The empty chair facing the sea

An original literary non-fiction-style account of carrying a deckchair to a beach during a family holiday.

My father insisted on bringing his own deckchair. The rented chairs were perfectly good, I told him, and already stood in a line facing the water. He said that his folded more easily. I watched him struggle to release the catch, but he waved away my offer to help. By the time it was ready, the rest of the family had gone ahead.

I carried the chair across the sand while he held a bag of towels. It was awkward rather than heavy. One wooden leg tapped my knee with every step. I suggested leaving it near the first row of rented chairs. He pointed further along the beach, beyond a group building a very elaborate wall of sand.

We put it down facing the sea. He sat for less than a minute before my niece called him to inspect the wall. He went without his shoes. When he returned, my sister had borrowed the chair to feed her baby. He picked up a towel and sat on it beside her, asking about the baby's attempts to reach the handle of her bag.

The chair remained occupied by different people all afternoon. My father fetched drinks, talked to a stranger about the tide and held a bucket while the children moved shells from one pile to another. Once, I offered to get the chair back for him. He asked whether I thought the person sitting in it was uncomfortable.

At the end of the day, he folded it in one movement. I carried the towels this time. On the path, he asked whether I still thought it had been unnecessary. I said that I had hardly seen him use it. He looked back towards the beach and said that he had noticed.

Explain why the narrator's original objection to the deckchair becomes less convincing by the end.