The beach is deserted apart from a man with his three daughters. 

Well I assume they are his daughters.

Mya, Georgie and a third one whose name has not been spoken yet. 

The girls are a handful. All under six, or seven at most. 

They are looking for sea glass.

And debating whether the fruits they are eating are peaches or nectarines. 

I sneak a peak in their direction. They are peaches. 

They screech loudly when the icy Atlantic water grazes their heels. 

I want to go to Spain one says. The water is warm there and they have pizza. 

Do you mean Italy the man asks.

No I mean Spain. 

The youngest (unnamed) offers to make the man a necklace.

He accepts but on condition it is a manly necklace and not a “Taylor Swift necklace”.

I wonder where mom is. Maybe she is sleeping in. Maybe she needed space. Maybe there is no she. 

The one named Georgie is trying on an array of sunglasses. 

How many sunglasses do you have? 

Daddy, she says, a girl can never have too many pairs of sunglasses. 

Mya and the youngest are fighting over how much space each needs on the beach. 

Apparently sand-space is allocated according to how high you can count past ten.

The man apologizes to me as their towels inch closer and closer to mine. 

Girls, this lady came here for some peace and quiet, stop shouting.

He doesn’t know that I like the sound of children laughing.

And that I would never refer to myself as ‘lady’

And that I don’t know exactly what a Taylor Swift necklace is but I want one. 

And that apart of me longs to pack eleven pairs of sunglasses into my beach bag in case I change my mind later.

Eventually Georgie settles on a bright yellow pair with winged tips and looks over at me.

She smiles knowingly. 

You can borrow a pair of mine if you’d like.