Desperation Reef

“It wasn’t John that did me in, Jen. It was my guilt. My greedy heart. It was him drowning up there in the cold. Hundreds of miles away. After that, it was just the pipe, taking over. One puff at a time. Throw in some schnapps. Some bad company.”

“More than that one time with John?”

“A few.”

“Did you love him?”

“Did I ever. I’d been loving on him since I was twelve, just like you. I lost his baby. Not on purpose. Two months after he died.”

Jen has wondered about this, and how she would react. Wondered if there might be someone walking the earth now, about Casey and Brock’s age, someone with John’s looks and his direct, seeking spirit, maybe Belle Becket’s gray eyes, loopy humor, and desire to get high.

“Did he talk about leaving me?”

“No. He was in love with you. But I was... present and persistent.”

“Fuck, Belle. Such loss. All that for this.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Me, too.”

“Thanks for protecting me and my good reputation,” says Belle. “I hope no one puts two and two together, after that article.”

“Too many stoned and drunk people at too many New Year’s parties. Twenty-five years ago. I think we’re safe. Walk, Belle?”

“My jar!”

Belle trudges to her table, stuffs the mason jar money into a tattered bead purse and hikes it over her shoulder. They head north.

“I’ve gotten lots of emails and letters for that last article,” Jen says. “Mostly sympathetic, but some people said he’d be alive if not for me. And I should take full responsibility.”

“You did that.”

“I thought so.”

“What did Casey and Brock say?”

Jen watches a young family, bundled against the cool day, pants hiked above their knees. A boy and a girl run ankles deep in and out of the water, screaming in the breeze. Mom and Dad watch closely.

“Casey said, don’t feel bad, Mom, you didn’t really hate him. Brock said John would have died whether I’d stopped to curse him or not. They look at me differently, Belle. More curiosity. They’re asking more questions about their dad. And me. It’s like the article freed us somehow — John and me. Made us more... real? The boys’ socials have been lighting up with this. Everybody’s got an opinion about me.”

“I saw Casey last week but we didn’t talk. How is he?”

“Tied up with a woman I don’t much like. She’s using him.”

“Let me guess. For his good looks, talent, and sweet heart? And Brock? How is your dark missionary?”

“Driven as always.”

“It’s so strange that Brock got his grandfather Mike’s religious pep, not Casey. Maybe something to do with him almost dying, like his dad did.”

“I’ve thought about that. Casey wants to believe. Brock wants to be believed.”

“What about you? Since almost drowning?”

“Religious pep? No. None for me. I’m just a protect-and-serve kind of girl — because of Dad.”

“Such good boys. Do they still call you Momster behind your back?”

“Face to face now. I take it as a compliment.”

The women stop to watch the waves crash in at Rockpile.

“Where we first saw him,” says Jen.

“We were lucky, Jen. But John was, too.”

Heading back for the fortune-telling table, Belle has a customer waiting. He’s a cool-looking surf dude with a board propped in the sand and a leashed Malinois sitting attentively at his feet.

Belle stops and whirls and gives Jen an exaggerated, big-eyed racoon stare. Fusses with her hair.

“How do I look?”

“Convincing.”

Jen kisses her cheek.

“I’m still up on Castle Rock in the canyon, Belle, if you ever want to shower or crash awhile.”

Not for the first time, Jen takes an awful gut punch at the idea of Belle and John in her bed at home on Castle Rock. Will probably never ask that. The truth may set you free, but right now she doesn’t want to be that free.

“Careful what you wish for, Jen.”

“I mean it.”

As if on cue, they both look back at the John painting on the sea wall.

“I’ll be seeing you around, Belle.”

“You’re awesome, Jen. John said that all the time.”

42

Late that afternoon Casey and Bette sit in the backyard of his Dodge City cottage on Woodland. Mae lies at their feet under the bistro table near the tangerine tree.

The waning day is clear but cool. Even this far into fall, the tangerine tree blossoms sweetly and the plumeria throws off a spicy scent. The birds-of-paradise stand proudly orange and blue, and the bougainvillea is a purple wall.

He shoots some pictures of the flowers, posts them as a CaseyGram along with a haiku that just popped into his mind:

Bougainvillea bracts

White stars in the middle, like,

A purple riot

Ms. Paige up at Thurston Middle School taught his class the 5–7–5 formula, and Casey really dug how cool the rhythm was, though the best he could get out of seventh-grade English was a C-plus because he was such a slow reader and spent class time sketching waves.