Like a Woman (24 page)

“I saw the cord, too,” I tell her. “And it gave me hope. Before that, I was so scared. I didn't know what to do. I started to run down the beach for help…”

“Oh God!” She interrupts me. “I
saw
you do that. I saw that very moment of panic. I saw you look down the beach and I just knew if you ran I would die. That was the only time I was really scared. That, and then the rock.” She starts to tremble. “What happened? Did I hit that rock?”

“I don't think so,” I say. “At least not full on. I think maybe it parted the wave carrying you and Luna because I found her way on the other side from where you were.” I tell her for the tenth time how I rescued Luna. I tell her the story of David. I tell her about how her cries called my heart back into my body.

“I almost couldn't cry out,” she tells me. “It was like I didn't think I deserved that much attention. Like I didn't want to be a problem. I wasn't supposed to make noise.” She pauses. “Guess I changed that script, didn't I?” she says, smiling. “It felt so incredible once I started hollering. I really got into it. It made me feel so powerful, even though I was crying for help. It was like I knew I had to save my own life. Like I really felt my life was worth saving.”

“You did save your own life,” I remind her. This is an argument we will have many times.

“
You
saved my life,” she says, snuggling in closer to me. “You pulled me from the sea.”

“A wave took you out and a wave brought us back in. And in between we got seriously fucked with.” I start coughing again, feeling like I'm going to be sick. Luna jumps on the bed and begins to bark. Leah grabs her around the neck and pulls her down, quieting her.

“Well, you still saved my life,” she says, ruffling Luna's fur. “I would be dead if you hadn't come in. I don't know what else you can call that besides saving my life.”

“That's true, it's just not the only truth,” I tell her. I make myself sound calm but really I want to throw chairs out the window, smash lamps, run my fist through the sheetrock walls. “You were out there ninety percent of the time by yourself before I could even get to you. You did everything right. You relaxed, didn't fight the current, swam only enough to come up for air, stayed calm. You called for help. You made the decision to live.”

“I know,” she says. “It was so incredible. I kept thinking about my mom. Ever since she killed herself, I've wondered if I was suicidal. Like way deep inside me. What I realized out there was that I really did want to live. It was so empowering. I feel like I really have a life now, like I really
own
my own life. I feel so strong.” She looks down at her scraped and bruised arm and laughs. “Yeah. Kind of sore and beat up, but still really strong.”

I feel weak. I feel sick with my weakness. Every night I drown again and again in my dreams, going under, losing my grip on Leah, letting go, losing sight of the light which means up, which means air. I scream in my sleep. “I'm not gonna let you go,” I cry, grabbing hold of her body next to me, jerking her awake.

“I'm right here, sweetie,” she says, all sleepy voiced. “I'm not going anywhere. We're safe. We're not in the ocean anymore. It's okay. Let's try and get some sleep.”

Back home it gets worse. Everybody wants to hear the story. The Great Dyke Ocean Rescue Story. Some people cry. Some clap me on the shoulder. Shake my hand. Some dissolve into their own stories of loss, of near drowning. A friend of mine who knows the story of David says, “Oh, Taylor. This is so wonderful. You've broken through the old pattern of not being able to save David. This time you did it! It all worked. Here you both are! I'm so happy for you.”

A friend of Leah's says, “Hey, I heard that near-death experiences make for really hot sex.” She winks. “How 'bout it? Is that true?”

Another friend says, “Did you guys report this? Somebody should know about this. It's just not safe out there. I can't believe you didn't go to the hospital. You need to tell somebody. Call the police. Something.”

“What are the police gonna do?” I ask, laughing for the first time in weeks. “Arrest the fucking ocean? That wave's outta here. Probably in the Bahamas by now. Besides, you know I don't talk to cops.”

I lose my construction job. The sound of power tools frightens me. My hand flies back at the icy touch of steel. I drop my skill saw off a roof when it begins to whine and vibrate before I've even plugged it in. No one gets hurt. But still. I try and pick up some landscaping work. The other gardeners laugh past me and my broom, my hand clippers, my old buck saw, their chain saws, electric trimmers, power blowers ripping through the air as I crouch to slowly pat down a little patch of soil.

