At Padre Island

Kathryn Jones

June 16, 2024

Father’s Day, 2016

She’s only been gone a month 

but it feels longer than that. 

He needs to get out of the house,

my sister and I agree. 

Dad, where would you like to go?

Padre Island, he says. 

We drive thirty minutes from Corpus Christi

over the high curve of causeway to the island

named for Padre Ballí, a Spanish missionary priest.

Our father doesn’t want to go to the county park

with its picnic tables and fishing pier.

Too many people. Too many memories. 

We drive farther down the island to Malaquite,

from the Spanish word malaquita for green malachite. 

The water is clear there, the color of a cat’s eyes. 

We park in the lot, follow the boardwalk

to the pavilion, sit on a bench in the shade.

Seagulls circle us, cawing.

He stares at the Gulf, not saying much. 

Dunes frame the view of water and lapping waves.

He used to bring her to Padre Island even though

he didn’t like the wind, salt, sand in the car. 

She fed popcorn to the gulls, tossing pieces in the air,

laughing as they swooped to get a bite. 

He wants to buy a shell in the gift shop, 

a Lightning Whelk, her favorite, holds it up to his ear. 

That’s all he wants for Father’s Day, to hear the sea,

the echo of her laughter. I tell him she would love

that we came out here. He looks out at the waves,

nods, tucks the shell in his pocket.

Kathryn Jones is a poet, journalist, and essayist whose work has been published in The New York Times, Texas Monthly, Texas Highways, and the Texas Observer. Her poetry has appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies, including TexasPoetryAssignment.com, Unknotting the Line: The Poetry in Prose (Dos Gatos Press, 2023), Lone Star Poetry (Kallisto Gaia Press, 2023), and in her chapbook, An Orchid’s Guide to Life, published by Finishing Line Press. She was inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters in 2016 and lives on a ranch near Glen Rose, Texas.