Ginny's twin sister died on a hot July afternoon when she was ten years old.

It was one of those things that everyone blames themselves for. They went to the beach: Ginny, her sister, and their parents. Neither Ginny nor her sister had ever been to the beach before. The sand was hot. Ginny's dad said that they melt sand to make glass. As the two girls raced across the beach, yelling and giggling after each step, Ginny wondered if it would ever get so hot that it would turn to glass. The whole beach - all of it. She thought of the sand crabs and seashells and wondered if they'd be petrified beneath the clear surface like perfectly preserved fossils. She reached the cool, wet band of sand, and her feet sizzled in delight. She turned to her sister to ask what she would think of a glass beach, but her sister wasn't there.

Ginny’s parents were no more than fifty feet away when her sister disappeared. They were digging a hole in the sand to plant the umbrella. Her dad could get a foot deep with the orange plastic shovel, but with each subsequent scoop, the new depth would be replaced with an avalanche of sand from the top. This circular sand-replacing-sand process repeated itself a dozen times before being interrupted by the sound of Ginny's desperate cries for her sister.

Everyone searched for three days before giving up and waiting for her body to wash up on the shore. Policemen, the K-9 unit, helicopters, divers, boats, volunteers, even firemen. The fire truck came on the third and final day. Ginny watched the long red truck pull up along the boardwalk. She watched the six men climb out and walk the same length of beach a hundred others had walked a hundred times already.

Ginny imagined her sister frozen beneath the glass beach lying face-up, levitating in a sea of emptiness. She pictured the evening tide washing over her sister, distorting her image yet leaving her dry and unaffected. She saw herself grow old and frail, going to visit her fleeting memory of a twin, still ten years old, still perfect, like looking at a page in a history book, or a mirror reflecting the past.

The firemen didn't find her, though. No one did. Days became weeks, and her body never washed onto the shore. They said that the sea "kept her" which was the polite way of saying the crustaceans picked her apart until she was nothing.

Three months later, Ginny's family fled halfway across the country. Her father said that they couldn't move forward in a house with all those memories. Her mother said nothing. Ginny thought of the glass beach.

They moved west, away from the Atlantic ocean. They purchased a house in southern Illinois near a tributary of the Mississippi River. Ginny was forbidden from ever going near the river (as well as the swimming pool and bathtub for that matter).

The taboo of the water was the very thing that attracted Ginny to it shortly after relocating. On one particular Saturday afternoon, Ginny rode her bike to the river. She told her mom and dad that she was going to a friend's house. They didn't particularly care. Her dad spent his evenings in the garage, sitting and smoking himself into a better place. Her mom was a piece of furniture in the living room - an inanimate object wirelessly connected to the television. They had, for all practical purposes, given up. They were defeated.

Ginny got to a remote and rocky portion of the river within a few minutes. It excited her - the feeling of doing something she wasn't supposed to do made her feel more like a real person and less like a perpetual reflection of hurt and guilt.

She carefully traversed the boulders and sat on a flat one along the river's edge. She kicked off her sandals and stuck her feet into the cold, frothy current. It was stronger than she expected. It pulled at her legs, and little whirlpools sucked at and flirted with her ankles and toes. She sat alone for a while, thinking about boiling sand and disappearing sisters.

Ginny made a habit of going to the river each Saturday afternoon, but it wasn't until the third visit that her sister appeared. Ginny was sitting on her flat rock, looking down into the water, when she suddenly became aware that she could see her own reflection. But in the current? That didn't make sense. She leaned closer, and the head of her reflection rose up out of the swirling water and smiled at her. Ginny wasn't scared or even surprised, though. She had been waiting - hoping - for something like this. She extended her hand to her sister and pulled her out of the water. Ginny hugged her icy, white body. Her sister smiled again, and they sat down together on the flat rock. Ginny asked her a thousand questions, but her sister remained silent, staring and smiling toward the water. Perhaps she just needs a while, Ginny thought.

When it was time to leave, they both stood. Ginny turned toward the shore and, as she did, her sister dove into the water, disappearing entirely. Ginny stayed awhile longer, watching the current and calling her sister's name. She heard the distant siren of a firetruck, and she was back on the glass beach. She sat a while longer before getting on her bike and riding home.
She decided not to tell her parents about the occurrence at the river. She did, however, return the following two Saturdays. Her sister appeared each time, sat silently for a few minutes, then disappeared back into the rushing water. Ginny grew to like it. It was her own little secret, and she didn't feel so alone.

On the seventh Saturday, Ginny and her sister were sitting on the flat rock when the typical silence was broken by the distant sound of Ginny's parents shouting her name. They had seen her bike on the side of the road. The shouts quickly became louder as they ran down the dirt path leading to the two girls on the flat rock. They would be there soon. They would see their two girls and cry and hug and kiss them. Their dad would quit drinking and their mom would smash the television into tiny pieces and they would live happily ever after.

These are the thoughts that raced through Ginny's head when her sister pushed her into the river. The current pulled her under, and her head struck a rock. A deafening noise like a firework and a blinding burst of light knocked all the thoughts out of her head as the pace of the water swept her ragdoll body away until she disappeared entirely.

It was then that Ginny's parents appeared and saw their single daughter sitting on the flat rock alone. They cried and hugged and kissed her, making her promise never to go near the water again. Ginny's sister smiled and nodded. The three of them returned home, a family reborn.