Two weeks later my friend gives me a number to call. She's tracked down a park ranger named Eric who is the lifeguard for the Big Sur area. Says he keeps records of drownings. Says it would be really good if I could call and give him the details. I call and agree to meet Eric down at the Point Lobos State Park. He listens carefully to the story, takes notes, frowns.

“I know that beach well,” he says. “It's really dangerous. I wouldn't have gone in. You guys are really lucky. There's no way you should have survived.” I look at his smooth, tanned chest, his oily, well-defined muscles, his wetsuit, fins, surfboard, orange floaty devices. He is the only lifeguard on duty from Moro Bay down near San Luis Obispo all the way up to Sunset Beach south of Santa Cruz. A hundred and eighty miles of coast. “Mostly I just bring bodies in,” he admits. “I don't hardly ever get to really rescue anyone.” He points out to the rough waters off Whaler's Cove. “But I practice every day out there,” he says. “I swim two miles, paddle two more. I'm always ready. I just can't always get there in time.”

I ask him what the hell it was that hit us, what made it go from dry sand to fifteen solid feet of water. “They call them rogue waves,” he says. “Sneaker waves. They start hundreds of miles offshore. Come in like a swell sometimes, not like a cresting wave. That's what yours was. A swell that just kept coming. There's no way you could have seen it coming, nothing you could have done. You guys are really lucky.”

I ask him why it was that Leah could have been floating face down and not taken water into her lungs like me and Luna. “The body is an amazing thing,” he says. “It just starts shutting down. After she hit that rock she probably started to lose consciousness. She would have stopped breathing by the time you saw her floating. So she wouldn't have been taking in air or water.”

Eric looks down at the breakers below.

“At that point,” he continues, “you just got three or four minutes to get to the person before there's irreparable brain damage due to lack of oxygen. Obviously you got to her in time. You guys are really lucky,” he says again. “One thing, though. You really should have taken your friend to the hospital when you got out. There's this thing that can happen called secondary drowning. You get a person out of the water, safe on shore. They're standing right in front of you, telling you they're fine. You see them breathing, talking, then ten minutes later they're dead. Drowned from the water they still had in their lungs. The salt pulls even more liquid in. Yeah, you shoulda got your friend to the hospital.”

I tell Leah what the lifeguard has said, ask her if she can remember anything else. “I remember the rock,” she says. “And then I remember you yelling at me to crawl. I guess I did lose consciousness out there. I just remember at one point that everything started looking so incredibly beautiful.” She drifts off. Returns. “The blues were amazing. Every time I got pulled under I just looked for where the blues got translucent, almost silvery white. That's how I knew where to swim up for air. Then I remember one time when I looked and everything was this radiant indigo color that pulsated aqua. It was so beautiful, like I was wrapped up in a silver blanket, resting in this soft blue bed. I felt my mind far, far off wonder if I was maybe dying, but the thought had no emotion in it.” She turns to me, her eyes all soft, excited. “Do you think that was what it was like when my mom drowned? I always thought it must have been so horrible. Maybe it was beautiful. Maybe she saw what I saw.”

Every memory Leah has, every insight, is one of beauty, strength, hope. Her friends tell her she has never been so radiant. “I'm in love,” she exclaims, grabbing my arm. “Of course I'm radiant. I have my life, my very own life. The sea took me in and gave me such gifts. I am writing again. I've quit therapy. My heart is so open, so full. I feel so alive.”

I am not in love, although I still hold her close to me at night. My dreams are getting worse. Drowning, going under, losing my grip, flashes of David's face rising up out of the coffin. I dream a recurring nightmare I haven't had for years. As a child I was always an animal in my dreams. The monsters were human. In this dream I am a young cougar, sometimes a wolf. I am running in the woods, not away from anything, not toward anything, just running hard. I feel the strength of my chest, my shoulders, my legs pounding across the ground. Grass slaps against my face. My nostrils flare to take in air, to take in scent. As I'm running I become aware of a hunter, his rifle pointed at me, fixing me in its sights. I feel the red cross-marks move across my body, settling on my right shoulder. I know I am about to be shot. I think about running faster, darting away, hiding behind the trees. But I just keep running, feeling my body, feeling my strength. Then I hear an explosion and my shoulder rips open. I run a few more strides in slow motion and then crash to the ground. I feel the hot bullet splinter my bones, tear through my flesh. Night after night I fight to keep from drowning. Night after night I run through the woods, knowing I'll be shot, keeping my stride until the bullet comes.

