Desperation Reef

13

Jen makes her two o’clock with Dr. Penelope Parker, a Berkeley-educated psychiatrist whom Jen has been seeing for almost twenty years.

In Dr. Parker’s ocean-view office on Park Avenue, they have talked about Jen, the girl, the water polo and surf teams’ captain, class valedictorian, and Miss Laguna. Jen, the just-off-the-podium Montreal Games freestyler, backstroker, and butterflyer. Talked much about Jen and John, surfing the world together in love, crazy love that Jen has called the best hours of her life. Talked big-wave competition, big-wave fame, her need to win, a gift from Mom, her need to protect and serve, a gift from Dad. Talked of her striving to love John perfectly. Of John’s death. Of Jen, the sudden, grieving widow at twenty-one. Of Prozac, vodka, and Xanax. Being a mom, raising her sons, and them leaving home. The sadness. The failed men since John — her pretty boys of summer, dead to her eyes. Jen the published journalist, loneliness and aloneness, Mom and Dad aging. Quitting big waves after John died, surfing small waves only until the boys turned pro. And they’ve talked of riding big waves again — soon, just a few weeks away now, depending on this winter’s storms — in the Monsters of Mavericks.

Penelope knows her as well as her family does.

“How was your week?” asks the doctor.

“Hairy,” says Jen. “Casey and I got into a scrape with pirates down in San Diego. Pirates, if you can believe that. Worse. They made my skin crawl.”

“I’ve read about them. Poachers and smugglers, into all sorts of illegal things. Difficult to catch out on the high seas. Underfunded agencies and overlapping jurisdictions.”

“They dognapped Casey’s Labrador, Mae. We got her back.”

A beat then, because Penelope Parker knows by now when Jen is evading.

“You’d rather not talk about it?”

“Not really.”

“You certainly know our frontal attack by now, Jen.”

“I do.”

“Then I’ll pivot: Did the pirate encounter leave you afraid?”

“No. I’m not afraid of anything but big waves with me or my sons on them. The pirates threatened to burn down the Barrel.”

“Have you filed a police report?”

“Yesterday. A sergeant, Bickle, said he can’t do much but step up patrol. He calls it increased visibility. Which means an extra pass or two per shift. He doesn’t think it’s anything but a wild threat. These people claim to be into some ugly stuff. They bragged about all the contraband they buy and sell. The cops recommended private security but I’ve already got that. I’m going to move into the apartment over the Barrel. It’s a good-sized two-bedroom. Brock and Mahina are moving in, too. Which means Stonebreakers at the Barrel twenty-four, seven. Plus Casey, who’s in the bar almost every day. You can see the restaurant from the back deck of the apartment. I’ve got a three-fifty-seven Magnum that Brock gave me for my fortieth and taught me to shoot. Kicks like a mule. I go to the range once a month. I don’t think I’d have the courage to ever use it.”

Silence but for the cars heading up and down Park and the thrum of Coast Highway.

“I don’t recommend you living at the Barrel with a gun, Jen. You know all the stats on gun owners.”

“It’s not my gun I’m worried about.”

Penelope adjusts herself on her big leather wing chair, scribbles in her notebook. She’s tall, with a pleasant face, a bushy brown ponytail, big hands and feet. Twenty-something years older than Jen, and old-school regarding laptops or tablets. Today’s reading glasses are blue.

“I don’t recommend you living at the Barrel. Let the police handle the pirates.”

“I did hear you the first time, Doctor.”

“I’m here to help my patients lead fuller, happier lives. Which does not include gunplay and death by firearms.”

“I do appreciate that. I’d be careful. Can we talk about the Monsters? As I told you last month, I’ve begun having the dreams again. Almost every night. Very vivid and believable.”

“Describe your most recent.”

“The one where I drop in and make the wave and the lip crashes into my back. I don’t see it coming. I’m on my board, down at the bottom, and there’s fifty feet of water behind me, over me; I don’t see it, either. I think I’m going to make that bottom turn, then I’m flat down on the rocks holding on like John did and everything looks infrared, then I wake up. Sweaty and hot and my heart beating fast.”

The scratch of pen on paper.

“One of your three near-death scenarios.”

Jen adds nothing to that.

“We can increase the Xanax and suppress the dreams. Though I don’t recommend it.”

“It actually seems to be encouraging them lately.”

“Then we can decrease, or stop that medication altogether and see what happens. Try another mild sedative. Even an over-the-counter sleeping aid.”

“That backfired years ago.”

“And you’ve been having these same three dreams since the very year we began therapy.”

“You sound accusatory,” says Jen. “I don’t control my dreams.”

“Not an accusation. Rather, I’d like to suggest a new modality for reducing the emotional negativity of the dream, or even finding a pathway for allowing these dreams to help you.”

