A few studied it too long and said nothing.
By afternoon, I was starting to feel the specific despair of chasing something that keeps dissolving the closer you get. I'd dropped down onto a bench near the water, staring at the sand, when Noah screamed my name from three shops down.
I ran.
Noah screamed my name from three shops down.
He was standing in a small stall that sold customized seashells and beads. The woman behind the counter was elderly, with silver hair and paint-stained fingers, and she was holding Noah's phone at arm's length, squinting at it.
"Oh yes," she said when I reached them. "She comes in regularly. Sweet woman. Always orders the same thing... engraved seashells with the children's names on them." She set the phone down. "She gave me an address once when she wanted a delivery."
She wrote it on the back of a receipt and slid it across the counter.
