The Jade Notebook (14 page)

After a dramatic beat, he says, “I was halfway to shore when the shark came.”

At the mention of a shark, I glance at Wendell. So far, all the animals in his vision have appeared except for the shark. The jaguar, the dead chicken. Does this count as the shark? I hope so. I hope his vision just signifies a story about a shark and not an actual encounter. I raise my eyebrows in an unspoken question. Wendell gives a small shrug in response and returns his gaze to Santy.

Santy continues. “I let go of the fish and started swimming away as fast as I could.” He pantomimes frenzied arm strokes. Now the tempo of his story picks up. “I hoped the shark would just grab the fish, but he came after me. I reached for my spear, but the shark was too fast.” He shakes his head. “I’ll never forget how he thrashed at me, his jaws open. His teeth closed on my arm and didn’t let go.” Santy lifts up his shirtsleeve to reveal the full extent of the damage.
“Ripped off a chunk of flesh. For a moment, he let go. But then his jaws opened again. I was thinking,
This is it, Santy
.”

I interject, “And what did you think about, in that moment?”

Santy rubs his whiskered chin. “
Pues
, in that instant, I wasn’t just scared, I was sad, you see. And not sad that I’d never make it to Mexico City. No, I was sad that I wouldn’t get to see these waters again. Never again.” He barks an ironic laugh. “That’s what was in my mind, how I’d miss these waters, these waters I’d thought I was sick of, these waters full of a lifetime of memories.”

My pen is racing across the pages, trying not to miss a word.

Santy squints into the sea beneath him. His net lies on his lap, forgotten in the momentum of the story. “So I’m just taking in a last glimpse of my ocean, when
zaz!
” He slams his fist into his palm, making me jump. “Something knocks right into the shark. It’s huge. The shark is as long as a man, but this thing is even longer, wider.” He stretches out his arms to their full span, lets us wait in suspense for a moment.

Finally, Wendell asks, “What was it?”

“A sea turtle. Leatherback. The biggest I’d ever seen. Oh, I’d heard they could get this big—as big as a boat. But I’d never seen it.” He leans in closer, his voice brimming with awe. “And I’ll tell you something! That turtle fought off the shark. The shark got a few nips at its shell but then swam away.”

Don Santy grabs his scarred arm theatrically. “Now I’m
clutching my wound and feeling light-headed from losing blood, and then a new panic hits me. How will I get back to shore one-handed? Without passing out? How will I fend off more sharks? Just when I decide this is the day I die after all, that turtle swims right under me. She rises, up, up, up.” Don Santy motions with his arm toward the sky. “Now I’m on her back. It must have hurt her to have me hanging on, because her back was cut up from battling that shark.

“I hold on with my good arm and press my face against her. As gently as I can,
suavecito
. I tell her thank you.
Gracias, gracias, gracias
. Then my memory goes blank. Next thing I know, I’m on shore, and someone’s slapping my face. A fisherman. And behind his head, the sky, all pink and red and gold. Am I in heaven? Or is it the most glorious sunrise I’ve ever seen? Now this man is shaking me, wrapping cloth around my arm, tying it tight. I look out to sea and say thank you to that turtle again. Thank you. Thank you for giving me a chance to be on these waters more days, more years. Thank you for giving me the chance to live the rest of my life without complaints, but with
gracia
. With grace. And gratitude.”

Tears fill his eyes. “I wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for that turtle. I call her Gracia.”

“Did you ever see her again?” Wendell ventures, his voice cracking with emotion.

Santy nods. “
Pues
, I see her once in a while. Most leatherbacks stay far out at sea, but Gracia likes to show up from time to time. She’s become famous around here.” He peers into the water. “Look, there’s a turtle now.”

Wendell lights up. Without a word, he tears off his life vest and T-shirt and jumps overboard.

Santy lets out a whoop. “Now, this is a boy who likes turtles!”

“
Loves
turtles.”

Santy and I watch Wendell swim with the turtle. It doesn’t seem scared of him. It makes circles around him. Another one comes to join them, and now all three are frolicking. Wendell pops his head up for a breath, his face full of sheer delight. Then he dives under again.

