(Page 1 of 2) Distance by Sean Regan
 (3 ratings)
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SUMMARY: For the January flash fiction contest, theme is "flashback"They drive through his hometown, and his wife suggests that they stop and let the kids play a while. They are driving to the beach, and they have driven four hours and have another hundred miles.
"Do you know a place?" his wife asks.
"Sure, but I haven't seen it in years," he replies. "It's a park by the pond. There's some shade, so it will be cool enough. I don't think you've been there."
"I don't remember it, so I guess not," she says. "It sounds fine." She tells their two daughters that they will stop and take a walk.
He drives on streets through which he knows the direction. He turns and follows the lane and the pond emerges from the trees ahead. The tires pass from concrete to dirt and the car stops. There are three other cars and some people on the pond's far side, but it is quiet. It is late summer. His daughters scramble out and diverge. He follows his younger daughter along the north edge of pond. After a while she stops and kneels and draws circles in the sand with her thumbs.
He smiles. He looks to his right, to a secluded stretch of shore beyond the big rock.
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They made out near the shore underneath her grandmother's blanket. They learned to kiss by kissing each other, and after dating for five months, they were getting good.
"It's too hot beneath the blanket," she said, "but I don't want anyone to see us."
"Like they wouldn't know what we're doing," he said, and he slid his hands over her stomach and reached higher.
"I'm not taking off my shirt," she said, laughing. "Not here."
She lowered the blanket down to their waists, and even that was too hot for June. But the sun was setting to their right and soon they would be in the shade. They had just graduated, both on the honor roll, and they would go to a movie that night. His pick.
"Why don't we go to the beach one of these weekends?" he asked. "We can arrange a weekend off."
"From work, maybe," she answered. "From my parents, no."
"We'll pretend we're going with friends, or get some friends to go along."
"You've met my mom, right?"
"And she's really nice."
"She's also not going to let her daughter go with her boyfriend to the beach when she's still in high school. You're delusional."
"So we're just going to have to make out under a blanket in the park."
"And in basements and backseats."
"Same as always?"
"Yeah."
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His daughter approaches the water and peers at the bottom of the pond.
"See anything?" he asks.
"Where are the fish?"
"They're swimming. People still fish here, I think. I never did. My dad had a friend with a canoe. He'd go out with him and catch things sometimes."
"I want to fish," she says.
"Really? You would need a small fishing pole. And do you like worms?"
She nods.
"Good, because you put worms on the hook to catch fish."
She thinks about this and then asks, "Can you do it?"
"Of course," he says. He grins. He tells his daughter that he loves her and then he realizes that in this place, these words are like an echo.
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He sighed and held her closely from behind; he wanted her furiously.
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