The midsummer night

I sighed. "Okay honey, your braid is ready", I told my six years old daughter, Audrey. She was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen, with her deep blue eyes, constantly shiny with happiness. Every time you saw her smile you could feel it deep inside you.
To top it all, she had inherited that thick, dark hair from her father.

This day was special. It was on this summer day our separation had been official. We had fought constantly, neither of us were truly ready to commit for good this early in life. I had only been seventeen. Stephen had been nineteen. Audrey had never seen her father after the day she turned one.

"Sarah, Audrey, it's time!" My mother yelled from the first floor in the house. We were visiting my parents this midsummer night. Come to think of it, I suppose we do every year. Because it's the most powerful way for me to be able to relive all the magnificent things that happened here. Just so I can see Stephen's face more clearly in my head again.

Over these five years I had grown up so much.
And I had realised that I still missed the man of my youth.

Audrey had put on her shoes and the turquoise dress she had gotten a month ago from an anonymous sender in the mail.

We walked out the back door and into the forest behind the house, and to the tiny beach that lay hidden behind it. It was tradition for us and all the neighbours to celebrate midsummer night here every year, and it had been like that since before I was even born.

All the neighbours were there already,
and they had all brought the food and beverage they needed with them.
The twilight had began to set by now, and we all joined around the unlit bonfire. Four of the men walked closer to it, and lit it with their torches. They stood back, and we all linked hands with each other while a soft, warm breeze was blowing through the air. Together we watched the fire grow steadily until it seemed to reach
the heaven above us. It was absolutely mesmerizing.

And then the party began. People were eating, discussing how great this summer would be and all that. I suppose I was pretty happy myself. It gave me a warm feeling to see all my loved ones be so content and cheerful.
And yet I was unable to shake off the feeling of missing -
or rather lacking perhaps - a certain someone.

It was four hours later when I turned to face my mother who said “I’ll put her to bed and tuck her in if you’d like to stay here a bit.” I thanked her before looking back out over the ocean. Everybody had gone to bed or went to a nachspiel somewhere by now.

It was absolutely dark out here by now, but the bonfire was still burning, throwing shadows everywhere. I had never really been all that afraid of the dark, but when I saw a movement out on the water I could feel chills run down my spine in a not so good way.

I shook the feeling off of me since I couldn’t see anything moving now. But as I saw it again I rose to my feet, feeling as if all the calm darkness was suffocating me, as if something, or someone, would jump out of the forest at any moment. I thought about running home, but that would involve going into the forest, something I certainly would not do at any costs.

A sound was coming from the beach. I couldn’t see anything through the darkness, but I could definitely sense that I wasn’t alone anymore. Without thinking, and just letting my body do what it wanted, I walked a few steps towards the sound. It sounded as if... As if someone was dragging a boat up on the beach?

“Hello?” My voice was shaky, and it only came out as a whisper.
I don’t think I had ever been so scared in my entire life. Not even when I found out I was with child. Not even when I was alone with a one year old child.
But this was different. I was standing with my eyes only focused on that spot where I had heard the loud crunch in the sand, with my back turned against the woods.

“Sarah?”
A thousand flashes of memories struck me.
All of them contained him, and that voice.
His voice.

I was afraid to face him. Afraid that it was just my idiotic brain playing tricks on me, as it had done before. But this seemed real. So real.
My eyes widened, and tears blurred my vision as I turned around. He was leaning against a tree, the flames lighting up his face. Steve’s face.
We had both frozen, and I had a little time to study him. He had filled out a bit, he wasn’t the lanky teenager he had been. He looked more grown, but I could still see him. He was as gorgeous as he had been the first time I saw him.

A few steps later we were standing so close, but not close enough. Again my brain shut off, and my body ran the last few steps, closing the distance and jumping into his open arms.

I had never felt more safe in my entire life. I was filled with so many emotions, some I could name and some I could not. Love, bliss...

“I missed you”.
“I missed you too”.

He pulled away, leaning his forehead against mine, looking intently into my eyes.

“Did she like her dress?”
“She loved it.”