When we get home, there is a bunny sitting in the yard – a large white one. The child is first entranced, then very worried, as the bunny is not well – he loses his balance a couple of times. She wants to call for help, but I don’t know who to call, and so I tell her to leave it alone.

The bunny will be okay, I tell her. I am firm and confident and finally she leaves the bunny and comes inside.

Next day, we cram everything in: we walk on the beach, then drive down to Seaside to ride bumper cars and tilt a whirl, and rent and I’m exhausted by a bike ride around seaside on a rental bike that looks like a surrey with a fringe on top. It’s an uneven ride to say the least – I am tipped to the left or the right depending whether I’ve ceded the steering wheel to The Child or regained control of the thing briefly for my sanity’s sake.

We go about two miles per hour, worrying the whole time about crashing in to things or else pulling over to the side to let bigger, faster vehicles – in other words, everything else on the road – pass. The Child thinks it’s grand.  When we’re done, I’m exhausted, and we head back to the rented condo. The Child wants to swim in the condo pool, but there are other kids there and she’s a bit intimidated so she decides to wait.

The other kids don’t leave, and The Child becomes more and more antsy with waiting.

I want to go out, she says. Can’t I go for a walk?

It’s not even six o’clock yet, so I think maybe it’s best if she goes out. I give her my phone – the only clock we can find that she can take, since she’s left her own phone at home in Seattle.

She returns promptly at the designated time, and heads out to check the pool again. This time, there are different other kids there.

She waits a bit, then checks the pool again, and it’s still not right. I try to persuade her to make friends at the pool, but she says no, it won’t work.

I get tired of all the discussion and tell her, take another walk. Go walk on the beach.

Yes! she says.

Be back by 7:30, I tell her. Sooner if it starts getting dark. It’s cloudy and drizzling and could get dark very quickly, I think. More important, could get very cold, very fast.

She takes my phone and programs in the number for the condo in case she needs to call.

7:30 rolls around, but she does not re-appear. But she was very prompt last time, so I have two thoughts: first, she was being very responsible on her last walk, so I have nothing to worry about. The other is that since she was so prompt on the first walk, obviously I should be very worried that she is not being prompt this time.

I look out the window and the sky is a darker shade of grey; the drizzling continues persistently. I try to call her from the condo phone and discover it can only be used for local calls, which my cell phone isn’t, and emergencies, which this also isn’t. She’s only ten minutes late, I tell myself.

I debate calling the police, but she’s only ten minutes late.

But it’s getting darker.

I saw two flashlights in the condo, so I go get them, but they have no batteries. I throw on a fleece and some sneakers. It feels like it should be fifteen minutes by now, but it isn’t, so it’s still not an emergency.

I head out to look for her on the beach and realize I have no idea what she’s wearing. I have pictures of her taken just hours before that would be helpful, except that they’re on my phone. The one I can’t call.

I can’t find a pen so I leave a note written in eyeliner on the condo door. STAY HERE, I tell her, if she should come back. I leave the door closed but unlocked for her; if there are thieves, they can have my camera, and her camera, and her school laptop and my iPad and all the other stuff, only just let her come back and stay warm.

The bunnies stare at me as I walk past them toward the beach. The white one is there again today. I want to tell her he is fine. Look, the white bunny is okay.

I look for her in the park, then at the beach, and she’s not in either place. I head over to a nearby hotel to ask to use the phone, then think maybe she’s already back at the condo. I walk back, and spy a baby brown bunny watching me this time. The Child is not there, and is 20 minutes late. Surely twenty minutes is an emergency.

I head back across the street, toward the hotel near the beach, and as I do, I see a small figure wearing a blue sweatshirt and carrying a bright red messenger bag. I should have known that’s what she was wearing, I think. I should have known that. She’s sprinting across the parking lot in my general direction.

I will be calm: I repeat this over and over as she walks to me. She slows as she approaches.

I’m sorry, she says, I twisted my ankle and it was hard to come back. Walking was hard. She limps a little, to convince us both it could be true.

I tried to call, she says, but you didn’t answer. It didn’t work, the phone number. And I went to the rental place to use their phone but they were closed.

We walk slowly back to the condo; she shivers as she walks.

We spend the rest of the evening quietly, warm and indoors, eating taffy and giggling over Japanese monster movies, together.

No sooner do we arrive in Cannon Beach than The Child wants to leave. She wants to go to Seaside, she says; she wants to ride the bumper cars, and the tilt-a-whirl. So we go, getting a late start, and they are both as wonderful as we remember. Maybe a little more wonderful, because there are so many details I never saw before, or possibly just didn’t remember them.

Also, we’ve both gotten a lot better at steering the bumper cars.

We head back to Cannon Beach, and go looking for our favorite crab cake restaurant, but it’s gone. In its place is a Mexican restaurant which looks hopelessly out of place in the little beachy cottage: it’s not that you can’t do burritos in a beach town, but this place says come in, sit down, and listen to the traditional Mariachi band – and I’m on the Oregon Coast, with kites to fly and hikes to take. It just doesn’t work. We skip it – partly because of the Mariachi thing, but mostly out of spite because of the crabcake place that is no more – and instead head for a place in an old lodge made out of logs and river rocks.

