At some point you stop leading the way and start carrying the bags.

We go to the same beach every September. For most of my life I was the one running ahead, shouting back that it was not far now. This year I walked behind them and noticed how long the path had become.

The pace

My father stops to look at things that he does not need to look at. My mother holds his arm and pretends this is affection, and it is, and it is also something else. I shorten my stride. There is no reason to hurry. There never was.

Nobody tells you

It happens without a ceremony, somewhere near the car park. You take the bag from a hand that used to carry you, and nobody says a word about it, because saying it would make it true. You find yourself checking the step. You find yourself reading out the menu.

I spent years wishing they would walk faster. Now I would give a great deal for this path to be longer.

What we talk about

The tide, mostly. Whether the café has changed hands. Someone who has died, and how well they looked last time. It is the least interesting conversation in the world and I am trying to memorise it.

At the end of the path they sit on the same bench as always and I go down to the water by myself for a minute, as I have done every year since I was six. When I look back, they wave. They have always waved. I have just started waving back as though it matters, because it does.