By Victoria Buitron
A week before my husband leaves, I sit alone by wrecking waves on Playa Conchal. The ocean steals sandals, drags paperbacks, and peels the bark off the few weedy trees. People scamper to rescue their belongings, too afraid to venture more than ankle deep. A local woman on a tired tourist horse says: “I’ve never seen the ocean so angry—it wants something.” I don’t know then that it’s the last time I will write for months.
The next day, on another beach, I forget my wet shoes and the sharp pebbles throw me off balance. My body feels like a chipped anchor, as if it knows something heavy before my mind can catch up. I lack the knowledge to know how hard a wave will crest, and it takes me under. I swim in the frosting, except it doesn’t taste sweet, and when I emerge the salt dries my lips and knees.
A week later, I’m back stateside—sobbing at the nail salon—legs ravaged so much by the sunned sea that the salt trails seem permanent. I’ve left my words by the ocean, and it took some of my skin.
II.
In Limón, on the last day we’re in the country, we each lay before a woman with a canvas for skin. We get etched the same swimming turtle with air bubbles—my rib cage, his calf. The reason is spotty. We long for the shore. A fish seems too meek, but a turtle is formidable, containing hardness and softness. I fool myself into thinking it means something. That our vows hold, that it doesn’t matter he doesn’t wear his wedding ring because a patch of our skin bears the same decoration. That our land, mere miles from where we watch our skin bleed, will watch us become old. That our agreement is shaped like a circle instead of a curtailed line.
III.
Almost six months since I sign divorce papers, I go back to the same beaches. If the foundation of my life was ravaged, I’m still learning how to walk on new ground. I finally let my navel bare. I take care of my body—nurturing it is still a foreign feat. I’m willing to go past the crest of the waves alone. I come back to walk through tears, swim through salt. The waves are still sky clear, but much more serene as they collide with my turtle. The wallops remind me that most rib fractures don’t require much but rest. Nothing to do but wait. The dam of grief a splintered ribcage. I crave for the ocean to remove the reptile—the last thing that I share with him. But I’ve been told I can only burn it off. That that end will hurt much more than the initial marking. And yes, yes, that’s how it usually goes.
IV.
The first time in Costa Rica I am a newlywed; the second, I see our land; the third is a week before he leaves. On that day, he confesses to lies and omissions with more lies and omissions. The fourth time that I’m back, I have not spoken to the man I’d said vows to in almost a year. The land lacks my name.
And here, for the first time, I get to watch turtles nesting. It’s a fluke, an accident. The luck of location and days past the full moon.
I follow the guide in Ostional to the half mile of shore, where too many species commingle: herons, storks, stray dogs, humans—all in wait. The first turtle I see is in the middle of plopping her eggs. And I begin to cry. We both do. She protects her eyes from the sand her fins fling, attempting to cover what may one day be hatchlings that’ll need to survive without her presence. Me, because I’ve waited years for this. And because my words come back to me with each drop of a soft egg—holding onto a flurry of words until I can get a paper and pen. Because I am both ecstatic and terrified of what’s to come. Because I was asked a few days before this sight which word defined my past year, and I chose reborn. Because I can’t save the eggs from the zaguates and storks.
“It’s okay,” the guide says. “It’s January. It’s too hot for them to hatch, anyway. Birds eat them, dogs eat them. Locals are allotted some too.”
My instinct is to ask: “And do the turtles know nesting now is futile?” But of course, they don’t. They nest due to instinct. The way my instinct was to trust. The way they trust hatchlings to be born. Trusting that the land will warm instead of roast.
Once the turtles finish covering what will become both a feast and a grave, they make their way back into the water. Fins leave a sand pattern of a suave beat. There are cracked white shells around our feet and now a sunset audience. A violet sky venturing to the dark of a starred carapace. The turtles waddle, rest—some make formidable stops. My tears are from delight—a triumph to see them, and to find my way back to where I’ve left selves.
“They’re exhausted,” the guide says. I can tell from their soft disappearances into the ocean. I can tell by the way the one on my skin still wades through my rib cage.
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Victoria Buitron is a writer who hails from Ecuador and resides in Connecticut. She received an MFA in Creative Writing from Fairfield University. She is currently the Competitions Editor for Harbor Review. Her debut memoir-in-essays, A Body Across Two Hemispheres, was the 2021 Fairfield Book Prize winner. In 2023, she received the Artistic Excellence Award from the Connecticut Office of the Arts, which also receives funding from the National Endowment for the Arts.