lost little girl
The little girl steps out of the car. She is embraced with the heavy moist heat. The little girl looks out to see the infinite sea of umbrella tops and clouds of sand rising over the boardwalk. She waddles over to the trunk of the car where her mother stood digging out plastic shovels and buckets. With his shirt speckled with sweat, the father feels a tugging on his shorts and sees the little girl looking up at him with sparkled eyes.
"Lia, go to your mother can't you see I'm busy?" he grumbles as he untangles himself from his daughter.
He grunts as he hauls the bag full of baby diapers and beach towels. The little girl looks to the right to see her cousins hopping out of the car next to her's. Her older cousin by one year and his two-year-old sister stand next to their mom, refusing to leave her side. The two families make their way towards the shore. As the little girl leaves the wooden platform, her feet enveloped with the hot, coarse sand. She spots as a minuscule patch of vacant sand, pointing to it as she looks back to see her mom, her baby brother's carrier in one hand with a mesh bag full of colorful toys in the other. Her dad trudging towards her, face red and shimmering with sweat. The soaring seagulls fill the little girl's imagination of flying then suddenly interrupted by the rendezvous between the tickling cold sunscreen and her back. She looked down to see her pink one-piece bathing suit with three large, white daisies, and her arms now white. Pulling away from her mother, she throws her arms around her dad's legs. With a sigh, he pushes her towards her doll-like cousins who are sitting on the patterned blanket, poking the sand. The dad tells the mother that he and the uncle are getting more beach chairs from the car. As they leave, the mother turns to the aunt sitting next to her sedentary children and asks her to watch the kids while she goes to the restroom. The aunt nods then look at the sleeping baby in the carrier and in the corner of her eye sees the flashes of pink running around with a shovel. She reaches for the cooler, taking out an iced water bottle. The approaching crunch of sand is followed by the mother appearing from behind the rainbow umbrella. The mother asks the aunt where the little girl is, casually looking around. The aunt says that she was there a second ago. The mother looks back to the path of footsteps that led back to the restrooms. She tells the aunt that the little girl probably followed her to the bathroom without her knowing. While calling the girl's name in a soothing voice, the mother weaves through the waves of people, feeling the sharp, hissing, heat lengthen her pace. The mother peers into the restroom. No little girl. Breathing heavily, the mother calls the father, wrinkles forming above her eyes. She asks if the little girl was with the father and after a short pause, her ears echoed with the heavy word: No. The mother hastily makes her way back to the rainbow umbrella with a growing lump of worry in her stomach. She looks at her phone. Ten minutes. Ten minutes had gone by and no sign of the little girl anywhere. The father, not fazed by his heavy breathing, runs up and down the beach despite the biting sand, calling his daughter's name in desperation to hear the light, flowery giggles in response. The mother repeatedly describing the small girl's deep brown hair in pigtails, and her floral swimsuit to neighboring families, searching for any positive feedback. A deep beating of a propellor stops the couple in their tracks. The father looks towards the growing crowd at the edge of the water. Worry and confusion plastered over their faces as the helicopter creates a gaping dip in the water. Mist is thrown up into miniature tornadoes slapping the surface of the artificial waves. At the end of the pointing fingers of the crowd, a lifeguard embracing an orange buoy jumps the helicopter. Eyes dull, the father stands frozen imagining him and his wife's face is shown on the 6 o'clock news. The words "Breaking News" gliding across the bottom followed by "What seems like the perfect beach day turns tragic when a 4-year-old girl devastatingly drowns." A blurred picture appears on the screen corner of a limp body, floating helplessly face down, with drenched pigtails and a pink swimsuit with white daisies. He shivers as chills run over his entire body. A flood of memories and regret swallows the father whole as the echo of young, luminous laughter fills his ears to where he doesn't hear the roaring engine. The mother, fortifying her thoughts from the invasive fear, explains to the lifeguard behind her that she lost her child. After hearing the description, the lifeguard's cold demeanor turns warm. He tells the mother that she is safe with them, that she was found stumbling through the sand 5 blocks down and to wait for them to bring her back. The father demanded to meet them halfway, still in disbelief that the lifeguards found his daughter. Approaching the sandy horizon, a lifeguard walks in zigzags, looking up to the little girl on his shoulders, arms out wide, laughing just as brightly as when he last saw her. The father runs full speed towards his daughter, eyes blurred with tears. Arms open wide, the girl is swept up into her father's emotional embrace. As he hugs his daughter, the lifeguard explains that he found the girl chasing seagulls singing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow". The little girl asks her father why he was crying, and without being able to describe his belief in words, he kisses her forehead.