When We Believed in Mermaids(57)

“Mari,” she corrects, and nods. “You’re right. Sorry. I guess old habits die hard.”

“I’ve done just fine without you, sis.”

“I guess you have.”



“Wow,” I say as we carry our boards to the beach. “Look at those waves.” They’re rolling home in steady, strong crests. A few riders are on the line but not as many as would have crowded the ocean in Santa Cruz. “Where is everyone?”

“Tourist season is heavy traffic,” she says, yanking herself into her wet suit, a high-end version with turquoise stylings, “but the rest of the year it’s pretty mellow.” She points out a bunch of cottages scattered on the other side of the road and up the hill. “Those are baches, holiday places. It’s amazing how many people have them here.”

She’s wearing a T-shirt over a bikini top, and I see her once-flat, once-tanned abdomen is networked with substantial stretch marks. Not surprising for such a small person.

“Ugly, right?” she says, but strokes them kindly. “But every time I look at them, I only think of my babies.”

I meet her eyes, start laughing. “Dude, did you really just say that?”

She shrugs. “It’s true.”

“That’s pretty cool.” I zip up my suit, braid my hair tight. The scents of ocean and wind play on my nerves, and I just want to get out there. “Ready?”

We wade into the cold water and then paddle over to the line. “You first,” she says.

“I’d rather just sit for a minute, watch the breaks.”

“Cool.”

We position ourselves a bit away from the main action, straddling our boards and watching the waves roll toward shore. Overhead, the clouds are looking meaner. “Is a storm coming?”

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe we’d better do this thing.”

At her nod, we paddle out and wait our turn. The guy in front of me is showing off a bit, but he’s solid. The waves are six feet, eight. I take my first ride, and it’s exhilarating, the sky and light and board. It holds together beautifully, giving me a long, elegant ride that I take nearly to shore before coming off and heading back to the line. I pause to look for my sister, and there she is, right behind me, her goofy stance, arms steady. Her grace is better than it was, and her calm. She surfs like she’s got nowhere to go, nothing to do but this.

She sees me watching and flashes a shaka, whooping.

I flash it back and paddle toward my next wave.



After an hour, we’re both tiring, but rather than head in, we sit on our boards in the undulating ocean. With my eyes on the horizon, I say, “We need to call Mom.”

Her hair is slicked back, messy. “I know.” She turns her dark eyes on me. “I also need to tell you a couple of things.”

“Do you have to? Can’t we just let sleeping dogs lie?”

She lifts one side of her mouth. “None of the dogs are really sleeping, though, are they?”

I relent. Shake my head.

“Do you remember that actor who used to come to Eden, Billy Zondervan?”

“Sure. He used to bring us kites and candy and stuff. Nice guy.”

“Yeah.” The water moves us up, down. Something brushes my left toes. “Well, that nice guy raped me when I was nine. Repeatedly.”

“What?” I paddle closer and feel the ER doctor step in, protecting me. Offering clinical distance. With fury, I push back, trying to show up as myself. “That bastard. How . . . ? I mean, we were always around.”

She shakes her head. “Pretty sure I wasn’t the first kid he molested. He had it down to a fine art. Presents, sips of his drinks, and then threats. He told me he would slit Cinder’s throat if I told anyone.”

“When was it?”

“That summer we learned to surf.” She looks into the distance. “The first time was the night before I came down to the beach and Dylan was teaching you.”

A punch of horror slams my gut. I think of her weeping and weeping when she found us surfing without her. “Oh my God, Josie,” I whisper, and paddle close, touch her leg. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

She shakes her head, and tears are sliding down her cheeks. I realize they’re sliding down mine too. “I felt so ashamed.”

I reach for her wrist, wrapping my hand around it hard. “I wish I could kill him. An inch at a time.”

She slaps tears off her cheeks with both hands. “Oh yeah, me too.”

“How long did it go on?”

