And yet every inch of it had been earned. This body carried two children. This body sat through chemo appointments with my husband, Frank, back when we still believed hope alone might be enough. This body held him the night the doctor told us the cancer had spread. This body buried him three years later. This body kept going anyway.
Still, standing there, all I heard was: People are going to stare. I didn’t sleep well.
Almost Backing Out at the Beach House
The next morning, I almost gave in. I really did. I pulled on a loose white cover-up and the old one-piece I’d packed as a backup just in case. I stood in the bathroom at the beach house, looking at myself again, feeling about a hundred years old.
Then I thought of Frank. More specifically, I thought of a promise I’d made him in the last month of his life, when he could barely sit up in the hospice bed but still insisted on giving me instructions like he wasn’t the one who wasn’t going to make it.
He’d held my hand and said, “Nora, don’t disappear just because I do.”
I’d laughed through the tears. “That’s a very dramatic thing to say.”
“You’re welcome,” he said. “I mean it. Don’t start dressing like a curtain and apologizing for taking up space.”
I smiled in that bathroom, despite everything pressing down on me. “Bossy man,” I muttered. And just like that, I peeled off the one-piece, pulled the bikini back out, and put it on. My hands were shaking a little the whole time.
Walking Onto the Sand
By the time I stepped onto the sand, the family had already settled under two umbrellas. Daniel was scrolling through something on his phone. Megan was rubbing sunscreen onto Tyler’s neck while he complained like she was waxing him instead. Ava and her younger sister, Chloe, were photographing their drinks before either of them had taken a sip.
All four grandkids looked up when they spotted me. I felt their eyes land on my stomach first. Then my legs. Then, finally, my face. I wanted to turn around so badly my feet actually paused mid-step. But I kept walking anyway. Each step felt like an argument I was having with myself.
