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Uncle Aaron takes Miles to the beach on Monday.
They leave in the waning hours of the day, taking Uncle Aaron’s car to get there. It’s a worn-down, older model—Dad always scowls at it because the paint coat is chipping on the sides, its seat covers are fraying at the edges, and there’s a crack on one of the right headlights, but even in its rough state, it has a charm that the sleek cars lining up the block can’t replicate. The imperfections show it’s well-loved, Uncle Aaron says somewhere in between the few words about teaching Miles how to swim that he exchanges with Dad on the doorstep.
It’s the only car where Miles gets to sit in the passenger seat.
There are rules to this, of course: no feet on the dash, duck when you see cops down the road, no messing with the radio, and most importantly, don’t tell Dad, but the pros of the exchange far outweigh the cons. Miles feels big when he sits in the front seat—about as big as a ten-year-old can be, and then some—grown, even. Like he’s close to reaching his Uncle’s shoulders.
The pencil markings on the kitchen wall aren’t quite there, but sitting in the car, he’s close enough.
And at his grown height, he faces the brunt of the wind as it whips through the open windows, his attention held by the passing scenery throughout the duration of the car ride. It stretches his skin, dries his lips, and rings in his ears, but he doesn’t move away. Instead, Miles holds his hand over the edge of the window frame.
“Don’t go losing your fingers now,” Uncle Aaron cautions with a chuckle. Miles thinks he must be smiling, but in the harsh shadows cast by the flipped-down sunshade, it’s hard to make out his features. Just the glint of an earring and the bottom half of a scar on his elbow before his Uncle turns the wheel, the lyrics he’d been singing a moment ago forgotten already. Something about footsteps and dark corridors, Miles thinks.
Something about—
Uncle Aaron puts the car into reverse, backing up into one of the many available parking spots, and suddenly, the beach comes into view through the windshield. An expanse of yellows, blues, and greens sits just outside of the near-empty lot, uninterrupted; during the weekdays, the beach is hardly crowded, especially not this late. It’s nicer that way.
“Come on, man,” Uncle Aaron says once the car pulls to a complete stop. He turns the key, pockets it, and opens the door, stepping out onto the asphalt. Miles joins him after rolling up his window. Standing outside of the car, he is no longer at his Uncle’s shoulder—Uncle Aaron towers over Miles, illuminated by tangerine gold that casts across the shore and the rolling waves in the distance. When he steps onto the sand, he takes his slides off to hold for the rest of the trek. Miles does the same despite the burn of his feet.
Compared to the car ride, it’s a short walk. In broad daylight, Miles follows in Uncle Aaron’s shadow, stepping into the larger footsteps that disrupt the sand ahead of him. When he looks up, his Uncle’s head eclipses the sun.
Distantly, he remembers Mami’s warning about looking directly into its rays.
The halo is broken as Uncle Aaron begins to tug at his shirt, bending over to get the sleeves off his lankier limbs. He drops it in the sand, the sandals joining it a moment after, and exhales. The ocean glistens in front of them, vast and beckoning. Miles watches his Uncle, uncertainty pricking at his skin.
It isn’t until his Uncle calls him again that he realizes he should be moving. “I said come on, man. You getting cold feet already?”
Uncle Aaron doesn’t wait any longer, leaving Miles to scramble after him as he makes his way to the shore. An oversized white shirt and sandals soon join the items that Uncle Aaron had discarded, and then Miles himself, jogging to catch up with his Uncle. The chill of sea foam hitting his shins and the crunch of seashells under his feet cause him to hesitate once more, but his Uncle beckons him, one hand outstretched.
Small fingers wrap around much larger ones, gentle. Miles finds himself guided out to chest level in the freezing water.
It’s only him and Uncle Aaron when the first wave crashes over his head and he sputters on it, hacking salt from his lungs. A greedy gulp of air follows—sharp, grating, a burn in his chest—and then, slowly, a laugh of disbelief. A hand pats the small of his back a couple of times to aid the process, and they’re both laughing now, droplets clinging to brown skin.
“You good, Miles?” Uncle Aaron asks. Miles nods, wiping a hand down his face. Another peak hits his chest and splits around his body, filling the gaps between his limbs. The hand on his back moves higher, resting on the nape of his neck. “Don’t go drinking the water, just hold your mouth shut like that and relax. I got you.”
