Desperation Reef

I won worst wipeout on the women’s side, mostly because of a huge but handsome wave that took me in and held me close in its beating heart, then launched me into the impact zone like I was a stick. Pushed me under and held me down for a very long time. Lost consciousness. When I awoke I was back on the boat but I didn’t know who I was, or where, or how I’d gotten there.

Nietzsche said when you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you.

But my fear was gone, because that last wave decided to kill me.

Would have killed me in just a matter of seconds if Casey and Brock and Mahina — Brock’s wife — hadn’t pulled me out of the rioting Pacific and onto Mahina’s jet ski rescue sled. I have no memory of that wave, only of white light followed by black silence.

In which Casey jumped my failing heart, and Brock breathed life into my waterlogged lungs.

Sons.

Heart.

Breath.

Life.

Then onto the rescue chopper and the hospital in San Francisco.

I have one more question for you, John, and for you, my dear readers: Do you forgive me?

Midnight, and Jen stares at that final paragraph, heart beating hard, and a dull knot in her throat. Hits the home key and reads the whole article again.

Here it is, she thinks.

How the world will remember John and me.

Betrayal...

A fifty-foot blue-black peak breaking top to bottom...

In that fraction of a moment I hated him.

And in that half second... I knew there was no way I could get to him in time. I had missed my moment.

She wonders if the world really needs this confession, but she knows that she does. It’s been three weeks since rising from the almost dead. Her memories are creeping back, and they frighten her but she can face them.

So she saves the story and attaches it to a note to her Surf Tribe editor.

Apologizes for taking so long.

Hits send.

Jen spends the next hour walking her dark, autumn-cool beach town. She loves this city, its buildings and streets, its beaches and waves and coves. The boardwalk. The smells of the Pacific and eucalyptus and the restaurants, the smell of the Barrel when it was alive, the smell of the roses up in Heisler Park. Loves the people, the artists, the eccentrics, the homeless huddled in their blankets in the cold retail doorways on Forest Avenue.

Live here; die here in this privileged, charming bubble.

We ride huge waves for the rush of it. And the joy and the danger. We pretty much ignore the rest of the world. We are not superfluous people, but we are highly specialized. We Stonebreakers are the stock of champions, who are, of course, made, not born. We beat fear.

Right now she feels released from her past, although found guilty as charged. By a jury of one: herself.

Freed by her confession, born again by truth.

And Jen hopes — she’d pray if she knew how — that Casey and Brock and her mom and dad and Mike and Marilyn will understand and forgive her for missing the chance to save John’s life. If not, well, she’s given them a foundation of truth rather than a half-truth.

Jen puts one foot in front of the other as she traverses the sleeping city.

An orange-and-black Corvette howls through the crosswalk at Brooks Street, just ten feet from her.

Jen freezes mid-stride.

Another chance to write a new destiny, she thinks. To do for Casey and Brock what you couldn’t do for John.

Keep them alive. Protect and serve.

And do something for yourself, she thinks. Finally. Something for the Jen Stonebreaker drowning in regret and fear for all those many years.

Drown no more.

Ride wild horses again.

41

Belle Becket has her fortune-teller’s table set up near the sea wall just south of the Laguna Hotel. The wall has the painting of John Stonebreaker banking off a comically perfect wave at Brooks Street — just a few blocks south of here. For the first time, the painting shows its age to Jen: the gray cement divots, the weakening colors, John’s hair fading from yellow to white.

Belle has on the same tie-dye hippie dress she was wearing last month. Her hair is its usual tangled mess, her gray eyes piercing, the racoon makeup lurid.

The November day is sunny and blustery, and the breeze wobbles her sign. Jen notes that Belle has raised her prices. Now the short future forecast is five dollars and the long one ten.

Belle comes around and Jen hugs her gingerly, tries not to breathe. Since almost drowning she dares not hold her breath. Sends a panic through her — her body just won’t do it. She breathes in Belle’s sharp, wild-gourd scent.

Belle steps back, taking one of Jen’s hands in both of hers. Gives Jen an alarmed look.

“I’m sorry about the Barrel! I’m so glad they arrested Jimmy Wu! Good police work.”

With a lot of help from Bette, Jen thinks.

“I walk past it every day,” says Belle. “The rehab is going faster and faster.”

“I got the loan and the builders are good.”