Dear Ghost,

You told me a story once, about when you were little and living in the small beach house. Some fishermen gave your dad an octopus to hold for them. You didn’t know why. When he opened the refrigerator later, he found the creature crawling around. It was probably a funny family history that got told at parties, but it made me sad. I wished the octopus found his way home again, to the ocean.

“Just take an arm and throw him back,” you said, like you read my mind. (That’s exactly what you did—read my mind—even if we never said so, outloud.)

“If I could, I would.”

“We all get thrown back,” you said. “Sooner or later.” 

We walked through late summer evening. The air felt cool and tasted of smoke. You wanted to tell me another story about another August, about an afternoon just past a toddler birthday.

Several of the neighbor dogs followed us on our stroll, because dogs always flocked after you. You stopped us and bent to unclip leashes from our dogs, because it seemed fair they should walk free, too. We went on then, and you told me the story. I caught your free hand and your voice flew me—from fading twilight colors and cold moon—to a distant Pacific island, to August 1965, to a long-ago summertime.

We’re there, from here.

Blue-green water sparkles beneath a sun so hot it turns the sky white. The tide is out, and the gentle surf makes the Pacific some kind of turquoise daydream, not real. Tiny breezes make the coconut palms rattle.

Grownups sit on a screened porch, sipping drinks and chatting. It’s a circular driveway place, with carefully clipped Bermuda grass rolling down to join white sand. Crushed-shell paths wind between umbrellas. You play with your Boxer-dog beneath their watchful eyes, down where lawn meets beach.

The afternoon unwinds, white slacks, ukulele music from a phonograph, lovely voices in conversation, good Boodles gin with lime slices. Laughter wafts from the pleasant veranda. The afternoon floats on its own, a tropical dream.

Nobody but you notices the dogs gathering down on the strand, pawprints in the wet. Three, then four. You cross grass onto sand, unseen, to join them. Your Boxer makes five. Dogs always flocked after you, brown and yellow and white. They wait, tongues lolling, for your signal.

You move, you and your troupe, down the beach, to where very old cement juts out into the water. The ancient seawall is a landmark, here in Maunalua Bay. The water feels warm as your bath.

“It seemed perfectly normal,” you said. “I remember hopping off the seawall. The water—to my right—wasn’t over my feet. We all kept walking, on and on, until I stopped under a window. I think I found toys.”

You had wandered into Niu, a part of the world where old-time people once kept fish in huge ponds. They put their dead kings into canoes, buried them in caves, then stood watch over them for eternity. I imagine the magic of that lingers today, beneath the hotels and mansions, because magic never really goes out, once lit.

If I ask a toddler to describe splendor, she might say “toys”. I don’t know if the dogs led you to real toys, or something so wonderful that no words have ever been invented for it, so toys are your best recollection.

Perhaps the dead kings watched over you, kept you safe. Maybe they showed you things.

“I don’t remember after that.”

You are missing. The tide has come in to wash away your bare footprints. I wonder how they must have felt, the grownups, confronted with all that savage beauty—the crystal sky, the sparkling sand, the turquoise waves, but no small girl.

“The lady who found me asked my name,” you said. “It turned into a big deal—maybe even the police were there. Nobody believed me when I told them I knew what I was doing.”

I don’t think you ever came all the way back, Ghost. You left bare footprints behind, for the rest of your life. Even now, the shadows of you and your dogs wander the fishponds and caves of long ago.

Sometimes, I stand looking out at all this savage beauty you loved. Your footprints are washed away, so I can’t see you—but I see purple flowers. I smell perfume, hear ancient drums and birds that cry like babies. The seawall isn’t far. You always know what you’re doing, and I believe in you.

We all get thrown back, sooner or later.