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Cockles

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Written by Arian Mabe (Amethyst Mare)

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I didn't know why he was mad at me. My father, rough around the whiskers with a coat hiding most of his black, feline fur from view, stood at the water's edge, the line from his fishing rod cast out into the water. Tension hung heavy in the air as I backed away from him, at something of a loss.

I didn't like that tension, like the moments before the storm, the air crackling. It was just an impression, as there was no actual storm, but it was what it felt like. At least, to me.

I don't remember how old I was, but I knew the beach well, the sands, the lines that the tide made in the grey sand as it came in and went out. It was not grey all the time, not really, but it looked greyer under grey clouds, the sea stormy and rumbling. In the west of the country, on the shoreline, it was often cloudy, though it softened the edges of the world that I lived in. Brightness and sharpness, even later, would only serve to hurt my eyes.

I liked the sands. I liked running back up the beach on my little mare hooves, a filly's hooves. Oh, I could only have been seven or eight, not even old enough to really fish. That must have been why I was not fishing there, that I wasn't strong enough to hold one of the big, sea fishing rods that my father had.

He looked out to sea, fixed, resolute, the waves lapping on the shore. I wondered how he cast so far out, as it looked like his line just went into the water. I'd been surfing there, maybe even in that very spot, on the little body board, or boogie board. I called it a boogie board. If there'd been fish there, how could I have been surfing out in that spot too before?

Maybe he knew something that I didn't. But it still didn't look like he was casting very far out. Sometimes he caught bass and sometimes he caught flounder.

He hadn't caught any fish yet, though I'd brought a little bucket along with me to put them in. Was that why he was angry? Was he angry at me, or at the fish? Maybe me in the water had scared away all the fish?

Yes, that had to be it. That had to be why he was angry with me. Adults didn't get angry at little mares unless little mares had done something wrong. Little mares were supposed to be good and quiet and do what they were told.

Hadn't I done what I was told?

Listless, I pawed and kicked at the sand, digging my little hoof into it. It was hard and wet and stuck to my hoof. I didn't like the weight of it and shook it off.

My head jerked up, biting my lip. Had that upset my dad too? I didn't know, but what I did know was that I was alert, looking for things that weren't there, the waves crashing on the sore and salt air licking at the back of my throat. It didn't feel right, as the air was heavy around me, my coat rustling, pulling at my skin.

No... No, I didn't like it. Not at all.

I'd come to the beach with him to play, kicking up sand, taking space from him. I didn't want to be near him: being near him felt wrong. It felt like that anger was going to be turned on me again and there was me, not knowing what I'd done.

But I must have done something, right? Right?

I dug in the sand with a little, yellow plastic spade, moving wet sand aside, though I was aimless. I didn't have anything in mind, crouched and squatting, keeping my balance without thinking about it. Things like that...they were just natural to me.

A bigger, stronger man, my father, being angry at me, as thundery as the clouds shifting through shades of grey, wasn't natural to me. That was scary. And it was even scarier when we were out there on our own, no one else around, the beach huge, expansive, so much so that no one could see us, even if there were dog walkers and such on other parts of the beach. I didn't know if they were there or not.

So, I dug in the sand, worried, fretting, though my mind had no focus.

There was something hard there and, my interest perked, I dug it up, prying it out of the wet sand, clumped together and solid, levering it out with the little spade. What was that? I poked at the small, round objects, sand falling off them, the rougher lines in the object underneath becoming clear.

Cockles? Oh, I knew what cockles were! My heart surged, a smile ghosting across my face. My dad might have liked to see those! But then I remembered that he was angry with me and my expression fell, shoulders rounding and hunching over a little more, but I couldn't disappear out there. I couldn't make myself so small and insignificant that I could not be seen, that I couldn't be noticed.

I scooped up the cockles. Maybe my dad would like them, I thought. Maybe. He ate cockles. He liked cockles.

"Dad... Here."

I offered them in my hands, cupped together, held up like an offering, for that was what they were, even though I didn't know it at the time.

I couldn't read his expression, his black moustache with more grey in it then, the cat looking down at me, though I only saw my dad. The dad that I really didn't want to be angry with me.

He liked cockles.

"Oh... These are great!"

His exclamation lifted my heart as he took the cockles off me, scooping them from my hands, but the touch did not linger. His attention was back on his fishing and he said something about using them as bait. I knew what bait was, sometimes worms on hooks and sometimes things bought from the fishing shop that smelt funny but were already dead. I thought that was a good thing?

The mood of the day shifted after that, my dad using the cockles as bait and sending his line back out into the water, cockles hooked on the end, pierced through with the soft meat from the shell. It was brighter, even though the clouds above were still grey - but those were normal enough, yes, okay enough. If he wasn't angry at me anymore, that meant that I had done something right. I had been able to stop my dad being angry at me.

And so the day went on, but I remembered.

I learned a bad lesson that day. I took on a core belief.

If someone is mad, I have to make them happy again. I can give them things that make them happy. I need to make them happy.

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Healthy relationships don't work like that. But a little mare's mind thought that they did. Her little mind changed that day.

She had to make him happy. She had to make everyone happy.

And that was what she took forward from a handful of cockles in the wet sand.