Of My Dreams

The waves lapped over the sand softly as a little girl, age four, walked along the beach with a small yellow pail swinging back and forth in her hands. Her tiny feet left only small prints in the soft, damp sand. As soon as they appeared, the prints were washed away by the frothy waves.

Every few minutes, the little girl would bend down and reach her hand to graze the sand as she collected a shell. Occasionally, a boy who was slightly older than the little girl would walk over and add a shell or a piece of sea glass to the girl’s pail. This barely fazed her.
Ahead of the children, there was a couple walking along the shore, holding hands. They were young, beautiful, and very much in love.

The woman paused and turned around to call out to the little girl and boy, “Come on you too. Don’t stray too far behind us.”

The little girl’s mother bent down and held out her arms. Happily, the little girl giggled, dropped her yellow pail, and ran to her mother to accept the embrace. Her mother lifted her up in her arms. In the little girl’s special way, she closed her eyes and pat her mother’s hair affectionately. The man that stood with her mother called the boy over as well.

The little boy rolled his eyes and picked up the pail that the younger girl had so easily discarded. Once he had their treasures gathered up once again, he ran over to his father’s side. The man smiled down at the boy and ruffled his sandy blond hair. The boy pretended to hate the show of affection. The man chuckled and looked out to the sunset over the Atlantic ocean; he spotted a peculiar object riding the waves to the shore and laying across the sand. He walked over to the object to examine it.

“Lottie, Fred,” he called out to the children, “Come have a look at this.”

Lottie squirmed out of her mother’s arms so she and Fred could go to the man’s side.
“I want to see, Daddy!” Lottie exclaimed when she had reached him.

At one point, “Daddy” had been “Uncle Stanley” but then Mommy and Uncle Stanley explained how he wasn’t her uncle at all. He was going to marry Mommy and he’d become Daddy. And Fred would become her brother. Lottie often wondered if that meant she was finally allowed to call him “Freddie” since he had forbidden her to call him that when they first met.

Even though Mommy and Stanley weren’t married yet, Lottie called him Daddy, just for practice.

“Do you see that, Lottie?” Fred pointed to the five-pointed squirmy object on the ground.

She nodded, “What is it, Daddy?”

“A starfish,” he smiled as he picked it up and placed it in her small, outstretched hands.
Lottie felt a strange sensation as the starfish sucked itself on to her skin. It scared her so she quickly threw it off and watched as it landed in the sand.

“Hey, careful now,” Stanley picked up the starfish and made sure it was still wet, “It’s alive, you know. Would you like to hold it, Fred?”

“Okay, Dad,” Fred held out his hands, “And I promise that I won’t drop it.” Fred attempted to make himself look older in front of his soon-to-be little sister. When Stanley placed the starfish in Fred’s hands, he didn’t drop it. But even little Lottie could tell that Fred felt uncomfortable as he held the object in his hands.

“You know,” Fred said in a matter-of-fact voice, for Lottie’s sake, “A starfish is the only kind of star that you can hold in your hands.”

“But you said that when we get taller, as tall as Mommy and Daddy,” Lottie said in her own know-it-all voice, “you said that we’ll be able to touch the stars in the sky.”

Both Stanley and Mommy looked from Lottie to Fred, wondering what other kind of stories Fred was planting in the impressionable four-year old’s head. “I suppose you’re right,”
Stanley said after a moment, “but you’re still too small to reach up to the stars. Some day you’ll be able to reach up and hold as many as you’d like. For now though, you should appreciate the beautiful one you see now.”

That’s when a little fight broke out between Fred and Lottie.

Lottie held out her hands, “I want to hold the starfish again! I want to hold a star!”

“No,” Fred held the starfish close to his body to show that he had possession of it, “This one is mine.”

“You held it longer than me! It’s my turn,” Lottie’s bottom lip quivered, and they all knew she was about to cry.

“Hold on, you two,” Stanley put a hand out to pause the fight, “I think I see a perfect Lottie-sized starfish. Let me get it.”

Stanley got closer to the waves and bent down to pick up a very tiny starfish that was the perfect size for the four-year old to hold. He placed it in her hand, and this time she didn’t drop it. She looked down at it happily. Fred looked over her shoulder at the smaller starfish and decided he still liked his better.

Mommy walked over to Lottie and bent down so she could examine the tiny starfish, “You should make a wish on it.”

Lottie closed her eyes and pursed her lips to seriously consider a good wish. She wished that when she finally lived with Daddy and Fred, she’d meet a friend like Mommy’s that she could take with her to collect stars from the sky with.

“Okay, I’ve got a wish,” Lottie said as she opened her eyes. She looked over at Fred, who watched her critically as if ten-year olds were much too mature to make petty wishes on stars. Lottie shrugged and started to walk back to her yellow pail.

“Oh, no, Honey,” Mommy followed her as Lottie tried to get the starfish off her skin and into the bucket, “We need to put the starfish back in the ocean.”

“Why?” Lottie demanded, “I want to keep it so I can make wishes whenever I want.”

Daddy took the starfish gently off her hand and poured salt water on it. “It’s still a living thing, Lottie,” he reminded her as he turned it over to reveal a very tiny mouth in the middle of its five legs, “Besides, if you keep it, it can’t send your wish to the other stars and your wish won’t come true.”

“Oh,” Lottie frowned. Daddy began to walk to the edge of the water. “Wait! Stop!” Lottie cried after him and Fred.

Mommy looked concerned, “What is it?”

Lottie ran after Daddy with her hand extended in front of her, “I want to do it.”

So little Lottie and Fried threw their starfish back into the ocean and waved at them. Lottie turned and walked back to Mommy. Fred and Daddy followed behind her. As the four walked back to their beachside hotel, Lottie turned her head and looked back once more at the ocean. She hoped that the starfish would pick out a good friend to help her reach for the stars in the sky…