this is for you

Published by The Dewdrop June 16, 2022

By: Beth Shelburne

THIS IS FOR YOU, HE SAYS, dropping the wet, glistening shell into my open palm like a coin. I look up from my towel, the water billowing behind him, a silver sequin sheet under a tangerine sunset. He is a 50-year-old man and a tousled boy, smiling at me before turning to walk back down the sloping sand to the foamy surf. I see the shell in my hand is perfectly intact, not a blemish or wound or defect on its creamy surface, a cylindrical coil the size of my thumb, ivory with brown wraparound markings like an ancient script. I close my salty fingers around it and carry it home in my purse.