The Wave by Kristen Crusoe (ebook reader online txt) 📗

surrounded by rocky cliffs on each side, a tall wall behind. Clair stood transfixed. Flashbacks of her time underwater, after her suicide attempt, came flooding back. She knew these creatures. They had welcomed her, taken her into their world, breathed life into her as she was crushed against the rocks, pulling her away, to safety. She shook herself like a wet dog. Hallucinating again? Dreams or memories?

‘Here,’ Clair said. ‘Let’s sit here. This is – was – our spot.’ Clair pointed to a smooth table rock.

Someone had built a cairn beside it, several stones placed precariously one on top of the other. A traveler’s prayer. They were careful not to disrupt its balance as they settled themselves on the flat stone. Cold and hard, it comforted Clair, something solid to rely on.

They sat in silence, watching the cresting, cascading, and crashing of the waves into each other, up onto the beach, against the rocks. The rhythmic sounds enveloped her consciousness, like an anesthetic. Clair noticed her breathing synchronizing with the patterns, felt the cold water envelop her again, and again. She wasn’t frightened. She felt at home. She had read that people with near drowning do this, re-encounter their experience, their death. And long for it. Just knowing it was there comforted her in ways she was not prepared for through her studies of math and science. She believed Devon was sending her information. Like he had sent the seal family. Glancing sideways at Jet, suddenly fearful she might be able to read her thoughts, which she knew would be considered psychotic, Clair quickly shut them off.

‘It had started out OK,’ Clair began, her voice soft, eyes fixed on the horizon. ‘I mean, our usual tussle. Him on the phone, me doing all the work. I didn’t care that morning. I was so expectant that this day would change all those old patterns. Like an unequal equation. Once I had found the solution, the elements would all fall into place. We just needed a day at the coast, together, as a family, to initiate our new life. You know, spring break, Easter, resurrection. God, how pathetic it all seems now. But, then, well…’

As Clair talked, the day came into sharp focus. She remembered how warm it had been, soft, and breezy. The ocean had earned its name, Pacific. It was glassy and flat. Not the gigantic waves seen in winter. The morning argument, over packing the lunches, beach paraphernalia, loading the car, all so insignificant now, had continued on the drive from their home downriver to the coast. Anger and disappointment had coursed through her, recovering old neural pathways of thought, speech, and action.

‘It’s your turn to watch Devon, I’m going to read,’ she had told him, flipping onto her belly, the striped beach blanket already coated with a fine dusting of sand. Devon’s sand toys littered the area around her. Shovel, bucket, molds for sandcastles.

She had known in her heart that Adam had been talking to his latest girlfriend. Probably the same one from earlier that morning. She had seen him pull his phone out of his vest, as he walked with Devon down to the tidal pools. Part of her had wanted to leave, go home, pretend this variance in their mutual lie of a life had never happened. But the joy on Devon’s face when he saw the ocean, his lightness as he raced across the sand, held her back. Instead, she chose the coward’s way out, hiding her pain behind a cloak of indifference.

‘Oh, how he had loved the creatures in the tidal pools,’ Clair said to Jet, looking towards the low rocky area that bordered the cliffs. ‘He would watch them for so long, his face serious and intent.’ A smile broke across her face like sun behind a thunderhead, and then the thunderhead struck.

‘I had pretended to read. But I was watching Adam walk away.’ Clair raised her head, breathed in deeply, feeling her chest tighten, nausea rising from her gut. ‘I had watched Adam moving away and talking on the phone. I didn’t watch my son. When I looked back, he was gone.’ A cry caught Clair in her throat. Seeing this, telling this was living it again.

‘I ran to the place he had been. I screamed his name over and over. I ran all around looking behind every rock, sand dune, clump of grass. He was gone. I yelled at Adam to call 911. Soon the place was flooded with police, fire, the coast-guard helicopter flying in circles. News people. Gawkers. And then, it was over and we had to go home, without Devon, and the terrible knowledge that I would never hear my name, Mommy, called again.’

She looked up at Jet as though this fact alone was enough to lock her up for life. That she had allowed this to happen. That she had survived this happening was in itself a travesty. Grabbing handfuls of sand, squeezing it between fingers that were trembling with dread, Clair looked down, eyes closed as though seeing was too much to bear.

‘The first time I walked into my house, into his room, that is when I lost my mind. The drive home was a blur. The paramedics had given me a shot of something and wanted to admit me to the hospital, but I refused. I was numb, sedated but awake enough to know how empty the car was. How empty the house was, his room, this space where he always was. My Devon.’ Clair broke down here, shuddering sobs rocking her body back and forth. Jet sat quietly, letting her cry.

After a time, Clair raised her head. Above, a coast-guard helicopter flew in wide circles on the horizon. A regular sight as helicopter trainees practiced their skills in calm weather. The sound cast Clair back to that morning. The response, active and optimistic soon shifted to recovery and then, after days without finding a body, the relinquishing of all hope.

Running her hands through her hair,