“I tried to hold on to her. Tried so hard. Didn’t know which way was up or down and had no breath left. Her little body was slippery from sun lotion. Little slippery fish. She was ripped right out of my hands. And I came up, foam everywhere, salt water and hair in my eyes and I was choking and—” A ball of pain hiccuped through me and strangled my words. I sat silent, breathing hard.
Martin covered my hand and sat silent, too. Giving me time, space. No judgment that I could feel. I sucked in a shaky breath. “I screamed and screamed, and dove down, and searched and I . . . the lifeguards pulled me out. I was hysterical, still screaming for Chloe. Jet Skis and paddleboards went out. Doug came in. He ran up the beach. He . . . he was yelling at me, asking how in the hell I could have done that—gone out so far. Hadn’t I seen the signs about rip currents. Why hadn’t I stayed in the flag zone. Didn’t I realize conditions could change on a dime.” I swiped sweat from my brow and heaved out a shuddering breath. “Boats went out looking. A helicopter in the air. Everyone helped. A full-scale search-and-rescue operation was launched. But the surf got really high. You can’t believe how big it can get there. From flat to thunderous, murderous, in a heartbeat. They found nothing. That night we waited on the beach while they kept searching with spotlights. And then the next morning, she . . . she . . . my Chloe, my little Chloe, my little three-year-old, my baby, my toddler—her body. All broken and bloodied. On the rocks . . .” Tears slid down my face, turning my sunblock into a horrible soapy chemical taste on my lips. I smeared it away. “It was my fault, Martin. Doug let me know it. He couldn’t love me after that. He never touched me after that. He’d adored Chloe. Losing her cost us our marriage. Doug came to hate me and I turned into this awful specter that just begged to be hated. I became this ugly, fat shell that housed bitterness and grief, and I got to a point where I just wanted to curl up and die.”
He nodded, looking far off into the distance. “Is this what precipitated the . . . pill thing? The self-medication and subsequent psychological spiral?”
“So you read about that—of course you did.”
He gave a rueful smile. “After Deep Cove. After you told me that Sterling was your dad. I confess, I looked you up.”
“Yes,” I said softly. “And I hate that everyone pays sanctimonious lip service to being more open about mental illness in an effort to destigmatize psychological illness, yet a person with mental illness is judged nevertheless. People whisper and gossip behind your back. You become the laughable or embarrassing drunk, or the drug-addled neurotic paranoid with addiction issues who can’t keep her looks and who can’t hold on to her husband and could you blame him for leaving her anyway. You become this freak who can’t move on from a tragedy because all the collateral damage just compounds the thing. You become the salacious tabloid headline. It’s so much easier to get pneumonia, or heart disease, or to break a leg. People are comfortable with that sort of brokenness. They understand that.” I sucked in a deep breath. “It’s like you’ve got to kill yourself before everyone can say: ‘See? We need to talk about mental health.’”
He said nothing.
I watched his profile, waiting for judgment.
“Do you hate me now?” I said quietly.
“Come here, El.”
He gathered me into his arms and held. Just held. Our bodies hot and warm and damp and sticky from sweat and sun lotion. But the smell and solidity of him was so comforting. He stroked my hair, kissed my mouth. “I love you, Ellie Tyler,” he whispered. “I freaking love you and I am so sorry you had to go through that. You are a good person. A dear and wonderful and kind and sensitive and creative person, and this should never have happened to you and I have no idea how Chloe’s father could ever have abandoned you after this, after what you’d both gone through.”
I sobbed as he held me—big, jerking, palsied shudders taking hold of my body. I let it come. Like a purge, like a bloodletting, a lancing of some terrible boil trapped inside my soul. Telling Martin, and having him still hold me, still say he loved me—no therapy had come close to achieving this. It was like I was home. Safe with him. He understood, and he accepted me.
When I had finally quieted, he said, “This is why you won’t come and swim with me?”
I nodded.
“But it’s about surf, really, isn’t it? It’s about forceful water, moving water, strong currents, big waves that could render you powerless and snatch things away?”
I sniffed, wiped my nose, and nodded.
“So we can deal with that. Look. The lagoon is basically walled off by sand. It’s calm as a bath. No currents here. No sharks. It’s shallow. Not even a ripple of wind on the surface. Perhaps if we go in together, and you survive, and perhaps if it doesn’t feel so bad, it would be a big step. Would you
