Eclipse on the Shore

by Jayne Hunter

Jacob negotiated among the adults on the lawn with a tray of appetizers, stopping for a few seconds at each little group and moving on before they broke their conversation to talk to him. Most of them didn’t know his history, and he wanted to keep it that way.

His aunt and uncle were throwing a New Year’s Eve party during the day this year since it coincided with the total solar eclipse. Aunt Jennifer had been excited all week, saying what a coincidence it was for their family lake house to be in the path of the totality and for the eclipse to be on December 31. Even the weather was good for this time of year. How lucky!

            Jacob didn’t feel lucky. He tried not to be mad at Jennifer for being so happy just weeks after his whole world had exploded. Six weeks ago, his parents had been killed in a car accident, and she had stepped up to help. She was a few years younger than Mom had been, with two little kids of her own, seven-year-old fraternal twins, so she had a lot on her plate already. Still, she had been right there to help with everything they needed. Maybe at least that is lucky for me, he thought. But even that luck was attached to pain. He didn’t want to need her.

            “Hi, Jake. Got any more of the cheese puffs?” Uncle Ty appeared at his shoulder and grabbed the last bits of food off the tray, one by one, stacking them in his hands. Ty was the youngest in his mother’s family. At twenty-five, he was just ten years older than Jacob. He was nice enough, but no one in the family seemed to take him too seriously, and Jacob was beginning to wonder if they were right. “Thanks, buddy,” Ty mumbled as he headed over to the big tree at the lakeshore where a couple of young women were standing smiling.

Jacob headed back up the sloped lawn to the house, looking around for his sisters. He spotted them at the picnic table close to the house, doing some craft with the twins.  At twelve, Ellie was closest to his age, but she still seemed like a kid. She had been acting more like a teenager before the accident, but now she had grown closer to their younger sister Madison, who was nine. Their parents had joked that they were on the three-year plan with kids, having read that three years apart was the best spacing between children, for both the kids and the mother. That was typical. They had always seemed to have everything planned out, whether it was child timing, school lunches, or which extracurricular activities to participate in. Always on time, always in the right place. They had made the world seem like a manageable thing, a safe place if you did the right things. It was the one thing they were wrong about.

            “Do y’all need anything to eat? I can get you a tray.” Jacob looked down at the table, filled with glue sticks, glitter, and paper plates. They were making some kind of party decoration. 

            His cousins looked up at him, grinning and showing their missing front teeth. They both had thick dark hair like his mother had had, while he and his sisters were all dirty blond like their dad. How did that happen? “We would!” they said. “Snacks and juice, please.”

            “What about you two?” he asked his sisters.

            “Are you going to start taking care of us now, since you’re so much older?” Ellie didn’t even look up. She seemed mad at him all the time lately, like something was his fault. Or maybe it was just because he’d had longer with their parents. Maybe she was right to be mad about that. Being twelve was harder than being fifteen, and he’d had their parents to help him through that. Still, she didn’t need to be bitchy to him now.

“Do you want something or not?” He looked at Madison, who nodded absent-mindedly. She had become eerily quiet since the accident. Just keeping it all to herself. He hadn’t realized how much she had giggled and sung around the house before. But she stopped all that the minute they heard that their parents had died. She now seemed to weigh everything she said with care. He put his hand on her shoulder, and she looked up at him. He looked into her dark blue eyes, just like their mom’s, and smiled a little. She gave a little smile back, and he was surprised at how much it warmed him up inside.

            He headed up the stairs to the deck that led into the kitchen, where he could load a tray for the kids and a grab a few juice boxes. Littler kids had been herded into one of the bedrooms to watch a movie. It seemed like a day at the lake would be more fun for them out near the lake, but the grownups were more worried about themselves today. He entered the portico and paused to look back at the lake. 

