The green plastic shovel had a hairline crack right down the center of the scoop, but Emma was determined to wedge it into our canvas bag anyway. She pushed it down past the blue plastic beach bucket and a striped canvas umbrella that still smelled of basement dust.
“It will still dig, Mom,” Emma said, her voice rising in one of her high, excited bursts. “I need it for the deep holes. The ones that go all the way to the water.”
“We can make it work,” I said, reaching up to adjust the silver locket around my neck. The cool metal usually settled my nerves, but today my fingers kept lingering on the latch. “But we can’t leave until we find your other sandal. You can’t walk on the hot boardwalk with only one shoe.”
Emma twirled a single strand of dark hair behind her left ear, looking down at her bare feet. “It was by the screen door yesterday. I promise I put it there.”
I looked around the small, rented kitchen. The countertops were clean, but the drawers were half-empty, holding only a few mismatched forks and a single faded dish towel left by the previous guests. Our own packing had taken over the small wooden table.
“Look under the couch in the living room,” I said, placing an eighteen-dollar bottle of SPF fifty lotion into the side pocket of the canvas bag. “I will check the back porch.”
Beside the lotion, I slipped my beach bag onto the table. I checked the small zipper compartment inside to make sure my thirty dollars cash was still there, folded neatly next to my car keys. It was my emergency stash, just enough for boardwalk snacks and parking meters.
Emma scrambled toward the living room, her small knees sliding across the linoleum. “I don’t see it under the chair either,” she called out.
The porch was warm already, the morning air thick with the scent of salt water and fried dough from the bakery down the street. I stood near the screen door, holding my printed packing list against my clipboard.
