How the Sea Hungers

He returns to me, soaked to the bone, to the marrow, shaking, lips pulled back in a feral dog leer, teeth slick and glistening. I hold him tight, leeching his cold, and we shiver in unison.

My son.

Skin untrodden snow and

the greenest eyes.

His hair a dark tangle.

My son…

My son is home.

I lead him upstairs and run a warm bath. Not hot, I once read that putting someone so cold into a hot bath could do more harm than good, so warm it is. He dances around the bathroom as the water clatters from the large, brass taps and I giggle at the sight of him. At the pure delight that blossoms across his face. At his long, lithe limbs that kick and clap and wave.

He doesn’t seem to mind that he’s naked in front of me. Fourteen years old, six months dead, naked and joyous. My eyes roam across his body, wanting to see all of him, hungry for it, starving, wanting to lock this in place inside of me.

I turn off the taps and test the water with my elbow, just as I once did when he was new. He’s new again, isn’t he? So it makes sense to return to old ways.

‘Careful,’ I say, and he takes my hand as he steps into the half-full tub. He sits, drawing scuffed knees up to his narrow chest and resting his chin upon them. His eyes fix on mine. I realise they’re a different colour. They were green and now they’re blue.

‘Is the temperature of the water okay?’ I ask.

‘Yes,’ he replies, the sound of his own voice startling him for a moment, before he breaks out into laughter, slapping the water with his palms. ‘Yes, yes, yes, yes.’

It’s not salt water. Does he mind?

Sometimes it feels like he didn’t exist at all.

That his life, all fourteen years of it, is just a story I told myself, and one that I’m already forgetting all but the major plot points for.

‘See you soon, Mum.’

A woman walking her dog found him, face down on the sand, already cold. ‘You’ve made a mistake,’ I told the police officers that turned up at my door. Of course they had, it was impossible, absurd.

‘Hungry,’ says Luke.

I try to feed him, but he rejects each offer. Each plate I put in front of him is pushed angrily away.

‘At least try some,’ I say, but he crosses his arms across his chest and juts his chin out. I desperately pull item after item from the fridge, the cupboards, but he screams his refusal in a wet, choking gurgle, lungs sodden, coughing up seaweed. He petulantly turns the table over, floor tiles cracking.

‘Hungry. Hungry, hungry, hungry!’ Water leaks from him, his eyes, his ears, his mouth, and the colour begins to drain from his cheeks.

‘Are you really my son?’ I ask.

‘Are you really my son?’ he asks.

‘Who are you?’

‘Who are you?’

‘What are you!’

‘What are you!’

I clench my teeth and strike him across the face. I only realise I’ve done it as blood trickles from his bottom lip. I look at my hand in shock, in blank disgust, and see his teeth have cut me.

‘I’m sorry! I’m sorry!’ I hug him tightly, blood from his mouth smearing against my shirt, my neck.

He takes my hand, the one that struck him, and begins to lick at it.

At the red smears, lapping like a cat before a bowl of milk.

His breath is short and sharp.

And all at once I understand his hunger.

Where to make the cut? I consider my forearm, my hand, my stomach.

He rocks back and forth, teeth clacking together over and over, his large eyes vulnerable and unblinking.

I slide the blade across my upper thigh and the skin parts, red rushing to greet the air. He falls onto me, mouth latching over the cut, suckling at my wound as he once did my breast.

I stroke his hair.

I sing to him.

It doesn’t hurt, the feeding, it feels right.

He drinks feverishly, fingers digging into my flesh.

‘We’ve found a body.’

‘That’s not true. You’re lying. You’re lying!’

‘We need you to identify him.’

I wake on the kitchen floor with a shudder. He’s gone, the floor beside me is wet. Not just wet, soaked, like someone has poured a gallon of seawater over it.

‘Luke? Luke!’ I stand, woozy, chairs scattering before me as I plunge drunkenly past. I’m alone again.

My son has gone.

Days pass. Empty weeks. Airless horror.

He doesn’t return.

He wants me to go to him this time.

Yes.

The sand banks suck at my feet as I approach, like they’re trying to stop me, consume me. The sea roars its welcome and I see its mirrored surface has captured the moon.

Luke and his friends would hang out at the cove often. They’d play, they’d fish, they’d swim. Share secrets and promises. It’s one of the places I can see him vividly when I close my eyes.

My clothes slough to the ground and I step into the water; it should be cold, but it’s like stepping into a warm bath. The sea is inviting me in, I accept.

‘See you soon, Mum.’

I can feel him all around me. This is where he died. Where he was discovered, the waves caressing his corpse.

‘I’m here. I’m so sorry.’

The water is invading me.

It rushes rampant down my throat, into my lungs, my stomach, and I feel nothing but relief.

And then a hand

    familiar

        takes

            mine

                and I do not need breath anymore.