Beneath A Beach Umbrella

I love this old photo so much that I long ago framed it and hung it on the wall. The sun is always bright here, the figures poised in a curious tableau, and something is forever on the brink of being said. It is at least fifty years ago, and the men, from left to right, are my grandfather (standing), my uncle, and my father.

But it is the woman who holds court, sheltered by a large fringed beach umbrella tipped on its side, placed there for her and shared with no one. Her dark curls are pulled into a ponytail and she holds a cigarette between her fingers. She wears Kate Hepburn slacks, a striped shirt, and around her neck, a smart little bandana that is probably red, red like the handbag by my father’s knee, red like her pursed lips suspended in mid-syllable.

This is a woman who can probably dance, deal cards, and drink scotch straight up. I imagine that her trusty quick-draw laugh is always at the ready, and she seems a stranger to self-doubt. I have no idea who she is, but she he has the full attention of my uncle and my father, who flank her like bookends in bathing trunks, while my grandfather, oddly formal in a white shirt and tie, stands above and apart, too senior perhaps for this particular contest.

But maybe I have it all wrong, this picture.

I do know they are gathered on the sand along the Gulf Coast of Florida, which in my mind was all palm trees and parrots and faraway rain and my father being someone other than Daddy. I wonder if it is the trip for which I tried to help him pack,  when I crammed piles of neckties into his suitcase, paisley and stripe, beautiful colors, unable to choose. He looked bemused, then smiled and hugged me and put them back into his closet. He said something about being back soon, but it was a long soon whose o's became a chain of moons and zeroes and empty rooms.

And there he is, in the picture, being someone else, complete without me or silk ties, intrigued by the lady beneath the umbrella who seems very complete without him.