Page 35 of The California Dreamers

34

Little Seal

The water off of Manzanita Island

I don’t know how long I’ve been treading water. Maybe an hour or more, because the sun is no longer directly overhead, but slightly behind me. I’m cold, and so, so tired. I’ve tried to swim with only my good shoulder and good leg, but the pain is piercing, unreal, and anyway no matter what I do, I can’t get past the breakers. The current pulled me out, though I fought it.

So I float, grateful for my makeshift kickboard of bamboo. I remind myself that I am a good swimmer, that this water is my oldest friend.

I still have sight of the island, and I can’t let it shrink anymore in my view. I’m so thirsty. These two worries have equal weight.

I keep thinking of cream soda. Boylan’s vanilla cream soda , like we order at Statton’s Drugstore in town. Poured over crushed ice in a curvy glass, and kind-eyed, craggy-faced Bill, the owner and soda jerk, always drops in five maraschino cherries for me without asking… If Bill could see me now, what would he say? Quite a pickle you’ve got yourself into, Ava LeClair…

This whole time, one command has pierced every passing image, precious and absurd: Don’t give up . My thoughts drift. Images, scraps of memory, phrases, come and go. Memories of the past, of my first life in these waves. The life Cap and Mama chose for me. And memories of my second life. The one I chose.

The faces I love come often, making my heart contract and my cold, sea-wrinkled fingers tremble, and when this happens I recite the Latin names for lavender. In movies people concentrate on family to hang on, but picturing my sons hurts so much.

What wave washed me here? I’m Ronan and Ava, I’m seventeen and thirty-two, I’m the girl with a house on wheels and the woman with a farmhouse she’d do anything to get back to.

Jack, Bear…they could be swimming in this same ocean right now, after skate camp. Lou watching over them. Dear Lou, who saved me, took me in, gave me the kind of family I needed right then, rooted , grounded , down-to-earth , who let me be Ava LeClair. And Mama, my brothers, they’ll feel so guilty if something happens to me, when it was my own foolishness that got me here. And Charlie, who I’ve only now rediscovered…

Lavandula pedunculata…

Lavandula stoechas …from the mint family.

The endless Pacific all around me is so blue, the exact shade of Royal Velvet lavender in full bloom. If I make it back, I’ll tell my boys how the blue of the sea down here is pretty, but it can’t compare with our lavender fields on a late afternoon in summer, the wind rippling the velvety stalks, the sun tipping the top buds in pure gold. I’ll describe it until they see it clearly as a photograph. I’ll tell them we’ve lived by an ocean all these years and didn’t know it, and that our ocean is the most beautiful of all.

I’ll tell them about the Gull. How it was hard, and we were different.

But how we had many perfect days, like the day I took the picture. The one I’d told Charlie about last night. I’ll pick one at random and paint a picture of it.

I’ll tell them everything. Like I should have all along.

***

I’m so tired. But I trace the waves in my wooden float. Up, down, swoop, slide. The soft wind is Dyl’s sleepy breath and my sons’, both at the same time.

There’s a shape in the distance, it’s Mama surfing. Cap’s style was so natural, and I saw him surf so often, that I often forgot how good he was until someone else talked about him with admiration. But Mama. I didn’t get to see her surf that much. She liked her secret spots. So when I did, it was a new realization each time, how gifted she was. Effortless on her board, unselfconscious, lost in her own world.

Lou, Jack, Bear, Dyl. Charlie, Magnus, Griffin. Cap, Lou, Bear. Strange pairs and trios floating to me, talking to me. Mama on her board. The hum of bees, the hive that Jack smashed with his whiffle bat when he was four, they’ve followed me here.

Mama on her board. I will let go soon. I know it, sure as anything. I am seeing things. Losing my grip on what’s now and what’s then, and soon I’ll lose my grip on the wood.

The bees are close. But we destroyed that hive so long ago, I was sure of it…

I force my eyes open to face them. No bees. Only their sound. And then Mama, her hair bright as the sun on the water, holds out her hand. I blink, squint. She reaches down, quick and graceful, to pull me from the water onto her board.

“Little Seal, why don’t we give those flippers a rest?”

***

The bees are an outboard motor on one of the DFW pontoons. Mama takes me to shore and they’re all there, then they’re not. I’m so tired it’s hard to figure out.

Someone bundles me in blankets, chafes my hands and feet. Someone else holds a cup of water to my lips, thin slices of banana.

