Salt cakes the edges of her mouth and hugs her skin, drying and pinching it, abrasive grains kneading into old scars and new wounds. She’s afraid to brush it off, and does so only in accordance with the rhythm of the waves in front of her, going in clockwise circles as the tide comes in, reversing as the tide goes out. Sand clings to her knees and feet, grains sliding into the folds in her dress and the creases in her hands where they touch the earth.
          Salt hits her tongue but doesn’t startle it. She’s too used to it.
          “How much longer do we have to do this?” the boy who may or not be her son yells, shovel in hand, a ways down the shoreline.
          She raises her head and looks at him, clothes blowing in the wind, hair flying around his sun-browned skin, eyes flashing gold in the sun. As she watches him, he brings his hand to his nose and brushes at it; his fist comes away bloody. He hardly notices. “Don't you want your trinket back?” she asks, voice floating upon the wind. While he has to yell to be heard, she speaks normally, evenly. Her voice is breathy, holds volumes of torture and pain but comes to him melodious and sleepy.
          “I don’t care that much.” Blood trickles onto his upper lip and she touches her own nose out of habit. “It’s really — ” The wind tears away his voice, so he tries again, louder, with greater vigor. “Oh, for crying out loud — really salty — and the altitude is getting to me, I think — ”
          “Keep digging,” she tells him.
          “I want to go home.”
          It’s a familiar cry. What he’s crying for, she does not know. The driftwood cabin overlooking the water is her home, but it's no home to a little boy. No sanctuary for a child.
          “This is your home,” she tells him. The wind howls in her ears and salt spray trickles down her cheeks.
          “The ocean doesn’t like me,” he responds, half whining. He drops to his knees and half-heartedly jabs at the sand with his shovel. “It’s angry.”
          “You haven’t proven yourself.” She’s helpless, clinging to this statement. “The ocean isn’t tame. You have to show it that you aren’t, either. That you’re worthy. That you’re wild.” It is true, but if he doesn’t have the strength in him — her strength in him — he won’t suffice. The ocean won’t respect him.
          A moment of silence passes, and he bows his head to the waves. She lies back on the sand and feels the earth shift.
          He pops up, clutching something. “I got it.” Sea foam streaks his hair, and blood has trickled onto his chin and neck. “Can we go?”
          “Sure,” she says, glancing at the sunlight on the water. He’s at her side in a second, holding out a red-streaked palm. The trinket’s in his other one, which swings by his side.
          She takes the hand, almost surprised at him, and he tugs her up the path. This is a walk she usually savors, takes time and pleasure in; today she takes it fast, storm-ridden hips aching. Bearing the sky on her shoulders, and his voice, mingling with wind, in her ear.

          The man had come to her late at night. His voice was gruff, eyes shining like the moon, and he had the boy, asleep, in his arms, which he pressed onto her. Left in her bed. The rough driftwood of the cabin shifted a little at the strangers’ presence, and shifted further as she leaned against it, pushing the man out the door, pushing him away from the boy while they argued.
          “You can’t just do this,” she told him, anger shining on her brow.
          “He’s your son. You can take him. It’s where he belongs.”
          “Don’t you think I would know if he were my son?” she whispered, sand dripping off of the cliff. Sliding away from his feet.
          “You aren’t natural.” That had been his excuse. He went on about that, like he had before. He closed his statement with a biting “witch” and a shove at her stomach, and backed away from her and ran down the cliff.

          When the boy leaves her he does so tearfully, spilling the ocean from his eyes, leaning onto his toes to press his face into her neck. She kisses his cheek, wind sounds clouding her ears, clouding her sense of him and his reality. She tastes salt, and it’s different from the ocean. It scalds her mouth.
          When she lies by the ocean later, alone, the sea sprays her mouth, sprays wildly, angrily, yet with none of his pain, none of his emotion. She lies back and lets it hit her bruised lips, knowing it will have no taste.
          She runs her fingers and toes over the hole he made, long covered over by the tides, and feels for the imprint of where the trinket was. She has to remind herself that it was not her trinket, that he was not her son. That he had none of her strength. That he was no match for the ocean.
          The sea recedes around her swollen feet, fearful of her shell of calm.
          From aching hips she bears a storm;
hell hath no fury.