The beach scene

Inspired by Monday morning warm up at Jo Knowles blog:

What happened to Ted?

     As the coffee percolated in the antique coffee maker, its scent filled the kitchen and tiptoed down to the bedroom area of the beach house and gently rested beside me.  I slowly awoke from our first night in the house.  One of our traditions is to sleep with the patio door open (even though the a.c. unit hummed all night-something the home owner would hate us for) so we could hear the sound of the ocean as we drifted off to sleep.  It's one of our favorite things to do during our visits to the ocean, there's nothing like that sound.

     Gently waking to the start of the day was just how I liked to take things while on vacation.  I climbed out of bed and slipped on my robe and then sauntered up the steps.  The coffee steamed and bubbled as I poured the first cup of the morning.  The rest of the gang was already out at the beach pondering their next move in the surf.

     This year, I was especially worried about Christy.  It had been 4 years since we lost Ted, but I knew that time had not healed the wounds of loss.  I could see the tragedy still weighed heavily on Christy's mind as I looked caringly into her eyes.  I could still see the fear, hurt, sadness and anger boiling over through her tears at times.  I know all of us wondered then and still do, what we could have done differently, why we didn't listen to the off-duty police officer's warning...why did we go in the water that day?  All of these questions floated near the surface of our minds-especially now being back at the beach...

     The vivid scene played over and over in my mind-I just wish Christy wouldn't blame herself.  She had no control over the fact that Ted was an eternal show-off and always full of adventure.  She couldn't have known that this would be the tide that would take him.  She was just playing along with the game.  It was however out-of-character for her to disobey authority figures.  I think this is why she can't let go...I knew when the coast guard lowered that basket onto the beach--

Not sure where I am going with this...