            Several boats were tied to the dock. The lake was right in the path of totality, so the plan was for a lot of the guests to get in the boats and watch from the middle of the lake, thinking they might see a cool reflection on the water. Jacob liked boating and the water, but right now he preferred the idea of solid ground beneath his feet when he watched the eclipse. He didn’t relish the idea of being in such close proximity with strangers either. He was doing pretty well, putting one foot in front of the other, but tiny things could trigger him. Not watching such a cool phenomenon with his parents, who had been so interested in everything, seemed like it could get dicey. Better to stay here on shore where he could be all alone.

            The door leading into the kitchen was ajar, and he was just about to push it open and go in when he heard his name mentioned inside.

            “Seems like a nice kid. A fifteen year old boy though, I’m not sure I would take that on.” The woman’s voice was unfamiliar to him, but he made a mental note to try to connect it to his owner and channel dislike for her in the future.

            “I’m fine with taking him. It’s what Rachel would have wanted, and I love him. And he is so sweet with the girls.” Jennifer was not letting him down, even when he wasn’t there. Relief flooded through him. He knew they were a burden, so hearing her say she loved him was what he needed to hear, and he could feel his eyes beginning to spill over. “But he is in a good high school and has friends and a whole life. His best friend’s parents have offered to let him stay with them during the school years until he graduates. Their son suggested it, and they think it would be great. It shows what a great kid Jacob is too, that they want to do that.”

Jacob held his breath. He had been staying with Will and his family for this semester after a couple of weeks off. It had been such a blessing. They all felt bad for Jacob, but every single thing in the house didn’t vibrate with memories. Their every waking moment wasn’t heavy with grief. Will had suggested Jacob stay with them, but Jacob hadn’t realized it was a serious offer. 

            “That sounds perfect.” Another unknown voice. “But you want to make sure it is what he wants. It might be hard to ask him as you don’t want him to think it’s because you don’t want him with you.” 

            “Exactly. The girls will come with me as they are younger and can start over in our school district. I hate the idea of breaking them up though. Even if it is just for months at a time,” Jennifer said. 

            “With the internet and texting and all that, they can stay close though,” the first unknown woman said.

            “Hmm. At those ages though. It’s not ideal.” This time, it was the second woman. Jacob liked her better.

            Then he heard a little gasp, like a cry, “Not ideal. Terrible. Rachel should be here.” Jennifer was starting to break down.

            Jacob pushed open the door and smiled weakly at the circle of women, who all straightened and smiled a little too brightly back at him. He met Jennifer’s eye and nodded, hoping she understood he had heard it all, and that it was okay. “I’m hoping I can load up a tray for the crafting kids. And get a couple of juice boxes.” 

            The women sprang into action. One took the tray to the table and began loading it with cheese puffs and little sandwiches; another pulled a plastic grocery bag from a cabinet and filled it with juice boxes from the cooler. Jennifer put her arm around him and kissed him on the head. He was even with her in height and still growing. He wondered if she would even be able to do that again by the end of the next semester. 

            He took the food and drinks and walked out, hearing the click of the door closing completely behind him, telling him they all knew he had overheard.

            He dropped the food off with his sisters and cousins, who didn’t thank him but just kept gluing and glittering and talking. He walked around the partying adults, who were laughing too loudly and drinking too much, and made his way to the dock. Several people were sitting on either side with their legs dangling toward the water. He walked out to the end, where Ty was standing alone.

            “No girls to chase?” Jacob asked him.

            When Ty turned around, Jacob was surprised to see his eyes were red. Ty looked directly at him and didn’t try to hide his tears.

“I love this place,” Ty said. “Growing up we were here all the time. We would water ski and fish and swim. Just like we do now. Rachel taught me how to identify all the fish we caught. How to ski. What birds made what sounds.” He paused and took a swig of his beer. “She always knew everything. Everything.”

            “Yeah, well, Dad would call her a know-it-all sometimes.” Jacob smiled, remembering how often that happened. And how she considered it a compliment.

            “He was one to talk! No one’s more of a know-it-all than an engineer.” Ty looked over at Jacob. “You want a few minutes by yourself? All these people around. It can be a pain in the ass.”

            “Actually, I would.”

            Ty nodded, and quickly glanced skyward. “Not long now. I’ll bring you some eclipse glasses. People will be headed to the boats in a bit.”

