A few minutes after her head dispeared under the water, my heart began to sink like the Titanic. At first I wasn’t sure if she was trying to scare me, for she was always playing jokes on me. I looked at my feet, so sure she was going to grab my ankles any minute. She always told me she wanted to be a surfer, and how she loved to come to the beach to watch them. She wanted to be able to ride the waves like them.”Mariel!” Her name escaped from my throat, sounding strained against the wind blowing across the ocean. Everyone around me gave me strange stares. They seemed so sure that I was some crazy woman who had escaped from the loony bin. I yelled her name once more, the letters lingering on my lips. I had given her that name, meaning “shining sea” because my father had been a ship captain and her father had been a a professional surfer. I had yet to tell her of her father and how we fell in love when he was on tour. All she knew was that he left us. I scanned the ocean once again. She was no where to be seen.