Mark's Pages

December 18, 2003:

I broke the news on the pier, above crashing boomers, one afternoon in early summer.

Turning away, she said with surging anger as swells rose below, "I wanted to be the one who called it off." Then, bitterly, "It's always you who wins."

I was shocked and unsure, but I was concerned about her and about me too, and I replied over the whoops of surfers that I'd hoped she'd be happy for me.

With a deep frown she paused, struggling to control her anger, shouting finally over crashing spray, "Yes. Of course." Then in a calmer voice, in the recess between swells, "You're right."

That evening we had fish tacos with lime and salty margaritas. Years later she rescued me, like a mermaid saving a drowning sailor, when flood-tide swept away the wreckage of my life.