It’s very pretty inside, yet they make possibly the worst French fries ever.

We vow to eat in more.

The next day, I get up, and sit quietly reading.  All morning. The sun comes for a brief visit; the clouds return. I decide I’d like to catch the weather while it’s still halfway decent, but The Child is still sleeping soundly. I make a simple breakfast of eggs, toast, and fresh strawberries, and serve it to her in bed around noon. The Child is thrilled to get breakfast in bed, and eats the bread but not the crusts, and then the strawberries, and after telling me that the eggs didn’t taste the same as eggs at home, she announces she’s ready to go.

We head for the beach, taking The Dog with us.

He is baffled by the beach – although he’s been here before, he clearly doesn’t remember it. He walks along, not too slowly, but also none too fast, stopping frequently to lift his snout into the breeze and sniff deeply. Sometimes he looks at me, rather perplexed by the whole thing.

He starts to limp a bit on one foot, so we turn around and take him back to the condo. The afternoon is slipping away, and there’s a yarn store in town that I really want to go to. Local Oregon yarns. The Child wants to walk on The Beach some more, but I nix the plan. I want yarn.

She sulks in the car.  I promise her a trip to the old-timey pink-striped candy store afterwards, which improves her mood, but only marginally.

At the yarn store, the child selects a craft kit within a minute, while I begin the lengthy decision making process involved in choosing yarn. I can’t decide. I circle the store twice. The Child is annoyed. I select two huge hanks of locally dyed yarn that will be good for a project I have in mind, and the shopkeeper offers to wind it for me. It’s a lot of yarn, and I know I will ruin it if I try to do it myself.

Great, I say.

It may take a while, she says.

The Child is livid.

I suggest perhaps we should go to the candy store and get some taffy while she winds. Everyone likes this idea, and if memory serves, taffy choosing takes at least as long as yarn winding. We head over.

There’s a photo booth set up outside, complete with props. I stop to check it out, while The Child goes to the door. Then she comes rushing back again. It’s a party, she says. It’s the store’s birthday party. I look in the window and notice that where the taffy machines usually are, there are huge ice buckets filled with bottles of wine, and tables laden with cheese.

Can we go in? I ask the woman at the door. We just want some taffy.

Of course, she says. Everyone is invited to the party.

We wait five minutes, and the doors open. We’re first on line, and everyone greets us.

The Child wanders off, then rushes back a moment later. Mommy, everything is free, she says.

I think, this can’t be right, so I walk up to a man behind the counter and inquire, hesitantly: I know this sounds silly, but my daughter says everything is free?

That’s right, he says. What would you like?

I’m a bit perplexed, so he continues, would you like to come behind the counter? You can pick out what you like.

I’m still thinking I must be missing something, but the man hands The Child a tissue paper and shows her how to scoop popcorn out of the machine. Then he shows us the gummy candy bins, and the chocolate cases.
The truffles.

The Child gleefully helps herself. Gummy strawberries are delicious, she says. Cheese popcorn is better than caramel corn. She is rushing about, tasting something from this bin, something from that one. I’ve never seen her eat so much, with so much gusto. A crowd starts to form on the wrong side of the counter, but everyone is polite, and happy, and no one has trouble getting the sweets they want. I sample a chili pepper truffle, because I don’t want a lot – just one memorable thing.

The Child finds some gift boxes behind the counter, and asks the man, can I fill one up and take it?

No, he says. But he’s still smiling: But, you can have whatever you like while you’re still in the store.

She’s finally had her fill, so we decide to head out. She takes a few more gummy strawberries, and I take a three pieces of taffy: Root Beer, Sour Apple, and Pomegranate. We go pick up my yarn, and then walk slowly back to our car, unwrapping candy as we go.

I feel like we are luckier than we used to be, I say.

We’re very lucky, says The Child.

The vacation budget is still not large, but unlike last year, I can at least schedule a vacation, plan a trip, without worrying that I may be forced to cancel it, or need the money for something else – mostly likely, paying for The Lawyer’s next vacation.

So, early in the year, I ask The Child, where do you want to go?

To Cannon Beach, she says unequivocally. We haven’t gone there for a really long time.

We used to go to Cannon Beach every other year, renting a beach house for a week with The Departed and his two children. Or at least, that was the official plan: we actually only went twice.

I originally discovered Cannon Beach when I lived in Portland, where The Foreigner and I lived when The Child was born. He took paragliding lessons not far from there, on the dunes of the Oregon Coast, and I liked to go and watch and sit in the sand and cool coastal breezes.

I’ve never been to Cannon Beach without one of my husbands, yet I don’t think of either of them when I think of it: I think of majestic Haystack Rock, beach walks in still morning fog, and fresh taffy from the pink and white striped candy store.

So, I rent a small condo for the three of us: Me, The Child, and The Dog.

We load up the car with what seems to be not enough stuff, but I don’t stress, though I feel like I should. I fire up the GPS as we hit the road, nervous about the five-hour drive, and I’m immediately pleased to discover it’s actually only a four-hour trip.

It seemed much longer in years past.