You’re driving up the Pacific Coast for a family vacation. Your son asks about lunch and your daughter won’t stop fidgeting. Your partner needs to pee. You desperately want to stretch your legs. Your right leg aches, the way it always does on long drives like this. You see a sign for the town Seahaven, founded two years ago. “Where Friends Become Family.” It’s painted a tasteful coral and mint green. You don’t see it on your phone’s map. Maybe you need to update the app. You don’t think much of it.
As you pull into the town square, you drive by a series of signs. EAT. DRINK. STAY. You notice the coloring feels off on the signs somehow. Before you can take a closer look, you’re distracted by your family oohing and awwing at a bed of blooming blue columbine surrounding one of those giant adirondack chairs, a staple of coastal tourist towns. SEAHAVEN is painted across the top of the chair’s wooden slats. Every where you look is a picture perfect vacation photo. The family piles out of the truck. You catch the salty scent of the sea in the distance, along with something sweet you can’t quite name, like candy and popcorn.
You notice a child’s shoe and a toy sitting on the garden wall. It’s a Spiderman action figure.
Your daughter almost trips over a loose shoelace. You kneel down to tie it and tell her she doesn’t want to lose her shoe like that other kid.
The family gushes at the sights around them. They marvel at the wrought iron street lights with vines and leaves curling up them. The town hall looks just like the one from your spouse’s favorite period TV show. You can imagine a barbershop quartet singing in the gazebo as people lounge in the grass around it.
It looks like a perfect New England village has been transported from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Your mind briefly drifts back to those idyllic summers you spent reading Stephen King novels on the beach with your family as a kid.
Your partner shivers in the late spring evening. You pop into a little everything store. Even the firewood they have for sale looks too pretty to use. Your partner picks up a hoodie with a tasteful rendition of the town hall on it. They try it on, their eyes beaming at you from the hood as they snuggle into it. You buy it and get the kids pints of ice cream. You’re shocked that everything is reasonably priced, it doesn’t have the hundred percent vacation markup.
You decide to walk down to the beach and let the kids eat their ice cream watching the setting sun. On the way down you pass two beautiful blonde twin children in matching teal wet-suits carrying comically large fishing poles. An elderly gentleman follows them with the rest of their fishing gear. You ask the old man how the fishing was. He says they’ve never had a day like today, caught something on the first cast, they could barely keep up. They tossed them all back though. Oh, these aren’t his grandchildren he says, he’s just a lonely old man and sometimes he takes the neighbor kids out to fish. It helps, he says. You wish the trio well.
Your partner curls up under your arm as the kids alternate between their ice cream and chasing tiny crabs around the beach. Clouds colored peach and blue shift in and out of one another after the sun drops below the edge of the water. It’s a view everyone will remember for the rest of their lives.
Couples and families dot the beach, not too many. No one intrudes on anyone else. The kids collect cute rocks and find the roundest sand dollars you’ve ever seen. As it gets darker, the chill sets in and everyone is ready to move on.
As you walk back through the town square, you spot a beer garden. It’s lit with torches and small fire pits built into every table. A lone musician sits with a guitar on stage singing pop beach hits. The shadows dance to his songs. How could you not stop in for a drink?
You take a sip of cider, your eyes widen and then close. Bliss. You’ve never had cider this good. The kids drink hot chocolate and your partner smiles, weary, but happy after such a long day.
The garden is full of small groups of people, the babble of content folks enjoying the evening surrounds you, a sonic blanket warming your soul against the dark of the night.
You had a hotel booked a little further up the road, but after a drink you think it wise to not drive further. The bartender tells you he’s sure the local bed and breakfast has room. And it does.
You help your daughter get ready for bed while your partner reads to your son. You take off her pink sneakers and tuck her in with her favorite doll. You tell her tomorrow will be another adventure as good as today. Your heart bursts at the joy you feel being able to share these lazy days with them. You feel a couple of tears roll down your cheeks. You almost never cry from happiness.
The next morning your partner says it’s the best night’s sleep they’ve ever had. You pack up the few things you brought in and head for the truck.
Near your parking spot, you notice a single pink shoe and a doll. Some kid must have lost them. They look intentionally placed, perhaps some stranger set them out in hopes the family would find them. A town full of kind people you think.
You buckle your son into his car seat and take off. As you drive out of town, you notice each lamppost has a sign.
Eat. Drink. Stay.
Such a beautiful little town. You’re so happy the three of you found it.
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