Desperation Reef

Her task today is to scour the ash, extinguisher stains, and carbonized burns off the life-sized bronze statue of John in what was once the lobby. She has to tend to every inch of him, faithfully rendered by the artist: face, neck, chest, those beautiful arms, the six-pack stomach, the butt inside the surf trunks, his thighs, calves, knees, and knobby feet. The statue doesn’t feel or smell human, doesn’t sound anything like a person when Jen accidentally bangs it with the handle of her brush, or pings the bronze with the wedding ring that she’s never stopped wearing. There’s still something painful and intimate about touching this statue. Makes her wish she could touch the real, living him; reminds her that she never will.

Mae seems to sense this, watching Jen fretfully, forehead furrowed.

Scrubbing away at her bronze husband’s forehead, Jen is reminded again — for what, the ten thousandth time? — that her hardwired instinct to protect and serve had failed most spectacularly in John’s death. If ever there was a test, that was it. Her cop father understands this better than her coach/athlete mother.

As she works on John’s eye with a toothbrush and cleaning paste, whispering, “I won’t hurt you, John, I won’t hurt you,” Jen thinks of those nights just after his drowning, sitting up late with Mom and Dad in their hillside house in South Laguna, staring at the fire but talking little.

What was left to say?

She had failed to protect and serve the love of her life.

And now, the Barrel.

Drifting back from this memory, Jen becomes aware of something behind her — just a slight change in the light coming off John’s face.

Mae sits up.

“Jen Stonebreaker?”

She doesn’t recognize the voice but when she turns she knows the face: Timothy Stanton Orchard, the man who set Laguna ablaze thirty-plus years ago, starting a fire in Laguna Canyon on a hot night of howling Santa Ana wind. Gasoline and a fireplace lighter. The wind blew the flames across the hills and into town. Spread north and south when they hit the city. Four-hundred-something homes destroyed, sixteen thousand acres. And, miraculously, no deaths. She was twelve. Orchard was arrested by her father. It half broke his heart that he had let his citizens be served and protected so poorly.

Mae is on the man — a potential treat giver — looking up at him hopefully.

“Mr. Orchard.”

“I heard about your tragedy. It smells like, well... they all smell different.”

“What could you possibly want?”

She steps off the stool and looks into Tim Orchard’s calm blue eyes. He’s mid-fifties now, she knows. Short and lithe, thinning brown hair. Chinos and running shoes and a button-down white shirt tucked in tight. A harmless-looking man. She had written about him for West Coast Monthly when he was released from Atascadero State Hospital ten years go. One of those reentry stories people hate. What the editor wanted. Jen wasn’t sympathetic but was at least somewhat positive about his chances, based mostly on stats and studies from the state’s attorney general. Got some heated mail. Talked to him for hours at his halfway house. Neighbors with signs, going bonkers. I’m absolutely, one hundred percent rehabilitated, he said. Took my therapy, take my meds. A very sorry and very changed man, he said. Demons banished. Showed her his positive discharge letters from the doctors and counselors and hospital staff. Even one from a fellow patient whose life he had saved with CPR. Nursed a crow back from a cat attack and made a pet of him. Orchard had asked his original arresting officer, Sergeant Don Byrne, for a letter of recommendation because the policeman had always treated him courteously, and told him once that people can change for the better. Her father had declined. Orchard says he’s hoping to be a paramedic someday but knows he’s a long shot. Wanting to volunteer now. Maybe with the disabled. Maybe become a caregiver. Hoping to undo some of the bad he’s done.

He’s got the same harmless, apologetic face today as he had back then. Same thin, almost ready to smile lips.

“I’m up in LA county now.”

“What do you want?”

“To help you put things back together.”

“I’ve got help.”

“How’s your father?”

“He’s fine.”

“Treasure him. My father is still alive but we haven’t talked for thirty-four years. Roger Orchard. The third.”

“And what are you doing these days, Tim?”

“Volunteer landscaping and maintenance at my church.”

“Quite a switch from burning sixteen thousand acres and four hundred houses.”

Orchard nods and looks at the floor. Toes the ashes that settle back down no matter how many times Jen uses the shop vac on them.