Santy smiles. “Your friend has a way with turtles.”

It looks fun, and I’m tempted to jump in and join them, but this is Wendell’s moment. He’s in his element, completely at ease with these creatures. Not to mention, Santy’s shark attack story looms too fresh in my mind. Someone has to keep an eye out for circling fins.

A while later, the turtles scatter, and Wendell climbs on board. His teeth are chattering, but he’s glowing, gushing in a mix of Spanish and English. “That was amazing! I can’t wait to get photos! I can’t believe this is my job! I mean,
qué padre!
”

Santy nods in approval. “You’ll be good. You’re a natural.”

I wrap my arms around Wendell, warming him up and cooling myself off in the process. Santy revs the motor and steers the boat back to shore. We bounce along, leaving a trail of white foam.

Near the beach, Santy cuts the motor and we hop out, pulling the boat through the surf onto the dry sand. As I
take off my life jacket, I ask, “
Oiga
, Don Santy, do you know anything about poaching at Playa Mermejita?”

He shakes his head, dismayed. “No, but that makes me sad to hear. Beautiful little beach. Still remote.” He pauses, rubs his chin. “Lucky the developers haven’t gotten their hands on it yet. There’d be hotels and restaurants everywhere.”

“Right,” Wendell agrees. “Good thing there are laws protecting it.”

Santy chuckles. “Laws don’t mean much here. People pay each other off, exchange favors and bribes. That’s how things work in a small town. Only reason folks stopped hunting turtles was because they realized they’d make more money from tourism. And for tourism, you need the turtles. There’s no development on Playa Mermejita now because the folks who own the land around there haven’t let it happen. Good for them.”

Bringing us back to the subject, I ask, “Any idea who the poachers could be?”

“Oh, it could be anyone.” His voice drops. “You never know what people do in the dark of night.” Apparently, Santy’s pretty cynical about human nature. He leans against his boat, looking out to sea. “You know, I’m not the only one Gracia saved. There was a young boy. Now, this was about thirty years ago. He loved swimming with the turtles.” Santy lets out a low whistle.

I settle in the sand and open my notebook again, jotting this down. The paper flaps wildly in the breeze. Wendell sits next to me, ready for another story.

Santy’s scratchy voice continues. “And one day he was out near some coral reefs when he cut his foot. A deep gash. Oh, he’d heard my story—everyone in town had. He started swimming back, but sure enough, here comes a shark.” With his hand, he mimes a shark cutting through the water.

“The boy remembered how a turtle had saved me. He called to the sea turtles, asked them for help. And just when that shark’s about to grab him, Gracia swims up. She knocks the shark out of the way and dives underneath the boy. The boy hangs on. He feels the scars on her back—from the shark that attacked me. Shaped like this.” Santy makes a giant V in the air with his finger and thumb. “And two new gashes, still raw.” Now he moves his other finger and thumb to form a diamond. “Gracia swam the boy to shore.”

In my notebook I do a quick sketch of a sea turtle with a diamond on its back. Suddenly, I remember the turtle Wendell and I saw. Our grandmother turtle. The one whose eggs were stolen. The diamond-shaped pattern on her back.

Shielding my eyes in the sunlight, I look up at Wendell. He gives a slight nod. Yes, it must have been Gracia!

I’m about to mention this, when Santy says, “Around here, we say that some people have a certain … connection to turtles.” He looks deliberately at Wendell as he speaks. “Some way of communicating that others don’t understand.

“There’s more,” Santy says, lowering his voice. “The boy swore to Gracia he’d always protect her. And sure enough, when he was a teenager, he pushed to have the Turtle Center built.”

Santy shakes his head. “But a strange thing happened.
When he was your age, maybe a tad older, he was working for the Turtle Center, taking out scientists, just like I do now. Then, one day, this young man was charged with poaching turtles.”

I interrupt. “But how could he poach turtles if he loved them so much?”

“Oh, he was a moody fellow, had a dark side. He ended up skipping his trial and leaving town. Went to Europe, I heard. Guess he was too ashamed. That’s the last anyone’s heard of him.”

