Page 23 of The Surfer

She shoos me excitedly away into my guestroom where I take the call.

“Mom,” I say down the phone once I close my door. Her warm voice echoes through the phone and I immediately feel like I’m back in our little apartment together.

It’s only been a few days, but I’ve really, really missed her.

Her questions come thick and fast like the worried parent she is. “Ripley, how are you? Is the flight okay? How’s Australia? How’s Sandy? How is your first day?”

“Mom slow down. Everything’s fine. I’m great. Australia’s great. Sandy’s just great.”

There’s a lot of things I’m going to avoid talking to her about, even though it pains me. I don’t want to talk to her about Cove, I don’t want to have to explain him to her. I don’t want to tell her that dealing with him seems impossible, and yet all the money for university depends on reforming him in just six months or less. I don’t want to stress her out with the fact that it seems like Cove doesn’t want to change one inch and that my efforts already seem doomed from the start. I don’t want to tell her that the money for nursing will not be on the table for me.

I don’t want to tell her that I’m starting to think I’ve made the trip around the other side of the world for nothing.

Instead, I keep the phone call with Mom light and upbeat. I tell her about the wild dolphins I saw in the ocean, and I explain the beauty of Australia and this sleepy beachside town to her. I tell her about Sandy and what she’s up to in her life and teaching career.

And I don’t talk about Cove.

I don’t mention the job I’m here, in Australia, to do. I don’t tell her about the meeting with Sandy and Cove’s dad. I don’t tell her about the university money they promise if I help transform their rebel son and brother.

I just want to talk to her about good things. Nice things.

It’s soothing to hear her voice. That heartening, familiar voice that makes the world seem a little bit safer, the voice of my mother takes me back to fond memories.

And, while I listen to her voice, I also remember the bad memories.

I remember that day when I was ten years old, that day I came home from school and saw my mother standing in our kitchen. Crying.

I’d never seen her cry before. She’s usually so strong, so brave, but that day was different. Something was different. I knew instantly when I saw her that something had changed forever in our lives. Something bad.

I remember how, when she saw me, she turned to me in the kitchen and enveloped me in a big hug. She told me then that dad had left. He’d gone. My ten-year-old mind didn’t comprehend it, couldn’t understand what’d happened. Dad’s gone? I asked Mom if dad was ever coming home. She told me no. She told me he found someone. Someone else. Someone different.

But me and her, she said that day, me and her are a team. We have each other, and that’s what’s important. We will stick together. We don’t need him, or any man like him.

But I could still tell she was shattered. I could still tell that her spirit had been broken and that it would take years to heal.

I will never forgive my dad for what he did that day and for every day since. I never saw or heard from him again, and that’s the reason why I will never trust someone - a man - like Cove Finn. That’s why I will never trust a womanizing man because I know, I’ve had experience, that he will always leave the people he loves for that next hit. That next younger and prettier woman.

Cove Finn’s behavior reminds me of my Dad’s that day when he left my Mom.

And I will never let a man do that to me, I will never let a man break me the way Dad broke Mom.

I will never allow that to happen to me.

After the phone call with Mom, I put the phone on charge and step into the en-suite shower. I find comfort in the hot water spraying down my back. I take the time in the shower to think about tomorrow, and what I need to do for the next six months.

It’s going to be a lot of work with no guarantee of success, but I need to do it.

Cove Finn needs to change because I need the money. My Mom needs the money.

I’m not going to let some stoner womanizing surfer dude get in the way of a good future for my Mom, no matter how irresistible his accent or how hot his body is.

Mom and I – we’ve already dealt with one womanizing bastard before and I’m not going to lose to another. I’m not going to lose to Cove Finn.