Tears will slow

Tears Will Slow
By Laura McHale Holland

I knew right away she was the one. I should have expected she’d fight me like a badger. She held her boy’s head above waves tearing at her flesh. She held on longer than I ever thought possible, pulling strength from something beyond my depths.

At last, a surfer’s hands grabbed the boy, steadied him on a board. But when the hands reached for her, I, Poseidon, snatched her and pulled her home to me.

She, like her family above, is despairing now. But their tears will slow eventually. Her husband will remarry; her son will grow up; her friends will stop talking about her. And then, she will turn her fierce blue eyes toward me and ask how she can help save the sea. That’s why I took her. She will mend the damage done by her kin.