“Can you create Glen Beach?” Madelyn asks Amahle.
Amahle exhales, and suddenly beyond Suzy’s and mine small island, Justin’s ocean is covered with a beach bustling with people. Suzy gasps. The sand is a different color, the beach umbrellas are colorful, too, and there are so many people here, families, friends, people who came on their own.
How could Amahle create such detail and such colors when she’s been blind from birth?!
“It is… magnifique,” Madelyn says. “I adore this place! And there is no need for suntan lotion!”
Amahle laughs. In a second, her clothes are replaced by a one-piece bathing suit with a kind of - I don’t know the name for it - the kind that has a kind of a skirt around it at the bottom.
“What is this?” Madelyn asks.
“It is my swimming costume. What do you wear?”
“I was thinking, since it is just the two of us on a beach, we could go without any, swimming, uh, maillot de bain, uh, swimming costume, as you say.”
Amahle’s jaw drops, and I must admit that so does mine. “What? What? I can’t, don't be silly, I–I–I–I–”
“Why the problem?” Madelyn asks.
“No one has ever seen me…I mean, outside of Sandile, and my first boyfriend…No one has ever seen…”
“Not when you change? Not in…”
“Madelyn, Madelyn,” Amahle gestures wildly with her hands to stop, and then whispers loudly. “I have never seen what I look like. What if I…What if I look…”
“Nonsense. You are a beautiful woman, and it does not matter what you look like. Your soul is beautiful, and you should not live in shame of who you are and what you look like. There, now I am naked as well.”
I can only see her from behind, and most of her is hidden by the backside of her wheelchair, but it is clear that she is naked now. My eyes open wide and I look aside.
“Ah, Madelyn,” Suzy says loudly. “You are not alone here!”
Madelyn looks back. “Oh, I am sorry Walter, Suzanne, I forgot that you are here. We will go to a beach where you cannot see us. Amahle?”
I look at them, see that Madelyn is still not wearing clothes, and I look away. “I think I’ll go inside,” I say, and get up without looking.
As I walk through the door, I hear Amahle’s voice saying, “I’ll try.”
—Told by Grampa Walt