I believed taking Noah back to the beach might help him feel near his late father again. Then a woman kicked his sandcastle into the surf, and twenty minutes later, a lifeguard gave her a golden box that made everyone on the shore realize what she had truly destroyed that day.

Noah kept the tiny American flag in his pocket the entire morning.

Not in his backpack.

Not inside the beach bag.

His pocket.

Every few minutes, his hand drifted down to make sure it was still there, the way someone checks for a house key before closing a locked door.

“You okay, Bug?” I asked.

He nodded without meeting my eyes.

—

The beach stretched before us, bright and noisy beneath the Fourth of July sun.

Children raced toward the ocean.

Umbrellas popped open.

Someone’s portable speaker played a song Simon used to complain about, even though he always hummed it when he thought no one noticed.

Noah stopped where the sand began.

For a second, he seemed both nine years old and ninety.

“This is where Dad built the dragon wall,” he said.

I followed his eyes toward the damp sand near the waterline.

The previous summer, that part of the beach had belonged to Noah and Simon.

Other fathers threw footballs or napped beneath umbrellas. Simon created sand kingdoms.

He pressed wet sand into buckets, carved tiny windows with popsicle sticks, and let Noah choose whether each castle needed a moat, a prison, or a bakery.

“Every kingdom needs bread,” Noah had told him once.

Simon had given a solemn nod. “Then we build the bakery first.”

Last October, a beam fell at a construction site.

That was the phrase everyone used because it was easier than saying my husband went to work carrying coffee in a travel mug and never returned.

For months, Noah spoke barely louder than a whisper.

Then one evening in June, he discovered the small flag inside Simon’s old tackle box.

“Mom,” he asked, gripping the wooden stick, “do you think Dad can still see the sandcastles I build for him?”

I turned my face away before answering.

Not because I had no idea what to say.

Because I knew precisely what he needed to hear.

“Yes, baby,” I told him. “I think he sees them.”

So we returned.

Noah selected a place where the sand was wet enough to hold its form but distant enough from the waves to last for a while.

For a while.

That mattered to me.

It had never mattered to Simon.

Noah worked for three hours.

He began with a broad wall, smoothing every section with Simon’s old blue shovel.

Then he added the towers—four at the corners and one in the middle.

He collected shells for windows and carved a trench around the outside using both heels.

I helped whenever he asked.

Most of the time, I simply watched.

Now and then, Noah’s expression shifted in small ways.

He was not quite smiling.

He was remembering how.

He pushed a broken shell into the entrance and stepped backward.

“Dad would say the front needs guards.”

“Crab guards.”

“Terrifying.”

He nearly laughed.

Nearly.

The tiny American flag remained inside his pocket until the castle was complete.

When he finished, Noah rinsed his hands in the ocean and returned slowly, as though one sudden movement might harm what he had built.

He took out the flag.

Its cloth had faded through several summers. One corner was beginning to fray. Simon once said that made it look as though it had survived a battle.

Noah held it in both hands.

“I’m putting it on the highest tower,” he chirped, standing tall like a little sentry. “It’s for Dad.”

He had not even crouched down when the woman arrived.

Her phone was the first thing I noticed.

She carried it at arm’s length, filming herself while strolling along the shoreline.

A wide hat cast a perfect shadow over her face. Her sunglasses were oversized and black. A pale cover-up floated behind her as though she expected everyone else to move aside.

She stopped directly before Noah’s castle.

Not beside it.

In front of it.

“Seriously?” she hissed.

Noah went still, the flag still clasped in his hand.

The woman lowered her phone and glanced toward a beach blanket several yards behind her.

“Gross! This thing ruins the view from my spot.”

I rose to my feet.

“We’ll be done soon,” I said. “He’s just placing the flag.”

She stared at me as though I had tried to hand her a soaked towel.

Before I could step closer, she swung one leg through the tallest tower.

Sand exploded across the ground.

Noah made no sound.

She kicked a second time.

The corner wall caved in.

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