I’ve always loved the sea; the caress of waves, the scrunch of sand, the weightlessness in the water. Even as a little girl I’d tell all my secrets to it—my problems, my worries— whispering them into the blue where they’d disappear.
Today, I walk barefoot, holding my jandals in one hand as the tide rubs against my legs. Come in, it says. Come play.
Not today. I’ve meetings to go to, places to be, a house to tidy, a—
Something sharp stabs my foot, and I stop walking. I look down expecting to see a shell, but instead I see a diamond ring.
You’re welcome, says the sea.
I bend down and pick up the ring. Solid gold band, single solitaire diamond. An engagement ring. I look around to see if anyone nearby has lost it, but there’s only an old couple walking their dog, teenagers sunbathing, and a single dad building sandcastles with his kids. Maybe I should ask someone? Maybe I should report it? Or maybe I should just pocket it in my shorts and keep walking.
I twirl it in my fingers. It’s nice. Classy. The kind of ring I would’ve wanted. Probably worth a lot of money.
It ends up in my pocket, and later when I slip my hand in there it seems to wriggle itself upon my wedding finger. It’s a perfect fit, like it was always meant to be.
The tide kisses my toes in agreement.
“Where’d you get that?” my flatmate, Jess, asks later.
I’m chopping up onions, still wearing my ring. “What?” I say, as if I don’t know.
“That big fat ass diamond ring on your finger.”
Memories of what my Mother would say flicker through my mind: oh, this old thing; oh, I’ve had it in the cupboard for years, but Jess won’t buy any of that.
“The sea gave it to me.”
Jess splurts out the coffee she’s drinking. “The what?”
“The sea. I was walking, and it gave it to me. Like a gift.”
“You’re crazy, Shelly. The sea doesn’t give gifts, that’s someone’s ring. You found it, and they’ve lost it. People get metal detectors out all the time tracking that beach for lost rings and watches. Someone’s probably out there right now looking for it.”
“Well, it’s mine now.”
“I can’t believe you’d say that. Have you even reported it to the Police?”
There was a sting to Jess’ words, much like the onion I was cutting.
“No. I don’t see why I have to. Someone probably threw it away. They didn’t want it. I do. End of story.”
“And you’re going to wear it on your ring finger . . . like you’re engaged?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t think that’s a little weird?”
I put down the knife. “Look Jess, I just broke up with someone. After four fucking years of waiting for a ring. And now I have one. My own ring. Can you just be a little bit happy for me?”
Jess went to her room after that. I hummed to myself as I cooked. Josh never liked onions, but I could cook and do what I fucking liked now, and if I wanted to wear a ring then no one was going to stop me.
The next day after work, I head to the beach for a swim. There’s no one else out. Perhaps it’s too cold for others, but the cold doesn’t bother me. When Josh and I broke up, I was swimming in the sea every day, rain or shine. Still whispering my secrets to it, like I’d done when I was a little girl. Telling it about my heartbreak, and adding my salty tears into its mix. “I just want to be with someone who loves me,” I told it, and sometimes, in the quiet moments of gentle lapping, it felt like someone was listening.
Today it’s frisky. It picks me up playfully and throws me around. I can’t help but laugh. Every now and then I reach for my ring, but it’s on firmly. It’s not coming off.
You’ll make a beautiful bride, says the sea.
And it dresses me with white frothy waves that cling to my body.
When I return to the sand I’m breathless. My ring sparkling.
There’s a young, bearded man with a metal detector working nearby. “Did you lose something?” I ask, as I hide my hand under my towel.
“My watch. I’ve hired this for the day, but I’ve only picked up junk.” He smiles. It’s a lopsided Josh-smile, and I’m not sure if I should love it or hate it.
“I’m Clint,” he says. Kind eyes welcome me.
“Shelly.” Impulsively, I twist the diamond ring off my finger.
The sea watches. It slams its waves upon the shore.
“Woah. The sea’s pretty wild today, eh?”
“Yes, it sure is,” I say, and despite the sun I feel a shiver creep down my spine.
Two months later, Clint, my metal detector man, is down on one knee with that lop-sided smile, showing me a little velvet box.
“Is it . . . ?”
“It is.” That smile gets more imbalanced. “How about it, Shelly. Will you marry me?”
I waited four years for a ring from Josh. Four years thinking my uterus would dry up, and yet Clint’s proposed in two months.
“Are you sure? I mean . . . It’s only been . . . ”
“When you know, you know. You’re the one, Shelly. You’ll make a beautiful bride.”
His words sound familiar. Have I heard them somewhere else?
I’m still looking at the box, at Clint. I realise I haven’t given him an answer.
“Of course,” I say. And then I open the box.
The ring shouldn’t matter, but it does. It’s a platinum ring with a smallish diamond solitaire. Clint places it on my finger, where it slips and slides.
“Sorry, I should’ve got it sized. But we can do that later. I thought you’d like platinum.”
I don’t have any platinum. Gold is my favourite, but he hasn’t known me long enough to know that, and now’s not the right time to tell him. “It’s perfect,” I say, even though it’s not.
“I’m hoping you’ll move in with me.”
“In the city?”
“Yeah. I don’t have a flatmate. We’ll be closer to work.”
“But the sea—”
“Huh?”
“I’ll be away from the sea . . . I’ve always loved the sea . . . ” My words sound wistful, and I realise I haven’t been back to the beach since I met Clint. Now, that I’m thinking about it, I miss it. The cool, clear water. The smell of salt and seaweed. Why haven’t I been back? And self-consciously I twist Clint’s diamond ring on my finger.