“A summer. Then he tried to start something with you, and I told him if he ever touched you, even one finger, I would stand in the middle of the patio on a crowded night and tell them all exactly what he’d done to me.”

A hollow opens up in my gut. “I don’t remember that. I don’t remember him being gross.”

“No, he was slicker than that. Remember those little dolls he brought you from Europe, the ones that have dolls inside and inside?”

“Oh yeah. I do remember those. They were painted, pretty.”

“Yep. That was the opening gambit.”

“He stopped coming to Eden, right?”

“Yes, thank God.”

“You never told anyone?”

“Not for ages. I told Dylan.”

“Why the hell didn’t he expose him?”

Her face has a strange expression, as if it’s just dawning on her that he should have. She looks at me. “I made him promise not to.” She frowns. “I mean, he tried to figure out what was wrong with me for a long time, and I wouldn’t tell him. It’s impossible to express how much I thought it was my fault.”

My heart feels like it’s filled with shards of glass. “You were nine,” I whisper.

“Dylan should have told,” she says quietly. “Why didn’t I see that until recently?”

I shake my head. “Because we both loved him like he hung the moon.”

“And all the stars.”

I bow my head. “Why didn’t anyone protect you?”

“Believe me, I’ve asked myself that a thousand times. But you know, honestly, it wasn’t until I had Leo and Sarah that I realized how bad our parents were. We were sleeping on the beach, alone, when we were four and six, before Dylan came.”

“Yeah, I remember.”

“Think about that. A four-year-old sleeping alone with her sister on the beach.”

I half grin. “Well, we did have Cinder.”

She grins back. “Yes, we had Cinder. Best dog in the world.”

“Best dog in the world.” We high-five.

“So Billy never did anything to you?”

“No. I swear. No one did.” In the distance, a seagull rides the currents, and I’m reminded of the cove, our little beach. “Dylan was even more messed up than our parents, though. Remember the time he dived off the cliff?”

She shudders. “It’s a miracle he lived through that.”

“I think that was the point. Just like the motorcycle accident.”

She looks so sad all of a sudden that I feel bad. “Sorry, Jo—Mari. Bad memory.”

“Yeah.”

“The beginning of the end,” I say with a sigh. “Pretty sure that was one of his suicide attempts.”

She looks at me, eyes wide. “Oh, for God’s sake. I’m such an idiot. Of course it was. That’s why he was so pissed when we brought him back to the house.”

I frown. “You seriously never realized that before?”

“No.” She shakes her head, splashes water on the front of her board. “I miss him so much.” She looks at the horizon. “So much.”

“Me too.” I imagine I can see him on his longboard, arms out. “He really was like some creature from a fairy tale, cursed and blessed in equal measures.” I think of his gentle hands braiding my hair. The easy way he folded clothes. The way he stood with us at the bus stop. “I wouldn’t be who I am without him.”

“I know. And you did him so much good.”

“Both of us.”

“No.” She shakes her head. “You gave him peace. I think you were the only person who ever did.”

“I hope I did.”

“We should go back to shore. I think the storm is coming.”

By the time we wade back out of the water under an angry sky, my legs are weak and I could eat a large-size cow. Peeling out of my wet suit, I ask, “Did you bring food?”

She gives me a look. “Duh. Do you still eat the earth and all the moons of the galaxy after surfing?”

I laugh. It was something Dylan used to say. “I do. But look”—I spread my arms—“I didn’t get fat.”

“You have a very hot body,” she says. “Look at your abs, dude.”

“It’s all surfing.”

“I thought we might eat on the beach, but it’s getting too windy.”

We hustle back to her car and load up the back again with boards and wet suits. I don’t have a fleece and wish I did; seeing my goose bumps, she hands me one she drags out of the back seat. It must be Simon’s, and the warmth is delicious. We settle on the leeward side of the car and eat pies filled with meat and potatoes, washed down with a lemony drink. For dessert, there are slices of cake. “I love how much they love cake here,” she confesses. “Such amazing cakes too.”