Thirty-One Letters

Twenty

Grief is like the ocean; it comes in waves, ebbing and flowing. Sometimes, the water is calm, and sometimes it is overwhelming. All we can do is learn to swim—Vicki Harrison

Her dad had taken to joining her for early morning jogs down the beach.

She and her father used to run frequently together as dawn broke over the horizon but that was before Tanner. Running hadn't been something that she and her twin had done together but the grief had hit her like a tidal wave and sometimes even the thought of climbing out of bed in the mornings was a struggle.

But things had started to change recently. She was no longer drowning in the waves. Paddling against the current, most definitely. Her head was above the water though and that's what was important.

And so she'd started to run again. Bandit had instigated it. He had unlimited energy but a good run in the morning meant that he was capable of being dealt with for the rest of the day and prevented him from chewing on the drywall.

After three mornings of running alone, Hadley had found her father lacing up his shoes on the deck as she'd clipped Bandit to the leash.

"Mind if I join you?" he'd asked.

Hadley had shaken her head. "No."

There had been no discussion after that. They didn't always speak when they ran. Sometimes the companionship was enough. Other times they laughed as Bandit bounded beside them, barking at whatever caught his eye. More than once, the pup had pulled Hadley down into the sand as he raced after a seagull.

It had eased the tension between her and her father – the running. It brought them back to that place where they could be comfortable without speaking which, oddly enough, opened up the pathway for conversation. The strain of talking with her parents had lessened since she'd started completing Tanner's letters. Hadley was able to look past seeing his features in them, able to stand discussing her life with the knowledge that Tanner would never again be a part of it.

On an early Friday morning, they stopped for a break a few miles past the pier at a little coffee shop. Her father stepped inside while Hadley sat with Bandit at the picnic tables on the front patio of the café. He returned with two bottles of water and sat down across from her. Bandit ducked between them, panting in the shade beneath the table. His tail flicked lazily against her shin.

"Are you excited for the aquarium? You start there on Monday?"

Hadley capped the bottle and set it down on the table. "Yeah. It should be fine, I think. Casey and I are going to carpool to work since she's got a shift at the same time. I've still gotta pull all of my scuba equipment out of the garage."

She'd been offered the job on a trial basis. With their seasonal summer staff, they weren't able to offer her full-time hours but had agreed to twenty-four hours per week. If they liked her, they had already said that they would up her to full time come September when all of the students returned to school.

"She's off to college in the fall, right? Where'd she finally choose?"

"Princeton."

"What for?"

"Architecture with a minor in classics."

He hummed and his fingers drummed against the table. There was something on his mind that he wasn't sure he should bring up. Her father was many things. Subtle was not one of them.

Hadley sighed. "Spit it out."

The blue eyes they shared settled on her. "Are you sure that you don't want to go to college this year? There's always late acceptances..."