            Jacob turned to the water, watching the tiny diamonds of light sparkling on the water and feeling the sway of the dock as Ty walked down it to the shore. His chest felt tight when he thought about not seeing his sisters. He had taken them for granted, just like just about everything else in his life, but he loved them. He loved how they would laugh and sing, how emotional they would get at the slightest provocation. It made him feel stoic and superior, but he knew exactly how false that was now. But they might heal faster without him around, brooding. They were already ahead of him. And it would be a lot easier on Jennifer without him crowding the house and forcing all the girls into one bedroom.

People were laughing and stomping up the dock. Jacob turned and walked back through them to the water as they piled into the boats. His sisters and cousins were headed out as well. When he met them with Jennifer and her husband Rob at the end of the dock, Jennifer said, “Come on, honey, there’s room on the pontoon boat.” She held a hand of each twin. Ellie stood scowling into the sun behind her. Madison looked past him to the boat. Even the December sun in South Carolina was bright.

            Jacob stood for a minute, deciding, but he heard the other people climbing into boats and laughing. He didn’t feel like laughing. “No, you go. I’ll stay here so I can see it and hear if the birds and insects quiet down like they said they will.”

            Jennifer leaned in and looked straight into his eyes. “You’re more than welcome. You know that.”

            “I know that. I really do.” Jacob nodded when he said it. Jennifer nodded back. 

            “Well, then,” she said. “Let’s get on that boat.” 

            Jennifer, Rob, and the girls walked onto the dock to the big pontoon at the very end, and he stood watching most of the party guests head down to get on a boat as they began untying and heading out to the center of the lake to join the crowd of boats gathering there. 

            Jacob walked back from the dock and chose a spot with a clear view of the sun. As he turned to walk up to the house to get some eclipse glasses, Ty appeared beside him and handed him a pair. They both put them on and looked up.

            “Geez, these are so dark, we can’t see a thing except the sun,” Ty said.

            Jacob took his glasses off and looked out onto the lake. He found the pontoon boat and watched his sisters, trying on the glasses and turning blindly toward each other, putting their hands out in front of them to feel each other’s faces. Away from him, they seemed happier. They were laughing with each other and with the twins, not missing him at all. They would remember this as a happy day.

Ty tapped him on the shoulder, “Put ’em on and look up. It’s happening.” 

            Jacob put the glasses on and looked in the direction of the sun. A shadow had grown on one side of the sun, then a dark solid circle seemed to start to slide over the sun, slowing inching over it. It seemed impossible, but there it was, happening. As the dark circle slid over, the light changed to that like a cloudy day and then, just like that, the moon was blocking the sunlight. A perfect outline circle of light was all he could see of the sun, and the whole world was dark, not like a black night, but like a bright moonlit one. The birds stopped chirping, the insects stopped buzzing, and for a few moments it was like the world had turned off, the only sound the lapping of the lake on the small beach. Even the people on the boats were quiet with reverence. For just a moment, Jacob felt like the whole world was in the no man’s land he lived in now, in between light and dark and wondering what would happen next.

            Jacob took a deep breath to be sure he still could. Then, in just a few moments, it was light again. The people in the boats, from their party and several others, began cheering and clapping. He looked for his sisters out in the boat and saw them high-fiving each other, they were not looking back at the shore for him.

            “They’ll come back,” Ty said. “You won’t lose them.”

            “There’s no guarantee about that. Nothing’s guaranteed.” Jacob kept watching them.

            Ty sighed. “But the sun is guaranteed. The moon is guaranteed. We have to find what we can trust and keep trusting. That’s the only choice we have.”

            Jacob looked up at the sun again with the eclipse glasses, which allowed him to see nothing but the sun, only the light. He felt the pang of grief he knew so well by now and let it pass into and through him, so he could brace for the next wave of it.

“You’re right,” he said. “It is the only choice we have.” Then he walked to the end of the dock to yell and wave at his sisters, hoping with all his heart that he was not really waving good-bye.