Jen feels a jab of impatience. “Doctor, I respect your judgment very much, but that backfired before, too.”

“We can consider a just-approved anti-anxiety medication. Stronger than the Xanax.”

“I don’t want the heavy stuff.”

“The recent literature is promising.”

And now, along with the impatience, disappointment.

“Am I that big a nutcase?”

“Just frightened,” says the doctor.

“Nothing scares me but those waves and these dreams. But okay. I’ll think about it.”

“There’s another attack we can try, not involving medications at all.”

“Lay it on me,” says Jen.

“Maybe you should reconsider. Don’t surf the Monsters. Don’t tow in Casey on your jet. With that adjustment, I think there’s a very good chance that those dreams will recede again, as they did for so many years. Before your decision to compete.”

“I don’t look on them as a warning.”

“Maybe you should. They are damaging your emotional strength, and could hinder your performance in the contest.”

“So just quit? Isn’t that, like, a ruptured appendix infecting my stomach, and you remove the stomach? You know me better than that, Doctor Parker.”

“Consider it.”

“You don’t understand, I have to beat the fear of the big waves. Not just avoid them. I have to get back on the horses that threw me. And threw John. And might throw my boys. I’m tired of running and hiding, Doctor. I need to confront the past. I need to find my courage. I need to win. I need to finally beat these fucking monsters.”

“But, Jen, fear is one of the many things that keeps us alive. It has helped through the ages. It allows courage but discourages death. Allows fight and flight. We wouldn’t be here without it. You told me that John respected those potentially deadly waves. That he was always prepared and always cautious.”

“But he was never afraid of them!”

“Do you think, possibly, that he should have been?”

Because I had his back, Jen thinks. That was my character and my love and my calling. Protect and serve. She looks at the tissue box on the end table beside her, decides not to, just lets the damned tears roll down her freckled cheeks.

“Jen, after John’s death, you experienced these fearful dreams over years. But you gave up the alcohol and didn’t require the sedatives. You listened to your subconscious, and you decided to stay away from things that can harm you. Or worse. Now, you’ve chosen to ignore yourself by entering the contest that killed John. The dreams are back, and you are depending on alcohol and Xanax for sleep again. What’s taking you back to Mavericks? Why now?”

“Six months ago I decided to tell the truth about John and myself and what happened. Tell all. The truth, from start to finish.”

“Was there an inciting incident? Some moment or event?”

“No. Just twenty-five years of evasion and silence. On my part. I need to tell, Doctor. I need to write it down.”

A long pause from the doctor, pen poised over the notebook.

“You’ve been telling me the truth for twenty years, haven’t you?”

“Mostly. But I mean publicly. For the world. To write it.”

“Well, I read your first installment in the Surf Tribe Magazine. It was touching and beautifully sad. I learned a lot I didn’t know about you and John. I’m sure the writing is cathartic for you. And I encourage you to continue the series.”

“I think I’m done, Penelope.”

“I suppose that’s between you and your editor. But it’s absolutely your decision to make.”

Another long beat, then Jen snatches a tissue from the box and wipes her face.

“We have four minutes.”

“I think I’m done with this, I mean. You have helped me so much. I love you, Dr. Parker. Thank you.”

The doctor looks over her blue glasses at Jen, writes something in her notebook, then sets the readers on her table and stands.

They meet halfway across the Persian rug and hug a long time. Jen can feel their heartbeats.

“I think we should continue here together for a few more sessions,” says the doctor. “I think you should discontinue the Xanax and really put your foot down on the alcohol.”

In Jen’s silence, the doctor considers her with pursed lips and sympathetic eyes.

“These narratives that you’ve been piecing together with me over the years, Jen,” says Dr. Parker. “Are they complete? Is there more?”

“There’s more. That’s what I’m writing. I’m so tired of falling. I’m ready to fly, Penelope.”

“You don’t seem ready to fly at all. More like a young bird, crouched on the lip of its nest, terrified.”

“I’m going to make those waves at Mavericks. I’m going to help my boys survive and compete. If I dream at night, so be it. Well, thank you again.”

“I’m disappointed. But I’ll be reading every word you write. I know you’ll find your way. I’ll leave this two o’clock open for a few weeks, in case you change your mind. And remember — sometimes fear is a friend, and caution a teacher. Tell your whole truth, Jen Stonebreaker. Confess it to the world and yourself. And for heaven’s sake, don’t move into the Barrel upstairs and try to guard the place with a gun.”

Jen feels like she’s been punched in the stomach by Mike Tyson.

Confess it...

Nods and hugs Dr. Parker again, then breaks free and walks out.

Heart pounding, stomach aching, knees uncertain.