The Cottage at Glass Beach by Heather Barbieri

cried.
    Nora turned, treading water. She was outside the cove now. Ella stood on an outcrop, waving her arms and yelling. “Didn’t you hear me calling you? That’s too far!” She looked so small, standing there.
    The seals ringed Nora in a half circle, as if to see what she’d do next. She found their scrutiny odd, but she wasn’t afraid. They fascinated her too. “What are you thinking?” she asked. “What do you want from me?”
    They dove out of sight. She waited a few minutes, hoping they would reappear, but the water remained still. They had moved on. It was time for her to do the same. She stroked back to shore, limbs burning. She’d underestimated how far she’d gone, how much energy it would take to return.
    â€œYou need to stay closer. I could barely see you,” Ella said as Nora emerged from the water.
    â€œI was following the seals,” Nora replied. Her body felt heavy, her muscles rubbery, now that she was on land, the waves no longer supporting her.
    â€œIt’s fine for the seals. They live out there. We don’t.” Ella paused. “I swam the lengths faster than I ever have. You should have seen me.”
    â€œMe too,” Annie said.
    â€œMust be something in the water.” Nora shook the droplets from her hair.
    They spread the towels and collapsed on the beach, beads of water sliding off their bodies, absorbed by the sand, dried by the sun, a drop at a time, leaving a salty film on their skin. Nora recalled lying in the sun like this at the modest beach house of her friend Maria Cordova. From the ages of eleven to thirteen, when Maria and Nora were best friends, Nora would go to the Cape for a week each July. She loved the smell of paella and the boisterous conversation of Maria’s extended family, in contrast to her own quiet home. She was the only student at her school, St. Agnes, without a mother.
    â€œWill it stay warm like this?” Ella asked. “I want to work on my tan.”
    â€œIt’s hard to say. There might be a storm later,” Nora replied. “Though they tend to blow through quickly at this time of year.”
    â€œHow do you know?” Annie asked.
    â€œThe ocean is telling us.” The waves had flattened to rolling swells that crashed against the shore, gaining momentum. Her father had told her what to watch for during their Saturday-morning sailings in Boston Harbor when she was a child.
    â€œWhat else does it say?”
    â€œThat remains to be seen.” Nora tickled her. “Let’s go up to the cottage. It’s almost time to make dinner.”
    W hile Nora washed dishes that evening (she and the girls each took a night—the dish democracy, they called it), the girls played Jenga and discussed the validity of fairy tales, a literary debate that was proving particularly contentious. Annie believed in them completely. Ella had her doubts.
    â€œThey aren’t meant to be real,” Ella said. “They’re stories people make up to explain things they don’t understand, that frightened them.”
    â€œI don’t believe you.”
    â€œYour argument isn’t sound. There’s no evidence to support your point of view.”
    â€œYou’re sounding like a lawyer again.”
    Like their father. Nora turned a plate over in her hands. She glimpsed a shadow of her face, a mere suggestion of a person, half formed. Who was she now, apart from her role as politician’s wife, a role she’d allowed to define her for so long? She had a law degree, she hosted visiting dignitaries for the municipal league, served on the board at the arts center, but who was she, really? What did she want? She was still figuring that out. Cleaning agents stood at attention on the counter, reporting for duty: Purpose, Aim. If only they could rout uncertainty as well as ketchup stains.
    She stuck the plate in the rack and scrubbed, more furiously than necessary, at a