No, he thought—it’s always pressure when people say that. Even she, who knew him so well, had no idea. And he thought, as he often had, without the words for it, If I don’t know myself, how can you possibly know me?

“You can do this. Then it’s over.”

Nothing was certain. Every wave had a hidden contour and something like a mystical muscle in it that could trip you; every succeeding wave had the capacity to hold you down and suffocate you to death. The world was a wave, a wave was pitiless.

He’d counted on Olive’s affection, she’d mothered him in a way that showed him what mothering meant, encouragement and protection his own mother had never offered. But Olive’s attention, her patience, her uncomplaining support he’d taken for granted, pretending to object to it. He hadn’t realized until now that love was something practical, a tenderness in the day-to-day that made the day better.

He’d become, through all this, since the crash—no, since killing Max Mulgrave—utterly dependent on her. Love was liberating, but love was also a mode of concern. Her love was taking his hand and steadying him, driving him when he was too distracted to hold the wheel, being his friend, waking Moe in the middle of the night and saving his life at Waimea. He would be dead without her love. So when she told him she was going back to work, he panicked. He loved her, but he was too self-conscious to repeat I’d be lost without you, as he’d told her once. But that was how he felt.

He’d never needed anyone before, he valued the necessity of finding his own waves; being a loner had always been his boast. He’d pitied Hunter for being helpless without an entourage of fixers. But his life had gone wrong, and becoming weak he regarded as his curse; yet Olive had stayed by his side. She was lovely, she could be passionate, but he saw that what mattered most was her compassion, her help in getting him through the day—that was love.

She was not a saint. He knew how he exasperated her, how she turned away and murmured, “Bugger, “Crumbs,” “Knickers,” “Blast.” The times she’d said, as though in resentment, “You’re like a wet weekend.” But they were words so foreign to him it did not seem like impatience or anger but British and silly, the mantra in a weird little foreign amusement, like a chant in a children’s game.