The Summer We Came to Life

Chapter

24





I OPENED MY EYES. DARKNESS. I LOOKED FRANTICALLY left and right for what could have woken me up, since I wouldn’t hear a stampeding bull over the thumping of my heart. Then the nightmare came coursing back.

Any time I faced conflict in my life, I proved adept enough at managing it during the day. Struggling with Remy, Mina, or day-to-day crises—I usually appeared pretty laissez-faire. But the hidden turmoil always surfaced in merciless nightmares.

Frightening fragments now stampeded my waking mind—combining like crashing water. I listened to my shallow breathing, interrupted by a whimper from across the room. Isabel. Now I remembered.

It started out as a happy memory. Summer at the beach. Before our vacations got steadily more exotic, Jesse and Lynette used to pack us up and drive everybody to a beach or a lake. The summer we were eight years old, we went to Atlantic City.

Jesse and Lynette were still debating the ethics of taking us into the casinos, so until they agreed, they spread us out on the sand in front of the hotel. They doled out beach bags with our names written on them in glitter paint. Each bag had a shovel, a pail, a blowup doughnut floatie, and a bag of potato chips.

Isabel and Kendra set to work huffing and puffing to blow up their floaties. Kendra pretended to pass out and we all thought that was hilarious. Isabel started to bury her in the sand until Kendra popped up like an offended cobra. “This is brand-new!” she shouted, pointing at her navy-blue swimsuit with a ruffle around the hips. Lynette looked over and told Kendra to cool it. “Guess you’d better go take a bath,” Mina said, and chuckled. She pointed at the ocean. Kendra stuck out her tongue. “I will!” she shouted as she took off for the water, Isabel right on her heels.

Mina waited with me while I scarfed down my potato chips. When we hopped up to join them, Lynette grabbed my wrist. “Thirty minutes, honey. Some rules aren’t made to be broken.” Jesse looked over. “Not many, sugar. But some.”

Mina offered to wait, but I shooed her off. Jesse braided my hair while I watched my three best friends scamper on the wet sand near the waves, splashing each other and turning cartwheels.



I smiled in my little bed in Honduras as I relived simple pleasures from simpler times. I could picture each of them so clearly. Kendra with her hair done up in pigtails and barrettes; Isabel flurrying by as a blur of wavy hair and tanned limbs. Mina circled around them with her arms to the sky, smiling with her eyes closed.

And then a shift occurred. In the real memory, Lynette had played tic-tac-toe with me until my thirty minutes were up. But now, as my head sank back into the pillow, I reexperienced how a dream can turn into a nightmare.



Jesse and Lynette stood up and walked toward the water. I pouted, annoyed at them and at myself for having to stay out of the fun. The three girls waded into the waves, ringed in Lynette and Jesse’s laughter. I watched them with a reluctant grin, echoing their shiny smiles. The five of them rode up the crest of a wave like a family of ducks. When the wave broke in front of them, they all watched the shore in glee. Mina waved at me and I waved back.

That’s when I noticed an odd shadow rising behind them like a Russian submarine. I put my hand to my forehead like a visor and squinted. Mina mirrored my change in expression, then turned in the water to look.

The shadow wasn’t an illusion, it was a tidal wave. Not a tsunami—not an underwater wave that lifts the general level of the water. No, it was a wave like the cover of Surfer Magazine, a curling, rock-solid wall of water like the open jaws of Jonah’s whale.

I jumped up and ran toward them as all five were dragged into the mouth of the wave. I was my current age again, pounding the sand with my feet, wearing my gold bikini that glinted in the sun. But as I ran, the distance between us increased. Sand flowed up from a trench between beach and sea, a widening no-man’s-land. I watched helplessly, running and panting but losing ground, as they rose up the wall of the wave, screaming and clawing at the water like a brood of drowning monkeys. They were calling my name.

No!

I woke up in the stuffy room, my heart again attempting jailbreak from my ribs.

I pressed my hands together; they were hot and clammy. Suddenly I was hot all over. Too hot. I whipped the sheets off my body. There was not a breath of cool air to be had in the dank room. I had the distinct impression I was drowning.

Then I started thinking about Jesse’s story. Life was insane. It was a miracle any of us survived. Danger and evil around every corner. I frowned, my mind flitting from one human depravity to another. Newspaper headlines of greed, adultery and murder flashed. I was gripped by panic—was Remy a Cesar Guerra? Was he cheating on me right now? Why did he think it was fine to have a month apart? God, I was so stupid. It bought him one last hurrah before settling down. He was off screwing every twenty two-year-old tottering by on stilettos.

I fumbled for my phone in the dark. It was late afternoon in Paris. Should I call him? I’d told him my phone wouldn’t work in Tela, so that he wouldn’t worry when I didn’t answer his calls. But now I realized I hadn’t wanted him to call me or expect to hear from me.

I looked at the phone. One measly bar of reception. Good, so it wasn’t a total lie.

What would Remy say if I called him right now? If I told him about Isabel’s father, voiced my concerns, or described the terror of the tidal wave? I tried to imagine. I pictured his creased brow as he wedged the phone between his ear and shoulder, nodding while he filed paperwork and typed an email and motioned to his assistant to bring him a cappuccino.

I frowned. That wasn’t giving him the benefit of the doubt. Remy had done lots of sweet things for me, hadn’t he? He was actually very supportive. That made me laugh. Who was I defending him to? Myself?

