In My Father's Shadow Read Online Free PDF Page B

children!” Geraldine descended from the porch to the sandy backyard, where Michael and I were staging our current battle. She pulled us apart as we continued to shriek and flail at each other, then pronounced the sentence we knew by heart. “You are not to play together until you can play nicely. Chrissie, you are to go home at once, and Michael, you are to go to your room.”
    We did as we were told, but it was not long before Michael and I had crept out of our houses and stood on opposite sides of the picket fence that separated our adjoining properties. We held hands through the fence, crying pitifully and swearing to be kind to each other, until Geraldine relented.
    When I recall those sunlit days in Santa Monica, I am almost always outdoors and in my bathing suit. The houses along our strip of coastal highway were built to face the ocean, and I couldn’t remember when I had not fallen asleep to the sound of waves or woken up early in the morning with the fierce desire to see the ocean emerging from the fog. It meant running out of the house in my pajamas, dashing across the backyard—a rectangular plot of sand stolen from the beach and enclosed by a high, white wall—then scrambling up the steps that led to an elevated landing and locked gate. There I would stand barefoot and shivering on the wooden platform, peering into the fog, which rolled in from the ocean like fallen clouds, listening to the rhythm of waves, how the little ones hushed as they burst into spray while the big ones boomed like faraway guns.
    I remember far less about being in school, fully clothed, for the better part of the day. Life resumed when I was back home and racing through my homework so that I could run over to Aunt Geraldine’s before having supper in the kitchen with Marie. My father might or might not be there, or if he was, he might or might not have time for me; but I could always go for a walk by myself on the beach. It lifted my spirits just to skip along the tide line, just to feel the wet sand yielding under my feet. It was that magical hour at the end of the day when the light turned everything to gold. I pretended the sun was a red-orange balloon that someone in the ocean—a mermaid?—was pulling down from the sky. It came down so slowly, so slowly, that it was always with a shiver of surprise that I saw it drop beneath the waves.
    In those days the beach belonged to the people who lived on it. It was rarely crowded, except on weekends, and so safe that I was allowed to come and go once I grew old enough to understand that the ocean I loved with my whole being could also drown me. Yet even as a young child, with Marie standing by, I had been allowed to paddle around in the foamy leavings of waves. Later on, when the surf was not too rough, I held my nose and rolled around and around in the undertow until I came up coughing and spitting sand. This was my idea of fun. Some days the breakers were so huge there was nothing to do but sit far back on the sand in awe. I could not conceive then that my days would not always begin and end on the beach at Santa Monica.
    On weekends I was more sure of seeing my father. Often on a Saturday I ran over to Aunt Geraldine’s after breakfast and found him already at work, reading and scribbling in his favorite nook on the porch, unshaven and wearing only his bathing trunks. He didn’t seem to hear the hush and thunder of waves, the screeching of gulls, the soothing, familiar sounds that drifted over the high, white wall. The wind uncombed his dark hair, and yet I felt he was untouchable, imagining a glass wall had risen around him. I sat down in a wicker chair, careful to be quiet, and waited with all the patience I could muster, which was not very much. I watched his every move, wondering why he slashed through some pages with a furious pencil and then smiled at others or doodled in the margins. Much as I wanted to draw closer and peer over his shoulder, I didn’t dare.
If I sit here