The boardwalk is empty. People are reluctantly packing up sandy bathing suits and flip flops, the leftovers of a cooler full of chips and watermelon. It is time to go home. 

Hopefully there are not too many belongings left behind. A bucket in the surf, a few items of trash that blew out of the overflowing cans. 

Intangibles are remnants of a good day, or if you are lucky a whole week. Stress can be washed off in the incessant waves, and pasty skin disappears under the pinky burn or caramel tan. 

There are replacements for those lost items, though. A collection of stones and shells, a trinket from the novelty store. Memories take up no suitcase space but last a long while. My older kids probably recall the year we rented red surreys that carried our whole family. Mind you there were only seven of us at the time. In later years when there were more we rented two and raced. The teenagers won, while John and I valiantly pedaled the little ones. 

There were sandcastles, with the help of an uncle who knew how to outsmart the tide. He was also agreeable to being buried up to his neck. 

I have a few pictures, though cameras and saltwater do not make a pleasing combination. Hence many images are only in my heart. 

Marriages have their own storehouse of history, some of it as warm as an ocean breeze in August. But it is possible, likely even, that there will be colder days when convincing evidence of a furlough is in short supply. The pounding demands of parenting, wifing, husbanding will leave no pause between emergencies, and faces will be red but not from the sun. 

Still I expect that summer will roll around again. The boardwalk will wait.