So in addition to the role of son he assumed the roles of husband, friend, confidant, lover almost—he held her, he soothed her, he listened to her complaints—and he was oppressed. Some days he wished she would die, and he was ashamed of that feeling in himself. Knowing that she was a burden on him, she said frankly that if he looked after her and kept her safe and remained her companion—“companion” meant everything: her friend, her walker, her support and comfort—he would never have to work; that on her death he would inherit everything she had. Just hearing that, he saw her small coffin.

This promise made her contemptuous and him cynical, but it bound them together in a bitter bargain, each one trying to prove the opposite of what they felt. Some days the power was hers, other days his, and in that seesawing way it was like a love affair—or something resembling the lingering end of an affair, each one hanging on, insecure, fearful of letting go, and resentful, as when his mother didn’t get her way she wept, and he wanted to scream, not at her but at himself.

He tried to please her and of course he failed: she would not allow him the satisfaction of pleasing her, because that would make him confident, and she might lose him. Sharkey understood her manipulation, and there were days when he saw her—stiff permed hair, makeup that gave her a floury face—propped up in the armchair where his father had once sat, and he pitied her for the drunken buzz in her tiny head. She reminded him of an animal holding still so that it will not be seen, like a rabbit stiffening on a shadowy late-afternoon lawn but standing out, the more obvious for its stillness in the breeze. She sat, and she drank.

He was saved by the sea, he thrived offshore. He found a school friend, a surfer, a misfit like himself, who introduced him to the moves and vouched for him at the beach, where he was guided by an older surfer—Uncle Sunshine. His form of rebellion was to swim away, and in time to surf the most dangerous waves, to build his confidence and to scare his mother; in doing so, he made his reputation. His mother did not understand enough of surfing or the power of the waves to be scared, and that frustrated him. Sometimes his mother insisted on attending his surf meets, taking photos of him while sitting in a folding chair under a wide-brimmed hat, on the sand—the only surfer parent on the beach, watching with admiration, possessing him by showing up, by her very presence keeping the girls away—the girls half fearful of the widow and half respectful of the loyal son, but also mocking both.