’s cancer had wiped out all of Mom’s and his own savings. Mom had died within weeks of Dad, the life had simply gone out of her. The house was gone to pay off the last of the debts. He now had a bicycle, his tools, and a spot on a buddy’s couch.

He should have…he didn’t know what. Saved more? Become a world-class cancer doctor to have found a miracle cure for Dad? Become a grief counselor who could have saved Mom?

Instead he carved sand.

A strange, ephemeral existence so easily erased by wind, rain, or simply time.

Morgan shook himself and did his best to return to the carving. If he won this one, he could afford to pay a little rent for his couch space, eke it out to the next job or competition.

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