“We can visit the beach, anytime, Shelly.”
“Visit? Yes.”
“Anyway, it doesn’t matter. We’ll work it out. The important thing is you said yes.”
He leans in to kiss me.
It’s what I’ve always wanted isn’t it? A ring? A kind husband? Marriage? As he pulls away from the kiss my smile feels lopsided.
“Aren’t you going to tell him you’ve already got a ring,” says Jess, when I tell her the good news later. “You know the one ‘the sea gave you’.” She hasn’t forgotten.
“Can’t you just be happy for me, Jess? Why are you always so negative?”
“Sorry. I am happy. But I still don’t think you should have that ring.”
“I suppose I could sell it now. Or give it back.”
“Give it back?”
“Yeah. Return it to the sea.”
“It was never the sea’s to begin with.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
“Shelly, sometimes you’re bonkers.”
“Only sometimes?”
And at least that makes Jess laugh.
The ring’s in my jewellery box. I wonder who last wore it. Was it lost, or discarded? Did someone throw it away in a fit of anger, or did someone carelessly lose it in the waves? I suppose it doesn’t matter. I should return what was given.
When I walk down to the beach a storm’s brewing in large, dark clouds. I breathe it in. The wild. It’s been too long since I was last here.
The waves are grey, forlorn, and they batter the shore. I sit on the sand, for a while, just watching, taking it all in. The ships bobbing far off in the distance. The seagulls perched on rocks, huddling against the weather. The clouds that look like they’re about to cry. I’ve always told the sea everything, and I don’t see why I should stop now. I take off my shoes and socks, and roll my jeans up. I want to feel the water between my toes, the sand under my feet. I want to be close.
“Hello, again. Long-time no see,” I say as I paddle.
The water’s icy, and the cold bites my toes.
“You know, you helped me get over a really rough time in my life. With Josh. Cheaper than paying for a therapist, and more enjoyable too.” I laugh to myself. Memories trickle by: hot days, floating out here, starfish-like when the water was calm, and knowing everything was going to be alright; diving underwater, holding my breath till I was bursting, and then coming up to breathe and knowing how much I loved life; and swimming way out, till my arms and legs ached and replaced the pain inside. I remember it all.
“I . . . I’ve met someone. It was really quick. I didn’t expect anything to happen, but it did.” I look around to see if anyone’s watching, but the beach is deserted. “We’re going to be married. He proposed . . . I hope you can be happy for me.”
A white froth pours over my feet, and I find myself stopping in the sand, looking out to those waters that healed me. “Anyway, I . . . I just thought I should give you your ring back. So you can give it to someone else.”
I pull the ring out of my jean’s pocket. It really is beautiful, much more beautiful than the ring Clint gave me, if I’m honest to myself. This one even fits better. “Thank you,” I say, and I throw the ring as far as I can into the sea, and turn to leave.
You’ll make a beautiful bride.
“Sorry?”
I turn to see who has spoken, but there’s no one there. The grey water’s churning.
Do you always toy with those who love you?
The voice again.
Suddenly the sand’s dragged away from under my feet, and I tumble backwards into the surf. I’m soaked. My jeans saturated, my top wet, my phone will be ruined. I try to stand up, but a rogue wave comes from out of nowhere. A monstrous wall of grey.
“What the—”
It pummels me to the shore, pressing and pushing my face into the sand. I can’t breathe. A scream escapes. Precious breath wasted in bubbles. I’m close to the shore, I just need to crawl my way out. But the sand slips between my fingers, like it can’t bear to be touched by me, and the sea drags me back to where the water is deeper.
“Please—” A single word escapes.
But no one’s listening. My feet struggle for purchase until they’re no longer scraping against the sand but pedalling in the grey. And still I’m dragged further out. I try to swim, but I’m ripped back to where more waves wait for me. Desperate eyes scan the shoreline, but there’s no one there. No one to see my drowning. Watery fingers rip Clint’s ring from my hand. My mouth fills with the bitter taste of saltwater.
Your veil. Kelp is thrown into my hair.
Your dress. White froth bubbles over me.
And now my kiss. A torrent of water presses my lips apart and pours into my lungs.
My beautiful bride.
A lone dog walker finds my dead body two hours later, washed up among the beach. Soft waves lap my body lovingly.
The Police find my phone, my driver’s license, a name.
“I don’t understand,” says a tearful Jess when she gets the call from the Police. “She wasn’t going swimming.”
“Has she been depressed lately?”
“Shelly? In the past, but she’s engaged to be married. She . . . she was happy. I think.
“She wasn’t wearing a ring.”
“It was platinum . . . a bit loose. They were going to get it fitted . . . Oh God.”
I can hear Jess crying. “She . . . she always loved the sea.”
And I loved her.
The Police Officer looks up from her phone, as if she heard something out in the water, but she shakes her head.
They cart my body away, and I sit on the sand and watch the incoming tide.
A girl with dead eyes joins me. “You’re one of us now,” she says. More like her appear—wisps of white walking along the sand.
She holds our her hand. “Come.”
I join the procession to become the wind that ripples and combs the sand. The lost voices given to the shells. A forever bride of the sea.
“I was going to be married, you know?” I say. My dead eyes pool with black and I twist an empty place on my ring finger. I can’t remember his name—only a lop-sided grin and the sound of the waves.
“You are married,” says the girl.
The sea tickles our feet as it listens.
My beautiful, beautiful brides.
