The Guest Book by Marybeth Whalen

the book again. “I’m hoping it helps us all.”
    She thought about the guest book and her decision to figure out who the mystery artist was. She gave her mom a little wave.
    “Don’t wait up,” she teased her mom.
    “I can’t,” Brenda replied, fluffing her pillows as she slid further down under her covers and turned her attention back to her book.
    Macy shut the bedroom door quietly, hoping Emma didn’t wake up while she was gone. She paused by the front door and slipped on her black-and-white polka-dot flip-flops. As she reached for the doorknob, she could almost hear her father coming through the door whistling “Time in a Bottle.” And as she left the house, she found herself humming the familiar tune, the lyrics running through her head. She thought about saving time in a bottle and then giving it to the people she loved like a treasure. She wondered, as her feet carried her to the beach, what times she would save and to whom she would most like to give them. Funny how a nameless, faceless boy was the first person she thought of.
    She walked across the street and followed the long public-access boardwalk that would take her out to the beach, the moon providing plenty of light for her to see the way. She took in the sea oats waving on the dunes, the light bouncing across thewaves, the dark shapes of other people out for nighttime walks. Macy imagined lovers out walking: the feeling of being half of a whole, fingers laced together, steps in tandem. No matter how often she told herself she didn’t want that — didn’t need it — her heart betrayed her, aching with longing as she stepped onto the sand. Sometimes the ache was strong enough to persuade Macy that anyone would do — even Chase. But coming here reminded her of the one person she’d once wanted to share her life with.
    She found herself wishing she could walk with the artist on the beach, hold his hand, time his steps with hers. Other than the photo of himself he’d left for her with his first drawing, she’d never seen him. But she could dream of what he might look like now, a grown-up version of the boy in the photo.
    She’d always wished he’d left her more than just that one photo, but he’d kept his identity a secret for reasons she never understood. Sometimes she would make eye contact with a man on the street and—for a moment—she’d wonder if the man’s eyes were the same ones that stared out from the photo of a smiling little boy holding a sand dollar —the sand dollar he’d drawn for her in that first picture —flexing his muscles and hamming it up for the camera. She remembered his eyes were the exact same shade of brown as his hair.
    Macy stood by the ocean, the bright moon overhead illuminating the waves in silver shimmers. Later she would try to capture this scene from memory, using oil pastels to recreate the play of light on dark water. But for now she just stood at the ocean’s edge, marveling at its vastness and her smallness. Her problems, though many, seemed less significant asshe watched the waves crash on the shore and pondered the distant horizon. She shivered a little as the wind picked up, thinking of what her dad used to say whenever she shivered: “Someone’s thinking of you.” She wondered if it was possible that the artist was thinking of her as she was thinking of him. She smiled at herself, at the way her thoughts had run away with her, like she was a silly schoolgirl.
    She looked up at the same stars she’d watched from her window—the stars she’d wished on — and thought of something else her dad always said: “Wishing won’t get you anywhere, but praying will.” Her mouth turned up into a half smile. Leave it to her dad to inspire her to seek God even after he’d gone to be with Him.
    Standing there beside the ocean, Macy felt closer to God than she’d felt in a long time. And yet she had made such a mess of things. She wanted Him to hear her, but was that too much to ask? She wanted