“You scared us, Ro.” Charlie’s voice, her hand squeezing my ankle. “I was running for the satellite phone on the boat when Mama scooped you out.”

“Still impulsive,” I say weakly, eyes half-closed, and she laughs.

Dyl’s face above me, upside-down and kind; he’s arranging a blanket under my head.

“The twins?” I ask him.

“They’re right here. We’ve kept your film safe, too.”

The twins are tending my banged-up ankle.

“…did quite a number on it.”

“An eight-brace. We have what we need, just a bad sprain…”

We’re under a shady canopy of some kind, but all I see clearly in my exhaustion is her.

In the photograph, Mama is nearly hidden in the glare of the sun. Beautiful, but unknowable.

But now I see her completely. A pained, intent expression I’ve never seen on her lovely face. But still, even in distress, she carries a peace with her that I’ve never felt from anyone else.

“You came for me,” I say.

“Oh, sweetheart. Of course I did.”

“You didn’t then. Postcard.”

“Didn’t…? Didn’t come for you on the farm when you first left? Is that what you mean? Drink.”

I comply, nodding, trying to keep my eyes open.

“I thought it was what you wanted. You’d been restless for so long. But I checked up on you, on my rambles over the years. I’ve even seen your sons, your beautiful sons, Ronan.”

“When?”

“Just rest now.”

“Tell me.”

“I visited you. And I thought I understood what you wanted. Because I ran, too. When I was seventeen. I ran from my family and never looked back. I missed you terribly—how can you not know that? And I’m so sorry, Ronan.”

“Tell me about running. About your family,” I muster.

“I can do better than that. I have pictures, right here on the island. A whole journal full of pictures and entries about me running away.”

Pauline’s blond hair, her evasion. How she happened to have the same brand of journal as Dyl—the green, seaweed-printed kind Mama had given him.

Corresponded with Cap.

I know about fathers.

About running away.

I have so much respect for your family…

Click. “Pauline. She’s your family.” Of course she is.

“Yes,” Mama says. “My little sister, from Georgia. Eight years younger, only nine and a half when I left them.” She looks behind her at someone: Pauline.

“Have her come here,” I say, my voice hoarse.

Pauline’s face looms close, eyes wide with worry.

“So you’re not a reporter?” I ask.

“I’ve written exactly three pieces for a museum newsletter back home in Georgia,” Pauline says with wry self-deprecation. “The Georgia Modern Art Museum’s quarterly, and they only published those because I’m a donor. But SWELL had reached out to your father; that’s the truth. He agreed I could come here as a journalist, in case I decided to back out of telling you…everything.”

“Stalling,” I say. I understand stalling.

Pauline jokes, relief in her voice, “But I can write a piece for SWELL , if you all like. I’ll bet they’d run it. Are you sure you’re all right?” She touches my arm. “I couldn’t have borne it, losing my— Losing you.”

“Say it.” I’m exhausted, and the two syllables come with great effort.

“Losing my niece. Just when I’ve found you.”

My eyes are heavy. I can’t fight them much longer, but I have a thousand questions.

Pauline, Mama’s little sister from Georgia.

“Ro?” Dyl says in awe. “Two months ago, an article about the exhibit led Pauline to us.”

Mag added, “And Cap wanted to atone for what he’d done, Mama says. Mama and Pauline’s father hired a private detective to find her when they first ran away together, but Cap threw them off the scent and didn’t tell her.”

“We were so young, and—” Mama says, then seems to think better of it. “Let’s let her rest. I’ll explain everything, when you’ve rested.”

“ Dreamers. You’re not mad?” I say, sleep pulling me.

“I think it’s time you forgave yourself for that picture, don’t you?” Mama asked. “After all, it led Pauline to us. But maybe I should have told you not to feel guilty long ago. The day the newspaper came out.”

“The day…”

“Yes. I knew it was you who took it.”

“How?”

Mama smiles in wonderment. “It made a sound. A clicking like a baby bird. And that’s one reason I thought you were getting ready to leave. And there is so much more I want to tell you. But later. Later. Now rest. You have all the time in the world to ask questions.”

All the time in the world. I’m back in our floating-forest pond where she taught me to swim, safe and warm. She strokes my hair and she smells like oranges and cloves. I have a thousand questions.

But for now, knowing they’re all here with me—that’s enough.