Mr Peanut - Adam Ross [72]
She crumpled the wrapper and stared at him.
“You can call for help if I start to drown,” he said.
She took his hand and walked up to the water, where he could discern some of the threat. Only a few feet out, the shore break was intense, and the waves were much bigger than he’d thought—the biggest he’d ever seen. They rose up as suddenly as cobras and then struck, a pile-driving force he could feel in his feet, the two of them pelted by the spray flung high into the air. Undaunted, David took off his shoes, Alice too, and they walked to where the foam washed over their feet. “That feels good,” she said. When the water went out, the pull made him queasy. She was still holding his hand. They watched their feet reappear, half-buried in sand.
“It doesn’t look so bad,” he said.
“No.”
The group of kids rose on the swells, laughing.
“Get through one wave and we’re there,” he said.
She looked at him, and he thought of Harold: she was waiting for him to decide.
“We’ll be fine,” he said.
They stripped down to their bathing suits and waited, the children laughing like mad. He let several waves break, getting a feel for the timing, and when he felt ready he pulled them in.
There was a sharp drop-off hidden by all the roiling water, so they were immediately up to their chests. He felt the current’s full force now, and it made him hesitate. Turn around, he thought. But then, like the moment right after you sat down on a ski lift, the undertow yanked their feet out from under them. Alice, still holding his hand, quietly spoke his name. His feet skidded along the bottom. The water was nearly up to their armpits. “We should—” he said, but then a wave rose up. He felt so scared and stupid he had to laugh out loud because he now realized it was by far the biggest wave he’d ever seen. It was too late to do anything but commit. He pulled Alice forward, trying with all his might to speed her up, the top of the wave sloshing with its own falling weight. When they dove into the wall, her hand was ripped from his. He hugged the bottom, feeling the wave suck past. Silence first, then blackness, then light. Looking up, he saw towering glaciers of foam, as if he were hovering over an arctic landscape. He surfaced, turned, and saw his wife, or her limbs, in the wave’s humped back, Alice dismembered—arm, foot, leg, arm—rolling into view as she tumbled to shore, the parts carried as fast as if on a train. Then the wave broke and spray shot into the air with a concussion he could feel. And Alice was thrown out with so much force that she tumbled end over end on the sand, momentarily on her hands and knees. Then she sat up, coughing.
“Are you all right?” he called.
She sat sullenly and said nothing.
“Are you okay?”
She got up and walked toward the rock where they’d left their packs. Behind him, he heard a young girl’s voice. It was as if he’d been transported. There he was, with the kids suddenly, maybe fifty yards out. He turned to look at Alice again. “Should I come in?” he yelled.
She sat on the rock, dejected.
So they were back to not speaking.
He turned and floated with the group. Why had he waited so long to brave this? He talked with a few of the kids while they rose on the swells. They were from San Francisco, on a high school trip. They’d spent the night at Kalalau Beach, an expedition they’d planned for months. The hike there was insane! One girl said it was the scariest thing she’d ever done.
No matter what they did, David thought, no matter how hard they tried, they’d always come back to this place of disappointment. That picture the woman had taken of them flashed through his mind, and how Alice had reached around his waist to hold him. If they stayed here much longer, there’d be nothing left between them.
When he turned around again, she was gone.
Her pack was gone too. Racing ashore, he looked up the river of rock that split the trail but didn’t see her, though her footprints led in that direction. He found the towel in his pack and dried off, quickly