This morning I call him at five, hoping to get a quick pickup, but instead I get his voicemail. I hang up, resigned, and then go out on dawn patrol. Stone isn’t on the sand, and I paddle out alone, until I reach Kai, who is holding down the lineup without Bert.
The conditions aren’t great—a lot of chop from crosswinds. And the waves aren’t breaking cleanly. Kai gives up after a few sets. I follow suit.
I drag my board onto the sand and sit down next to it. I drape my forearms on my knees and look out over the water. The sun has risen, but the day is still new, quiet and sleepy.
When I think about having a child I often think about mornings here. It started far before I had gotten back in the water, before this month. For the past few years, really, I’d think about putting the baby on the board and pushing her into the spray. I’d think about dunking her head under and watching her eyes blink open, her mouth peel into a curl of salted smile. I’d think about watching her fall in love with the water, just like I did. It was as if I knew she would return me here, to this place I had long since left.
Leo and I were married here, right on the deck at sunset. It was beautiful and casual. I wore a white silk slip dress, and we decorated the house with wildflowers and roses from the garden. I wore a wreath of gardenias in my hair that yellowed by the time we said “I do” but smelled like heaven all night.
The beach was also the place we got engaged. Leo had planned a dinner for us in Hollywood, at a hotel called the Cara that has a beautiful outdoor restaurant situated around a pool. And then I gotfood poisoning. We had eaten some ill-advised supermarket sushi for lunch at the beach. Leo was fine, but I was, mysteriously, not. I’ve always had a strong stomach and can count on one hand how many times I’ve been sick—including frat parties in college. This time was poison.
After waves and waves of nausea—and hours of my life—it was finally over, and so was the day. I was lying on the bathroom floor when Leo brought me in another round of some Gatorade ice chips.
“I’m sorry about dinner,” I said. Even the worddinnermade my stomach turn, but I knew what he was going to do—trying to do—and I felt bad about ruining his plan. I didn’t have the wherewithal to try to hide that from him.
“What could be more romantic than cold, hard ceramic tile?” he said.
I picked up my head. He knelt down on both knees. He tucked some hair behind my ear.
“What do you think?” he asked. “Should I do it?”
Up until that point I wasn’t sure that he was aware that I knew, and I felt a rush of adrenaline that made me sit straight up.This is really happening.
“It would be a very good story,” I said.
He smiled. He took my hand.
“Lauren Sylvester Novak.”
“That’s not my middle name.”
“Shh,” he said. “Let me have this one.”
I squeezed his hand. We looked at each other. I felt all at once perfectly still. Like the volume had just been turned down on the whole rest of the world.
“I love you. I have loved you since you took me into yourworld and made me feel like I was—am—worthy of being here. I’ve never had this. The way you care about me. There’s nothing I won’t do for you.”
I started to cry. He already was.
“Will you marry me?”
I never even got the yes out. I never answered him. We were just hugging and kissing, falling into each other in a mix of devotion and dehydration.
Leo is a simple man. He likes good food and easy music and a stretch of uninterrupted time to putter around the house. He gave me a ruby-and-diamond band that was a little bit too big and took us forever to get resized. I loved it.
Afterward we went downstairs and told my parents.
“I thought you were going to do it at dinner?” my mother said.
“Things don’t always go according to plan,” Leo said, and the ease with which he said it, the way he embodied it, made me love him even more.
“Welcome to the family,” my dad said. “I’ve been waiting a long time to get a little solidarity.”
Sylvia simply took us both in her arms. “Couldn’t be happier,” she said. “Now, Leo, I have a sink that is leaking and no one around here is handy.”
Leo looped his arm through Sylvia’s and followed her into the kitchen. My mother went to chill some prosecco.
“So there we go,” Dad said. He stood next to me as we watched Leo crouch down under the sink, trade Sylvia a screwdriver for a wrench.
