Eleanor had always taken pride in being a survivor. She’d been raised to be strong. She’d been strong enough to run, strong enough to give up her past, strong enough to raise her head and move forward. And for years, so much of what she had received in return, her family, her home, her days of laughter, had felt like an affirmation. Very often, in her life, Eleanor had thought that what she’d gone through had been worth it. But not everything. Not the most important thing. She’d always hoped that things would work out in the end, that she’d find her first daughter, that she’d explain everything to her other children, that she wouldn’t feel the way she does now.
No longer hopeful.
Enough, enough, enough. The conditions were right, a good southern swell. When the authorities spoke to her children, perhaps they would be kind, perhaps they would say that Eleanor’s last breaths had been filled with sun and salt air, that she had been living life to the fullest in the moments before the end.
The thing is, a busty, sixty-something black woman on a surfboard in winter, without a wetsuit, no less, simply could not go unnoticed in Southern California. The lifeguard on duty had been keeping an eye on Eleanor and raised the alarm. By the time he and his colleague got to her, she was in pretty bad shape. The board had flown up and hit her in the head before she slammed into the ground and cracked her shin bone. Later, she would not remember being pulled out of the water.
Eleanor ended up in the hospital with pins in her leg and cracked ribs and a nasty-looking head wound, but otherwise fine. After her son had gone home for the evening, she lay drugged but awake, staring at the glow of the television and hoping that the sedatives would continue to mask the full depth of her sorrow. She wasn’t sure which made her feel worse, knowing that she’d survived or knowing that she’d gone out there in the first place.
Byron
Byron’s friend Cable was nicknamed Cable because, when he and Byron were kids, he used to love the pay-TV station with all the old classic films from when their parents were children. He knew all the ones where the black folks had good roles, though he loved all the classics, really, as long as the black maids or porters weren’t portrayed in that bug-eyed fashion that could get a person riled up. And even then, he might still watch. He and Byron had gotten into their worst arguments over that.
Cable loved the old movies because they tended to have a clear attitude about life. The good guys made out good in the end. Or else they died heroes. Cable believed in the goodness of people, believed in making sacrifices for others, believed in redemption. He believed that things could work out decently, even in the worst of times. Cable was the kind of friend that every man needed in his life.
Cable called about meeting up for a beer but Byron begged off, told him his mother was in the hospital.
“A surfing accident? Mrs. Bennett? And you didn’t tell me?”
“Sorry, man, it just happened yesterday morning,” Byron said. “Banged up her forehead. Smashed up her leg pretty bad. They had to operate. But she’ll be okay.”
Cable was at the hospital twenty minutes later. “Surfing, huh?” he said, sipping from a cup of cafeteria coffee. “Where did this happen?”
“Balboa,” Byron said.
“Newport Beach?”
Byron nodded.
“The Wedge?”
Byron nodded again. They sat for a while, silently, while Byron listened to the click of Cable’s brain. Byron knew what Cable was thinking. Byron was thinking it, too. He had managed to surf the Wedge, but his mother had only watched from the shore and cheered him on. It was a haven for boarders and bodysurfers, but with the biggest swell in Southern California, it could also be a dangerous place.
“What was she doing over there?” Cable asked.
Byron turned his head slowly from side to side.
“You sure your mom hasn’t got some kind of death wish, Byron? My mom did, after Dad died.”
“Your mother? But she seems fine.”
“She’s better now. But you need to keep an eye on that old girl, Byron. Your mom is a good surfer, good enough to know that she’s not that good.”
Byron took off his glasses and stared hard at his childhood friend.
“I hear you, Cable. But it’s been five years since my dad died. I think my mother’s been a little bored, I’ll give you that. So, she thought she could give it a try, and she made a bad call.”
Cable said nothing, raised his eyebrows, took another sip of coffee. Byron looked away and sighed.
“Shhhi-it,” he said.