the coast

We'd been dating just a couple of months when we headed down to South Padre Island to spend a couple of days with his parents and sister, all of whom he was very close to. I was nervous about the trip because I knew he'd had a lot of girlfriends in the past and I didn't know how I'd measure up in his family's eyes.

"D" and I got there a day before everyone else and stayed in a cheap motel on the bay side of the island. It was a dark, wood paneled little room and we went to sleep around eight o' clock in the evening. I didn't realize at the time that my boyfriend was starting to slip into a bit of a depression. I thought he was a little subdued and withdrawn but I was so smitten with him I let myself ignore it. I didn't want to think he might be unhappy with me, so I just pretended I didn't sense the darkness coming over him.

We each had such different memories and feelings about the Texas coast. While I was growing up, every couple of years my family would visit friends there and stay a couple of days. My mother was from Corpus Christi and my father from the tiny town of Aransas Pass. They both had bad childhood memories of growing up in their respective homes on the Gulf of Mexico and I remember their moods becoming more and more sullen as we drew closer and the air became thick and salty. By the time I started seeing oil refineries from the backseat window of our VW bus, the mood in the car would become downright blue. My siblings and I were always excited to get to the beach but I could tell my parents took us there out of obligation. It was usually a joyless, anti-climactic visit after which we were herded back and hosed down to get the sand out of all our crevices. It was fun sorting through our buckets of seashells, but we would soon return home to San Antonio and I could sense their relief the further we got from the water.

D, on the other hand, had magical, warm and fuzzy memories of the coast. He was an avid fisherman and remembered fishing out on the sandbars at nighttime even as a child. That's right, as a child. I guess his parents instinctively knew he was a capable, responsible boy even then. He was also entrusted with a BB gun when he was five but that's another story. His family would spend a month at the beach almost every summer or fall and he would cry most of the way back home to Kerrville (a mere seven hours). He wanted to live there someday. I told him I would never want to. The flat, scrubby landscape and rusty cars did not appeal to me. I guess that deep down in my DNA I was jaded from my parents' painful pasts.

The next morning I persuaded D to go with me to see the "Turtle Lady", a 90-something year-old woman who was a self-taught turtle expert. She had built a haven for injured turtles where she nursed them back to health and released them back into the wild. I loved turtles, especially sea turtles, and thought I might become a sea turtle lady myself someday. It was awesome to see the turtles close up and even touch their leathery backs. D hung back and seemed disinterested. I was annoyed.

Later that day his family arrived and we all checked into the condo together. I had met his parents once before at his 24th birthday dinner and I had the impression they saw me as the latest flavor of the week for their son. I probably was. That evening as we were getting settled, his mother came out with a candle and placed it on the coffee table in the living area. She lit it and we were all drawn in like moths. We sat cross-legged on the floor: me, D, his sister and his mother. His brother was there in spirit but not person. Everyone seemed so excited to see each other and get caught up. As they looked at their mother, I could see the admiration and respect on their faces. I was extremely shy at the time and I was spellbound by her presence. She began going around the table asking interesting questions and guiding the conversation. My own mother is very soft-spoken and timid, so I was especially intrigued by this "other" mother. Confident and sharp. And very funny.

The next day, D went fishing while his mother, sister and I went to Mexico. We browsed the gift shops and talked about sea turtles. D's sister was fluent in Spanish and I loved listening to her talk to the cab drivers. They didn't know what to make of this blonde haired, blue-eyed American girl who was so interested in talking to them. She was so open and friendly, it was disarming and they would smile and chatter back to us, glancing at her in the rear-view mirror. Her mother bought me a blown-glass turtle in one of the shops and I was very grateful. As a starving college student at the time I didn't have any cash to spare but I really wanted it. After we returned to the Island, she treated us to some ice cream on the way back to the condo. When we got back, I found my boyfriend sleeping again.

That afternoon we went out onto the balcony overlooking the gulf and stared down at D's father. He was on the beach struggling to set up a canopy tent. We weren't sure why he thought it was necessary to do that, but he was very determined, even with the wind fighting against him the whole time. He finally got it together and stood there under the tent with his hands on his hips facing the gulf. It was as if he was defying the wind to tear down his little tent. We all watched him and chuckled a little. But no one made fun of him. The love and respect in that family was very apparent. And I wanted badly to be part of it.

A day or so later it was time to head back to our lives as students. But something had changed between us during that trip. I had fallen in love with his family but he seemed to have fallen out of love with me. The drive back was quiet and a little uncomfortable. A couple of weeks later we went our separate ways.

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Just six more days until we get on a plane with our three sons and fly back to Texas. We're landing in Houston and then driving the rest of the way to the coast. The blonde haired, blue-eyed girl will be there with her husband and two red-headed children as well as my brother-in-law and his wife. The family's matriarch, my mother-in-law, and mildly eccentric father-in-law will be there, too. We'll probably eat too much, drink too much, and sit around a candle and reminisce. After almost nine years in this family, a lot has happened and we have all changed and grown. We have even fought and cried. But the love is still there and we have many more years to look forward to as a family. Because apparently, he didn't fall out of love with me after all.