Snuggling back onto my pillow, I remembered the time Remy had brought home lavender lilies—my favorite. I’d had a bad night, hadn’t slept more than a couple thirty-minute stretches. So far, I couldn’t find a single job teaching English, my standby job when traveling. I was sleeping at Remy’s house every night and was feeling very unselfsufficient. Maybe some women liked to drop the reins and ride in a pretty carriage, but to me it felt more like a paddy wagon.

Remy came home early from set and found me on the balcony with Mina’s journal. He had the lilies in one hand and champagne in the other. I smiled at the lilies and frowned at the bubbly. I said something like, “Not everything can be fixed with booze, baby.” He’d kissed my forehead and positioned himself to open the bottle. “We’re celebrating, ma chérie.” He got me a job as a set photographer. He was so pleased with himself, I didn’t remind him that I wasn’t a commercial photographer per se, I incorporated photography into my fine art. But it was money. And art, unfortunately, feeds on currency as much as on the soul.

We drank that bottle of champagne and then another and made love the rest of the afternoon, giggling and running around the house in our underwear.

I smiled to myself in the musty dark room, and noticed I could make out shapes around the edges. The sun was starting to rise. Seized by an idea, I spun around and whispered to Isabel.

“Isabel.Wakey-wakey.”



Twelve minutes later, we were on a blanket on the sand in our pj’s. There’s no better medicine for night demons and tough decisions than a sunrise. I sported a wide smile, Isabel a resentful pout. It was easy to see who the morning person was.

We sat and watched the performance. The sun peeked at us from just above the horizon, dribbling candy-hued light across the water. I was struck by the sun’s benevolence—reaching all that distance to caress my face. I lifted my chin and dug my toes into the sand, weighing the opposite sensations of warmth and coolness. Suddenly I found myself daydreaming about a beach wedding. Life with Remy in Paris had been one big party, filled with extravagant dinners and beautiful people. Imagine what the wedding would be like! I giggled in pleasure at the electricity raising fine hairs on my arms.

My faith in goodness and beauty was restored; my natural tendency toward awe renewed.

“Isn’t it miraculous, Belly?”



Isabel gave a somewhat rude sniff of a blocked nostril. She wasn’t exactly moved by the miracle of nature at the moment. Isabel never suffered from nightmares. Any inner torment happened after her first cup of coffee, so mornings posed only the baby demons of sleepiness and sulkiness to overcome. This was a blessing considering what waited at the edge of her mind.

Isabel couldn’t help but notice, however, that the sky was bathed in baby-blues and tulip-pink. She had to admit that it was pretty. She smiled, awakening finally from the realm of slumber.

But the more she awoke, the more she reunited with pieces of her mother’s story. The more she remembered, the more shocked she became. She was appalled by the horrors her mother had revealed, but also by the love. Long-held images of Jesse Brighton were being torn down, and new ones hastily pasted up. Her history, in the course of a day, had been completely revised. She had no idea how or where to start applying the new information.



“So, you been thinking about getting another job? You gonna stay in D.C.? How do you feel about, oh, I don’t know…Paris?” I kept my eyes on the ocean.

Isabel turned to me in amazement, then shook her head with a smile. “You’re crazy. Two sandwiches short of a picnic, my mom would say.”

I had started to make my case when I was interrupted by a cascade of giggles and stampeding feet.

A pack of eight little girls made a mad dash for the sea in their underpants. Dumbfounded, we watched the girls run past us without so much as a glance, grab one anothers’ hands and splash into the waves like baby sea turtles, new to life and without any trace of fear.

They popped up to the surface one after another like corks in a creek, sending a chorus of cachinnation along the morning breeze. Their braids stuck out like crowns above their heads. The Garifuna princesses heralded the official start of day.

“Well, what are we waiting for? When in Rome—” I said, and jumped up.

Isabel grinned. She popped up, too, and put out her hand. Pajamas flapping in the wind, we sprinted and dove into the waves. When we surfaced, the water princesses circled around us, chattering exuberantly. We couldn’t understand a word, so Isabel and I just babbled back in English. No one seemed particularly concerned at the lack of common language. The sentiment was understood by all. Life is grand and full of promise. And it is fun, fun, fun while it lasts.

After plenty of splashing and laughing, I went inside to get my camera, triggering a massive photoshoot on the sands of Tela. The little girls posed, cartwheeled, and presented proud handfuls of sand dollars. After every click they would huddle around my camera and collapse in delight upon seeing themselves on the digital display. I clicked away, feeling joyous and full of light. I didn’t have the answer of what to do with the rest of my life. But I knew we’d been sent this little fleet of angels to remind us that life is nothing more than the sum of moments, and perfect moments are not to be ignored.

After a while, the mothers stepped out of the shadows to collect their AWOL princesses. They were startled by our presence, but laughed at our crusty pajamas and the girls swarming around us. When the girls had gone, Isabel and I turned to look at each other.

That was always the thing about the four of us girls. We were all so different. But we’d shared every secret, every worry, hope and dream since we were five. Which meant that in any situation I had a pretty good idea what any one of them must be thinking.

I knew what Isabel thought about Jesse’s story. I knew what she thought about me marrying Remy. And I thought she was wrong about both. But I understood why she thought what she did. I could see her lifetime of happy moments and tribulations spread out behind us, running right alongside mine.

I took her hand and we headed back to the house to change into something besides salty pj’s.