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

As so often happens in the Pacific Northwest, a storm will come in from the sea, lashing and turbulent, moving rapidly across the coastline into the welcoming valley, thirsty for water and leaving a shimmering light, so crystalline that rainbows cascade, illuminating dark places. Through this light he glimpsed his way forward. His steps left prints in the sand, alongside patterns of sea-birds. How ridiculous he thought. My pointy-toed prints, and their suited for purpose prints. How did I get so lost? Who am I, really? This pointy-toed man, standing on a beach, in a storm, looking for what? Absolution?

The rocks at the edge of the cove beckoned him. The tide was low, and one of the many caves carved out by centuries of waves, cutting in, sluicing out, offered shelter from the storm. He hovered in the opening. His gut clenched and he was afraid he would be sick. This was the place, the last place he had seen his son. Right here. Squatting down, looking into the tidal pools. And he, the father, the husband, the man he was or could have been, was on his goddamned phone. Devon, his beautiful son, right here, right here. If only there had been waves like these, thrashing and pulsating. Devil’s stovepipes they were called, their rocket like projectiles throwing water and all the small living creatures in the sea up into the air. But it was calm that day, pacific, like its name. Nothing to indicate a killer was on the loose. Except, looking back, if he had been paying attention, perhaps there had been clues, not to the ocean’s madness, but to their own, his and Clair’s, and their slipping away from what mattered, towards mutually ensured destruction.

Adam hadn’t wanted to go in the first place. The night before, his back tight between his shoulders, leaning against the kitchen counter, trying to block out another battle of wills between Clair and Devon. He had lost the effort.

‘For God’s sake, Clair, just let him sleep in his cape,’ he had shouted up the stairs. ‘What does it really matter?’

‘Because, he’s just a baby still, he could be strangled by the ties around his neck, in his sleep.’

She was always looking for the worst possible thing, the most unlikely event, the dark side of the situation. He had just wanted a few minutes of quiet in his home. Not this unending battering ram of an existence.

He had gone outside on the deck, the late fall evening cool, half a moon in the sky, flitting in and out between clouds. Inside, the bickering had subsided. Devon finally surrendering to sleep. Adam had slipped back into the kitchen, hoping he could make it to his study before another exchange with Clair. He had grabbed a beer from the fridge, twisting it open, taking that first welcome draw, feeling an immediate release of tension. Oh, if only he still smoked a pipe, he mused, not for the first time since quitting shortly after Devon’s birth. Fear of oral and lung cancer, second-hand smoke, and a plethora of other maladies the maternity nurses had threatened him with had hit their target. But oh, the smell, the feel, the romance of it all, he missed. Especially the smoke screen it put up between him and the rest of the world. A screen he hadn’t wanted between him and Devon. Back before they knew about Devon. Back before Clair had taken over. And he, the father, had been cast out of the inner circle of mother, son.

Adam knelt, then collapsed, lying face down on the sand. He beat at it, gripped it in his hands, rubbed it on his face. In his hair. Railed at the ruination of it all.

Birds cried in the distance and then closer. Carnage, he thought, they think I’m some sort of hulk to eat. Adam pushed himself up, his body moving like a heavy bag, weighted down with an eternity of grief. He stood. The storm was moving eastward, darkness falling. Soaked and forlorn, he hugged himself, his mouth closing, lips sucking in, his teeth chewing on his bottom lip. What kind of man am I? he thought. Lear came to him. Miserable man, father, husband. If not Clair’s husband, Devon’s father, who am I? What is left? Claudia’s fantasy? Who was I before? An imposter. That’s what? A man for all women. And I had this one chance to be different. To matter, and I did. I mattered to him, to my son. As ineffectual as I was, he didn’t know it. He thought I hung the moon. And I let him go. I didn’t hold on.

Adam threw his face upward into the storm, this coming to terms, this awakening too much for him. Again, he hugged himself, as though trying to capture some essence of his boy, holding, keeping, desperate.

Night now. Darkness pervaded his space. No stars, or moon. Calling of sea birds settling in on the rocks, wanting him to leave. He felt in his pocket and found his key fob. A curious feeling of comfort came over him. I have a key. I have a car. I can go. I can do something about this. A surge of purpose electrified him.

‘Devon, I won’t let go. I’ll hold onto your mom, and I won’t let go. I promise.’

With urgency, he began the tortuous climb back through the forest, to his car, using the light from his phone as illumination. He slipped, fell, his hands abraded by roots, and fallen branches. But his mantra, ‘I won’t let go,’ echoed through his mind and body, energizing him. He would not let Clair go through this alone. Even if she didn’t want him, he would be there for her.

Chapter 23

Adam

Morning broke, shattering storm clouds open with beams of colored light. Prisms embedded in the cut glass windows cast rainbows across the pale blue duvet and on the white walls of their bedroom. Raucous bird calls had awakened