Miles can’t make him out through eyelids weighed down by water, but the hand on his neck is warm. Uncle Aaron holds him gently, guiding him along the undulations of the water. Miles’ cheeks puff up as he readies to hold his breath and droplets spray the side of his head.
There’s warmth on his back left in the shape of his Uncle’s hands.
There’s music blaring from the radio, filling up a worn-down car.
There’s the scratch of a pencil marking the kitchen wall.
There’s a bird of some kind squawking in the distance.
Uncle Aaron pulls him up just as Miles decides to try dunking his head fully under the surface. It’s half successful, in the sense that he ends up with water going up his nose and a dry pain in the back of his throat but doesn’t drown. Even still, there’s laughter again, bubbling in his chest past and near indistinguishable from the coughing fit that takes him over, and he can feel Uncle Aaron shaking around him in their embrace.
“Easy, man,” he laughs, patting Miles’ back like before to help him get it all out. “Your mama wants you back in one piece.”
“I’m good,” Miles says through the salt scratching his throat; it feels raw in a way that he relishes because it makes his voice hoarse and deep like his Uncle’s, something like the stacked pencil scratches building up toward the kitchen ceiling. Uncle Aaron shifts behind him, letting his hand drop.
Sea foam clings to both of their bodies. Miles glides over it, guided by the hands latched around his wrists, moving his arms in the motions of a stroke, and then a warm voice reminding him to kick his legs. Water sprays and the hands release their grip.
“And now you on your own.” The feeling of weightlessness, sinking into Miles' bones. Water flows through the gaps of his fingers and against his legs as he propels himself forward, nothing but sea foam against bare skin and waves bringing him up and down in steady motion. Up and down, up and down with the flow of the ocean.
The next wave comes; he rises with it.
Laughter pierces the air again, affectionate and familiar. It crashes into him, along with the wave that swirls sand and foam together until it pushes him all the way to damp land. In the distance, the bird squawks again, one wing flapping and the other curled against its side—from here, Miles can see it. It’s the only bird that remains.
“You got it, Miles,” Uncle Aaron says, smacking his hand against Miles’ back. Miles laughs, too, throat still hoarse and rough and right. Like the calluses blooming on his Uncle’s knuckles.
“I’m good, I’m good,” Miles tells him. Uncle Aaron hums and lets his hand drop. The two sit on the sand together while waves lap at the space just a few feet in front of them. The sky is shifting to orange hues.
“You know,” Uncle Aaron starts, arms slung over bent knees and gaze facing toward the horizon. Miles holds a similar sitting position, trying to see what he’s looking at. “Your dad’s the one who taught me how to swim.”
His Uncle breathes it out like a confession, something wistful lacing his tone. Dad hardly talks about Uncle Aaron, and vice versa. At the age of ten, Miles knows there’s a chasm between the two that neither will attempt to breach. He knows that he’s the only lifeline that stretches between it and that there’s nothing he can say to make it better.
So, he lets the silence stew between them as the sun sinks toward the horizon and finds his gaze wandering over to the bird meandering along the shoreline again. White feathers ruffle in the wind, and now that it’s closer, Miles understands why it hasn’t flown off to join the others out at sea.
A broken wing is a death sentence. He remembers this now, from the nature documentary that had been playing on the TV last week sometime after Mami had scolded him for staring into the sun again. Without help, the bird will die. There is no other fate for it.
“We should get going soon,” his Uncle says before Miles can open his mouth. Uncle Aaron stands up, digging his heels into the soft sand, though despite his words, he takes a step toward the water. He shares a space with the bird with a broken wing; it is the only bird remaining.
Like before, his head eclipses the sun. Miles only knows the curve of his jaw, the way his lips twist lopsidedly when he smiles, and the scar carved into the skin around his elbow.
“Let’s go, Miles.”
Large waves rush toward them, battering the sand. Uncle Aaron is always looking away, but when he turns farther with the sun now set enough that there isn’t a halo blocking out his features, Miles looks down. The echo of his Uncle’s voice is all that remains.
Don’t look, mijo—It’s bad for your eyes.
Alright, Mami. Alright.