Stacey was done with her shopping, but she didn’t want to go home to the houseboat just yet. She had found a present for Sam, a nice pocket calendar from the Sierra Club, and an address book. He often joked about needing something to help him remember what day it was when he was out of the country on one of his photojournalism assignments. He had also said he needed a ‘little black book’ to keep track of his friends’ email addresses and phone numbers, but he never seemed to get around to getting either one for himself. She would have loved to have gotten him a laptop computer, which he also needed, but they were out of her price range. She was making good money at the Phoenix Foundation, but it wasn’t that good, since she had only been there four months. She bought most of her own clothes, and had started taking sociology classes at UCLA. Well, maybe Dad and I can get Sam a laptop next year, she thought.
She headed towards the beach. She’d always loved the water, having grown up on the shores of a beautiful lake, Lake Owasso, in Roseville, Minnesota. Living so close to the ocean was great. It was calming, and she often headed for the beach when she was particularly missing her parents.
Finding a spot near a fishing pier, she settled down so she was partially shielded from the wind. Mac had been right; it was cold, and down here by the water, the wind had a definite bite to it. Now she wished she had listened to him when he had told her to take a jacket. It doesn’t matter now, I guess. I won’t stay long. She drew her knees up and hugged her legs, trying to conserve some heat.
Gazing out over the ocean, Stacey felt herself haunted by the memory of her family. Her parents had been far from perfect… they had had their quirks and weaknesses, as she knew she did. The biggest one had been… she didn’t like to think about it, but the thought wasn’t going away… her mom’s drinking. Her mom hadn’t exactly been a drunk, not like her so-called stepparents had been, but she’d had a tendency to depression, and had tended to drink a bit more than was good for her when she was upset. That would make her more depressed, and she had tried suicide more than once. Stacey’s dad had been kind of withdrawn about it, and had tried to tiptoe around the whole thing. Plus, he had been something of a workaholic, and she hadn’t been able to spend as much time with him as she would have liked. But her mom and dad had been good parents, and good people, and had done the very best they could in raising her. And they had done a wonderful job. But Stacey often wondered whether there was something about her that had made her mom drink. Was I not good enough? Did I ask for too much? Didn’t I let her know I loved her often enough? The questions and doubts swirled through her mind, and as she stared out over the rough gray water, she realized she was crying.
She also thought of her new family. Mac was such a great father to her… he had taken her in as if she were his own. She knew that she hadn’t told him all this… stuff… about her parents… she had still been in denial at the time, only wanting to remember the good things. But the negatives were nagging at her more and more these days. Also, she was feeling torn, between wanting independence on the one hand, and wanting to be protected on the other. She knew that was a normal part of growing up, but it seemed to be a stronger conflict with her. She wanted badly to tell Mac this, and there were times when she needed reassurance from him that she was OK, that she was safe, but she wasn’t sure how to ask for it. This made her cry more, and she hid her face against her arms, her whole body shaking.