I came ashore in front of my mom’s house. She was watering her plants again and I could see her black eye. I hauled my board to the house. When I got to the ivy I rested.
How was it? she said.
Did you see that last one I got?
Her clear eye fixed on me and the lid batted down a couple of times.
Yes, she said. Good one.
I knew she was lying.
Of course it was a white lie, sweet, yet I was ashamed and the board suddenly felt really heavy going up the porch stairs. Her lie seemed to give Nick the edge in the battle of who would be right about me, and I resented her for it.
Look, said my mom. Norm’s on a good one.
My dad’s arms hung at his sides like an ape-man. His upper body was quiet as his feet crossed over, walking him to the nose. His toes gripped the edge of the board and skimmed the water. He leaned back, a curved prow. He rode like this to the sand and casually stepped off the board and let it wash up on the sand before scooping it into his arms.
My mom watered with her good side toward him.
Good morning Janisimo, said my dad.
Good wave, Norm, she said.
Little Norman got a beauty too, he said. Did you see it?
She nodded and I cringed. He trotted up the stairs and my mom kept faced away from him and he did a double take on her. I watched him and he didn’t seem to notice the bruise. He walked the board to the side walkway and put it up on the shelf. I handed him mine and he put it away.
He leaned down and kissed my cheek and salt water shed off his mustache and tickled my nose. He looked at me. Chunks of different-colored blue cracked his irises and his cheeks bunched up like rosy apples. He told me he loved me.
I’ll be back in a week, he said.
Bye, Dad.
Adios, Boy Ollestad.
He walked back toward the beach. My mom heard him coming and tried to appear busy with some weeds in one of the pots. My dad circled around to her bruised side.
Ah shit, he said.
My mom spoke in a whisper with her back to me. My dad’s eyebrows forked down between his eyes, then he looked away like he was pissed off, as if casting the piss into open territory would help disperse it.
My dad appeared to be gathering anger and I liked it, thinking that this was step one in him becoming a force against Nick. A charge of redemption welled up inside me. Then like a reverberation I imagined Nick’s red eyes stalking my dad and there was something in Nick’s hand, a weapon.
At the end of the shadowed walkway I saw my dad studying me. Something raw lurked deep down in his eyes—a look he got when he rode waves or skied powder. He was looking over my mom’s shoulder. She was still talking. He nodded and said something to her before walking toward me. Mom turned with him and her eyes followed Dad down the walkway. Even with a shiner she looked young and innocent gazing at my dad with moist, yearning eyes. Her lips peeled apart and her body leaned toward him. Dad didn’t stop or look back. I wondered if that was how he left when he finally moved out for good. Had Mom hoped he really wouldn’t leave—that it was just temporary? Jacques had gone back to France and Dad hadn’t spent the night at the house for a couple of weeks. He surprised me one evening coming through the sliding glass door in the kitchen after work in a gray suit with a bow tie and wire-rimmed eyeglasses. He limped but didn’t use crutches. He read me a bedtime story and once I was asleep he confronted my mom. She was planning on going to Paris to see Jacques.
It’s either Jacques or me, my dad said.
She wouldn’t answer one way or the other. I refuse to choose, she said. A couple days later Dad moved out.
Mom and Dad kept up their appearances at bridge night for a few weeks, playing as a team against other couples like they had been doing for years. Their friends all held out hope that they would get back together. Jan and Norm were seen as the perfect match.
Mom’s eyes blinked a few times, as if tamping something down, and she turned back to the weeds in the pot. I tugged on the string attached to my zipper and began peeling off the wetsuit. I wasn’t holding out hope that they would get back together—I had known them as two separate entities far longer than as a couple, so it seemed normal to me.
So, he said when he came astride me.
I looked up at him, brushing my hair out of my eyes. His shoulders were silhouetted and they looked wide and blocky—a powerful image.
Nick’s full of shit, Ollestad. Don’t listen to him.
I know, I said, thinking Dad never said that to Nick’s face. They were always real friendly to each other and there was never any sign of tension. Not even jealousy. At least none that I ever saw.
Steer clear of him, okay? said Dad. That’s what I do.
I thought of how I might do that, maneuvering around his body in the living room, eating dinner in my room, playing with Sunny in my fort.
What if he grabs me?
My dad looked away, casting something off again, this time into the muted light. He made a faint growling sound in his chest that I’d heard before.
Don’t say anything to Nick, my dad grumbled. Nod your head and just stay out of his path.
I was perplexed, trying to figure out how to do that, and he added,
Stay at Eleanor and Lee’s as much as possible while I’m gone.
Dad knew that Eleanor showered me with unconditional love, that she was my fairy godmother. Everyone always said that Eleanor and I had an immediate, inexplicable connection from the moment I was born. And I never passed up a chance to stay with her and get treated like a prince, so I said okay.
I’ll call Eleanor when I get home, he said.
I nodded and he looked worried. He put his hand on my shoulder.
I’ll be back later, he said. We’ll see how you feel in a couple hours. Okay?
I nodded again, not understanding what a couple hours would change.
He moved directly in front of me, reeling me in with his infectious smile.
See you in a couple hours, he said.
Okay, I said.
He took the walkway toward the access road this time, stepped into the sun and vanished.
I spent the rest of the morning at my fort with Sunny. I came home to get some milk because it was hot out. My mom was on the phone and I guzzled half the bottle.
Norman. Wait.
She hung up the phone.
That was your dad.
Yeah.
He wants you to come with him to Grandma and Grandpa’s.
I scrunched my face.
It’ll be fun, she said. You guys will surf on the way down and the ferry’s really neat. And you know Grandma and Grandpa will be thrilled to see you. Besides you get to skip a week of summer school.
There was no accounting for the fact that my fear of surfing in Mexico outweighed my fear of confronting Nick again, even after he had just given my mom a black eye.
I don’t want to go, I said.
Well you’ll have to talk about it with your father. He wants you over there right now. Let’s pack up.
She moved toward my room. Staying put, I rested my hand on Sunny’s head.
Norman.