My pen hovers over the page, suddenly motionless. Is this a story about my father? The details fit. A man who broke from his past, left for Europe to escape something, never resolved it. The moodiness—possible bipolar disorder. Maybe his illness wasn’t even diagnosed yet. Before he took meds, he might have been in pretty bad shape.

I’m trying to form a question, when Santy says, “Tragic how one mistake can ruin a life, an entire family. Gossip and rumors flew, his family was shamed. Personally, I never understood how someone could betray what he loved most. Especially a boy named El Tortuga.”

Tortuga. Spanish for Turtle. My father’s nickname. It must be him. I look out at the water, trying to collect my thoughts, rein in my emotions. It’s dizzying. I feel as if the beach beneath me is rocking, as if I’m still on the boat. I shut my eyes tight. Wendell finds my hand, squeezes it.

My father. A man who betrayed the turtles who’d saved him. A man who shamed his family, his community. Sure, he had to deal with mental illness, but
still
. It hurts my stomach
to think about. And why did he want to return? Redemption? What was he hoping to do here? Would it somehow make him a better father? And did he ever return? Or is he out there somewhere, swimming in circles?

“This Tortuga,” Wendell says, squinting at Santy, “you say he never came back?”

Santy shakes his head. “If he does, there’s a jail cell waiting for him.”

“And his family?” I ask hesitantly, swallowing the giant lump in my throat. “Has he ever contacted them?”

“Quién sabe.”
Who knows. Santy lets out a long sigh. “His father swore that if he came back, he’d lead him straight to jail. The rest of his family was too pained to talk about it. They still are.”

After we’ve said farewell to Santy, as we’re walking back across the strip of beach, Wendell says gently, “What do you think, Z?”

“That my father sounds like …” I blink back tears, searching for the right words.
A complete jerk
is what’s on the tip of my tongue.

Wendell strokes my hair and finishes my sentence for me. “A good person at heart. But maybe a depressed and confused one. One who just made a big mistake.”

I force a weak smile. “You
would
give him the benefit of the doubt.”

Wendell pulls me close and buries his face in my hair. “Or maybe,” he adds, “your father is innocent.”

Back at the cabanas, Layla’s sweeping the path while Joe’s practicing some sort of sock puppet routine. As we approach, she glances at us, revealing the tiniest hint of relief at the diversion from Joe’s show. When I fill her in on Santy’s story, she cries, “It’s exactly what I told you!”

“What?”

“Your father—he’s a merman! A turtle merman. That’s why he can communicate with them. His special powers!”

I bury my face in my hands. “That’s not the take-home message here, Layla.”

Joe stuffs the sock puppets in his pockets, and turns to Layla, concerned. “And this man is still in love with you?”

She waves away his question and grabs my hand. “I think it’s extraordinary, Z!” A faraway look passes over her face. “I knew I wasn’t just drunk on moonlight.… I knew there was something … magical about that man.”

Joe looks crushed. “You’re not in love with him, are you, Layla?”

I watch her reaction, curious about this myself. Her expression doesn’t give any clue to whether she might love him, or hope to love him. There’s just that blissed-out smile that comes with her beachcombing approach to romance, and my father.

Ignoring Joe, she drops the broom, takes my other hand. “It’s like that myth, Z! You know, where the seal transforms into a human and has a child, then goes back to the sea.”

I look to Wendell for a little help. He’s picked up the broom and is finishing up the sweeping, suppressing a grin. In exasperation, I say, “Layla, after decades, stories gain a magical gleam. It’s a fantastical tale.”

“Oh, I don’t think so. You know, one of the guests—that new French guy—said that in parts of Hawaii, turtles protect children from harm in the water. Same thing! It’s universal!”

I ignore her flawed attempt at logic. And I ignore the fact that just last week, I had a dream of my father as a turtle merman. I’m tired, and frustrated, and I don’t care about excuses like being bipolar. My words come out unexpectedly harsh. “The point is that my father betrayed everyone who loved him. He couldn’t face the consequences of his actions. Not twenty years ago and not now.” I bite my cheek, holding back tears.