He had not noticed the pothole, usually filled with a slop of reddish water, the runoff from the clay of the embankment, the scene of the accident. Though he passed it most days he never spoke of it; it was as though it had never happened. Now she was on the verge of admitting that it was over, except that he was at times as repetitious as ever in his stories and reminiscences. Only the promise of the baby offered hope: the one bright spot in their lives, something to live for.

“Gotta stay healthy,” he was saying—and now she heard the cawing of his mother’s voice in his nagging. “Maybe try Lani’s, or Alligators.”

The surf breaks served as way markers on the road along the irregular shore; no one spoke of a particular tree or house or bridge but always of the name of a break. I live at V-Land.

He pulled in at a stony opening near the break at Leftovers, parked in the shade of a dense hedge, and unstrapped the boards from the roof of the car.

“Don’t worry—I’ve got your back.”

On the smooth lava boulders near the black rock pools at the shore she slipped the swim fin onto her foot, then followed Sharkey into the water, dropping onto the board and holding herself against it, kicking hard with her fin. Sharkey, plunging under waves, was still heading out when she turned and bumped in on a small wave. Gesturing to the larger break, he was saying something.

“I can’t hear you!” she called out.

She paddled in his direction, and she found, as she had discovered on other occasions, that without much effort she was farther from shore than she imagined—was it the riptide or an effect of the wave action that drew her out? Sharkey was nearer now, roaring in the turbulent water, still beckoning.

The shore was now just a strip of yellow sand, the green slope of hill, the mountainside behind it. Olive became afraid, so far from shore, in the lift of waves, her face slapped by sudden chop, her board pushed against her.

She wanted to say, “I’m scared.” But Sharkey would have scoffed. Instead she said, “Show me how.”

In the moments of this confusion she realized she was being pulled beyond the outer waves of the break.

“Use the wave to get back,” he said. “You’re trying to swim. Do this.”

He crested a wave and hugged his body board and rode, gliding beneath it out of her sight line. Bobbing up thirty feet away, he gestured and shouted.

“Take that one!”