Shiva had reached the sea.
As soon as she got out of the car she had smelled that smell she had always known: a mix of salt, hot sand and wet sticks left under the umbrella. She had stopped for a moment, with her paws still on the asphalt of the driveway, and had raised her muzzle towards the wind. She knew where she was. At home.
That beach in the Marche, with its soft dunes and the sea that came and went like a blanket pulled gently, was his special place. Every summer he found it identical and new: same scent, same noise, same half-buried stick that perhaps was just his of the previous year.
Yet, something was missing.
She walked down to the shore, stepping lightly. She dove, because Shiva was also this: an expert swimmer, elegant, precise. Back and forth, back and forth. She retrieved the stick, put it down, looked at it again, and then she dove again as if it were the first time.
But every now and then he stopped.
He turned towards the dune, as if to check.
He had always done it. Shiva would not start a walk, a game, a run… if they were not everyone. It was a kind of secret ritual. Until the band was complete, the world could wait.
Only this time he knew: they weren't coming.
Frida was in Trentino, among the high meadows where butterflies chase each other and where — she always said — the water It doesn't taste like salt but like melted snow. Skye, on the other hand, was spread out like an elegant shadow in the shade of the larches, with her air of a philosopher on holiday, far from any wave.
Shiva knew it. Yet, he kept watching.
Not to hope, but to remember. Because when you love someone, you wait for them even if you know they won't come. Just to keep their place in your heart.
He shook some water from his ears, buried his muzzle in a clump of salt grass, and chewed a few blades, as he always did. It had a strange taste, that grass. A little bit of sun, a little bit of melancholy. But Shiva liked it.
Then she went back into the water. And she stayed there for a long time. She swam alone, but inside her she felt the Banda close by. Sam running for no reason, Camilla throwing herself into the tall grass, Lina seeming to fly… they were there, in some corner of her head, like a photo album that opens by itself.
As the sun began to fade behind the pine forest, Shiva lay down on the still warm sand. Alone, yes. But with everyone.
And finally, even the sea seemed to smile.
