The Last Cadillac by Nancy Nau Sullivan

Sometimes I went along, and even then, we had to go directly to the bargain basement.
    My grandmother bought the cottage and the surrounding lots—most all of it under water—for approximately $7,000. The seller was glad to get rid of it.
    Over the years, when we were growing up, we left freezing Northwest Indiana and drove down to the cottage. The trip usually started on cold, dark winter mornings when my Dad woke us up, but I was always dressed under the covers, ready to go, a book and a bag of penny candy under my pillow. In the early days, we piled into the maroon Chevy station wagon with wood on the sides, someone always throwing up in the backseat, one lucky one standing up in the front seat between Dad and Mom. One time we flew down, the propellers of the airplane making me deaf for days afterward, which only added to the totally mind-altering experience.
    The beach changed, receding and advancing, until finally we ended up with a football-size playground of sand like white sugar. We hid in the sea oats and then ran out in shrieks of laughter; we buried each other up to our necks, dug for coquinas, and made horrible soup with the tiny shellfish (with a recipe from an Old Cortez fisherman). We scoured the beach for sand dollars, periwinkles, and olive shells. We watched for dolphins, and fed lettuce to the manatees, and stale cereal to the seagulls.
    To me, the cottage was paradise. We brought our school-books every winter and never opened them. All day we were on the beach, and at night, I watched the white edge of the Gulf in the darkness from my window when Lucy and I settled down in our small bedroom. The wind creaked and sang through the cracks between the logs. I went to sleep soundly, listening to the waves that rolled in beyond our window. Some nights, the Gulf rose up and the waves lapped against the cottage. Lucy was terrified, but a splash thrilled me. My grandfather told me the pilings under the cottage went seventeen feet into the sand. We were safe in the best place on earth.
    One year, though, we couldn’t go to the cottage, the year I was nine. My parents talked all the time about austerity and recession, words that I didn’t understand, but my mother and father were obsessed with the financial situation. They whispered about it to each other. They never talked to us about finances, except in nebulous terms. The “situation” went right into that category of other unmentionable topics, which included certain illnesses. Finally, Dad announced that we couldn’t go to the cottage because of the “situation with the business.” What damn business, I wanted to know—repeating damn, damn, damn over and over again to myself in my bedroom, after slamming the door and locking it. It didn’t make any sense.
    I was inconsolable, chewing on the ends of my braids and crying into the cracks between the piano keys, when I should have been practicing the malaguena for Sister Loretto’s recital. My mother shushed me, and, once again, I felt the gloom take over. I pouted.
    â€œDon’t pout,” my mother said. “Your face will freeze that way.”
    â€œIt wouldn’t freeze if I was in Florida.”
    â€œDon’t talk back to your mother,” my father said. He snapped his
Chicago Daily News
open, hiding behind those pages as big as a tent, and took another sip of his martini.
    We rarely missed a year at the cottage. We went back almost every winter until I was grown and out of college, and then we took our own kids down there. It was magic, day and night, winter after winter, and into March for St. Patrick’s Day and dad’s birthday. We jumped in the fierce winter waves and rolled in the sand until we were sugar cookies. We grew up on that beach, in the sun and under the moon, and the party went on and on. Until it stopped.
    Now, that time is gone, but still, I hold on to it. It’s there when I smell musty logs and the sea, or when I hear