I am still coughing. A chest X-ray shows fluid in my lungs. The doctor gives me antibiotics. A healer friend lays her hands on me each week. “Please get the ocean out of my body,” I plead. “I feel like there are fish swimming in my lungs.” She eases the clenching in my throat, soothes the tightness around my chest. I weep when she places her hands on what she calls my heart chakra.

“I can help you with the fluid in your lungs,” she says. “And I can help with the tissue damage in your throat and bronchioles. But you are drowning in your grief. Maybe you need to cry more,” she tells me. She makes me promise her I will not take my life.

“What are you talking about?” I say. “I've never been suicidal. I feel like I am fighting
for
my life.”

“You are,” she says, looking older than I remember her.

I don't know how to cry any more than I already am. I don't know where all this water is coming from. I cannot drive. I cannot work. Some days I find myself in front of the TV at five p.m. watching
Baywatch
, watching
Rescue 911
. Every time I choke at the sight of the ocean, sob through the Technicolor rescues, the bobbing heads, the weeping loved ones on shore, clutching one another. I don't know who I am anymore, I tell whoever will listen. I feel like I am dying.

“You are having a spiritual breakthrough,” friends tell me. “You are so lucky to have this opportunity to leave the past behind, to split away from your ego.”

“I'm not having a spiritual breakthrough,” I say. “I'm watching fucking
Baywatch
.”

The healer works on my lungs, relaxing the tight grip in my chest. I lay back into her soft burgundy blanket. “You need to start trying to breathe deeper,” she says. “Try to pull the air all the way into your body. Feel it move through you.”

“I need to start working out again,” I tell her. “I hate being this fucking weak. I hate it that the ocean just pulled me backward like I was a little piece of nothing when I was swimming with all my strength.”

The healer laughs, gently touching my cheek. “You're the strongest woman I've ever known,” she says. “Don't you get it? Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime couldn't have done squat out there in that ocean. This is not about physical strength.” She places one hand under my back and the other over my heart. “Just try and breathe now,” she says. “Relax. Let me know if this gets to be too much.”

I relax into the warmth of the soft blanket, easing into the familiar heat and touch of her hands. I feel very young. She seems extraordinarily kind. The pressure on my chest increases and I try to breathe into it without coughing. Then it becomes too much and I try to tell her my chest is being crushed but I cannot speak and I open my eyes to see her hand still hovering just above my breastbone, not even touching me and then

I am in the emergency room, strapped down on a gurney. I am twenty-two years old. I have just totaled my car in a head-on crash on Carmel Valley Road delivering newspapers. I am fine, but they are wheeling me down the corridor, heading toward the X-ray room. I need to get back to work, finish the route. The X-ray technicians lift me into position, taking a front, rear, and two side views of my chest. A purple bruise gathers where I hit the steering wheel and I wait for them to develop the film so I can be released. I hear the technicians in the other room. “Jesus Christ,” one of them says. “Look at this. She must have broken every single bone in her body. I've never seen anything like this before. Look at all these bone scars.” Another voice, a woman, says, “I'll talk with her.”

The older nurse comes back into the room, avoiding my eyes, setting up the X-rays on the lighted view case on the far wall. She raises up the back of my gurney so I can see. “Well,” she begins, “it's not too bad. You do have three fairly significant fractures.” She points. “Here, here, and here.” I see three dark crevices running through the bright, white ribs on the screen. “That's why it is kind of hard for you to breathe right now,” she tells me. “There's not really much to be done. I'll wrap them, but mostly you just need to take it easy and they will heal on their own.”