There was a woman, lovely, intelligent, educated (Mount Holyoke, I think); she had a lively and spirited career in the Big City and after a time she met a lovely, intelligent, educated (Yale; then Columbia) man with a lively and spirited career. She fell in love with him and he with her and they married and settled down in New Rochelle, just like Rob and Laura, only she still had her career, at least for a while. For they were blessed with a child, their Richie; and she took a leave of absence from her job and stayed home for a while. And she just adored him, so much so that she couldn’t bear the idea of going back to her career just then. This little baby, so eager and alert and just as smart as a whip.
And he took his first steps, and she was there; and spoke a little word, and then another, and she was there. He grew very fast, it seemed to her; and she coaxed him into using the potty like a big boy and applauded him when he did it. Once in a restaurant he annonced in stentorian tones for the whole crowd to hear that he had to go make a boom boom, and she was not embarrassed, but proud of her little man. Her husband was mortified.
Well, money was tighter, with just the one income, but they managed to put a little aside and go to the seashore for a few weeks that summer, and they took a cottage at Beach Haven. It was lovely, the sun shone and the waves crashed and the little boy played in the sand; he would go down to the breakwater and look in at the little creatures in the swirling waters, and he would go to the edge of the ocean and a wave would roll in and wash over him up to his knees and he would laugh and run away.
One day they were there on the beach, this woman and her beloved toddler child, and suddenly a great wave roared out of the wine-dark sea and pounced upon the two of them; and as the tumult and uproar ebbed away and all was as it had been, there were no longer two on the beach, but one, for the boy was gone.
The woman screamed aloud and shouted to the heavens; “Please, Oh you Powers, oh please! I am bereft! Do not torment me and ruin me but return my child to me!”
And as if in answer yet another great wave roared in and pounded her and the beach and all was concealed beneath the spray and the rumble; and as it went back, this wave, into the sea, the miracle had happened, and the child had been spit up from the belly of the ocean.
And all was quiet except for the gentle sussurrus of the surf. Then, hesitantly, softly, the woman spoke again.
“He had a hat…”
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