‘This doesn’t happen to Joe.’
Joe could swim for miles. He had two kids that needed him. He had me. I dug in the closet for my hiking boots. Joe was alive and I had to find him. ‘A little blood? He probably scraped his arm.’ I found the boots, pulled the comforter off the bed. He would be freezing. I grabbed the binoculars from the hall tree. I opened the screen door and stepped out on the porch, tripping on the dragging blanket. I called back, ‘Am I driving myself ? Or are you coming?’
Frank’s wife, Lizzie, loaded Zach into their Radio Flyer wagon with their daughter, Molly, while Annie stuck her arm through the handle and shouted through her cupped hands, ‘We’re taking the rowboat to shore. Watch for pirates.’
I waved and tried to sound cheerful. ‘Got it. Thanks, Lizzie.’ She nodded, solemn. Lizzie Civiletti was not my friend; she’d told me that, soon after I came to town. And yet neither was she unkind. She would protect the kids from any telltale signs of panic. As much as I wanted to go to them, to gather them up to me, I smiled, I waved again, I blew kisses.
Frank drove the winding road with his lights spinning circles. I closed my eyes, didn’t look at the rolling hills I knew would be shimmering, dotted with what Joe called the ‘Extremely Happy California Cows.’ He’s fine. He’s fine! He’s disoriented. He hit his head. He’s not sure where he is. A concussion, maybe. He’s wandering the beach at Salmon Creek. That’s it! The wave pulled him out and dashed him down the coast a ways, but there he is. He’s talking to some high school boys. They have surfboards. Dude. Did you ride that gnarly wave? They’ve built a fire even though the signs prohibit it. They offer him beer and hot dogs. They forgot the buns, but here’s mustard. He’s famished. He has a flash of memory. It all comes back to him.
Us. Making up. Just the night before. Standing in the kitchen, easing our way back together, then falling into bed, relieved. We were lousy fighters, but we could win medals for making up. He had kissed my stomach in a southbound line until I moaned, kissed my thighs until I whimpered, until we both gave in. Later, as I drifted off, he propped himself up on his elbow and looked down at me. ‘I have something I need to tell you.’
I tried to fight the pull of sleep. ‘You want to talk? Now?’ It was a noble effort to be more open, but, Jesus, right after sex? Wasn’t that womankind’s most annoying tactic? So I was a man about it and said, ‘You can’t go and get me this blissed out and then tell me we have to talk.’ I figured it was more bad news about the store.
‘Fair enough,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow, then. We’ll make it a date. I’ll see if Mom will take the kids.’
‘Ooooh. A date.’ Maybe it wasn’t about the store. Hell, I thought. Maybe it’s good news.
He smiled and touched my nose. I hadn’t said, No, we have to talk now. I hadn’t fretted. I had immediately fallen asleep.
So, no. Joe could not be dead. He was eating hot dogs and drinking beer and talking surfing. He still needed to talk to me about something. I opened my eyes.
Frank sped through Bodega Bay – with its seafood restaurants and souvenir shops, the pink-and-white-striped saltwater taffy store the kids could never get past without insisting we stop – along the curved bayside road and its hand-painted sandwich signs advertising the latest catch, the air a mingle of smoked salmon and sea and wildflowers, up the curved ridge to Bodega Head, Joe’s favourite place on the planet.
There was the trailhead to the hike we’d taken so many times, along the cliff. On one side the sea down below, on the other a prairie of shore wildflowers – with the yarrow, or Achillea borealis, the sand verbena, or Abronia umbellate – down to the grassy dunes. Joe was always impressed with my ability to not only identify the birds and wildflowers, but rattle off their Latin names too, a gift I’d inherited from my father.
The parking lot was full, including several sheriff’s cars, a fire truck, paramedics, and there at the end by the trail, Joe’s old truck. He called it the Green Hornet. I grabbed the binoculars, got out of Frank’s cruiser, and slammed the door. A helicopter headed north, following the shoreline, its blades thumping, a thunderous, too-rapid heartbeat fading away.
I had no jacket, and the wind whipped against my bare arms, burned my eyes. Frank draped the comforter around me. I said, ‘Please don’t make me talk to anyone.’
‘You got it.’
‘I need to go alone.’ He pulled me into his side, then released me. I walked to Joe’s truck. Unlocked, of course. His blue down jacket, stained and worn in, just the way he liked it. I slipped it on. Warm from the sun. I left the blanket in the car so it would be warm for him too. His thermos lay on the floor. I shook it: empty. I lifted the rubber mat and saw his keys, as I knew I would, and stuck them in my pocket.
Through the binoculars the water flashed a multitude of lights, as if taking pictures of its own crime scene.
In March and April, we’d packed a picnic and brought the kids out to watch for whales. We’d searched the horizon with the same binoculars, marvelled at the grey whales’ graceful sky hopping and breaching. We told the kids the story of Jonah and the whale, how one minute Jonah was tossed overboard into the sea, and the next minute swallowed by the whale, along for the ride. Annie rolled her eyes and said ‘Yeah. Riiiiight.’ I’d laughed, confessed to them that even when I was a little kid in Sunday school, I’d found the story hard to swallow.
But now I was willing to believe anything, to pray anything, to promise anything. ‘Please, please, please, please . . .’
I headed down the lower trail, seeing Joe taking each step, strong, alive. An easy climb up First Rock, the white water swirling far below, unthreatening. But you broke your own rule, Joe, didn’t you? The one you always told me and Annie and Zach: Never turn your back on the ocean. The Coast Guard boat moved steadily, not stopping. I glanced over my shoulder at the cliff. It looked like the clenched fist of God, the clinging reddish sea figs its scraped and bleeding knuckles. Please, please. Tell me where he is.
I climbed down the rock. The sun’s reflection off the water made me wince. Farther down, I saw it wasn’t the water, but metal wedged deep between two other rocks. I stepped over to investigate. Was it . . .? I scrambled down closer. There, waiting for me to notice it, lay Joe’s tripod. His camera was gone.
Wait. That’s it. That’s what he’s doing. He’s hunting for his camera. He’s sick about it. He’s in the dunes somewhere, lost. All those deer trails, confusing, every dune starts to look the same and it’s hard to tell what you’ve covered and the wind is whipping and you’re tired and you have to lie down. So cold. A doe watches tentatively but she senses your desperation and she approaches, lies down to warm you and she licks the salt off your nose.
You are fine! You’re just trying to find your way back. ‘Don’t be angry,’ you’ll say, wiping my tears with your thumbs, holding my face to yours, your fingers locked in my hair. ‘I’m so sorry,’ you’ll say. I’ll shake my head to tell you all is forgiven, thank you for fighting that wave, thank you for coming back to us. I’ll bury my nose in your neck, the salt will rub off on my cheek. You’ll smell like dried blood and fish and kelp and deer and wood smoke and life.
I wandered the dunes past dark, long after they called off the search for the day. The half-moon disclosed nothing. Frank said even less. Usually he never shut up.
Joe’s Green Hornet sat empty, the only vehicle in the parking lot other than Frank’s cruiser. I wanted to leave the truck for Joe, so I unlocked it, replaced the keys under the mat. I slipped off his jacket and left that for him too, along with the blanket.
I climbed in with Frank, quiet, as the dispatcher gave an address for a domestic dispute. I wanted to be with the kids but I didn’t want my face to let on, to drive a spike through their contented unknowing.