It was mid-morning by the time I turned off Highway 1 and onto the gravel road leading to Pt. Lobos State Park on the central coast of California. The parking lot was deserted, even though it was Christmas break.
The sun was out, a gentle breeze ruffled the pines. The fog was burning off quickly, revealing glassy swells forming effortlessly offshore. My daughter, Lita, found the narrow trail carved out of the spiky, succulent ice plant, leading us toward the bluffs. Her small hand balled up like a plum, fit perfectly in mine. In a hurry to get to the beach, I marched right past the brown sign with the yellow triangle. I didn’t notice what it said.
“Where’re we going, Mom?” Lita asked, scrunching up her nose at the briny smell of kelp washed up from last night’s tide.
“China Cove, the beach where we found the starfish last time,” I answered.
“Sea stars, you mean?” she scolded, the worm of her eyebrow lifting in admonishment.
We followed the trail to the cliffs above the cove and stopped to take in the view. It was hard to believe that shimmering jade water was part of the central California coast. The water was so clear I could see the smooth, blonde rocks in the shallow bottom.
Threading my way down to the tidepools, I chose a wide and flat ledge, protected from the ocean and pitted with cups that cradled delicate, frilled anemones. Lita immediately squatted and began to take stock of each specimen as if she were a scientist cataloging a new species. Her index finger stroked the slimy back of a sea cucumber. She carefully peeled the sea star from the rock, noting its stomach on the underside. Barnacles, whelks and mussels crusted the walls of the pools. As she became more engrossed in the sea creatures, I became more engrossed in watching her, and I forgot our backs were to the ocean. I forgot about our difficult start.
Six years earlier, after two-and-a-half days of labor, a morphine drip and epidural, Lita finally emerged sunny-side up, her head shaped like a banana. I had pushed so hard and long that I burst tiny blood vessels around my eyes and down my neck. James, my husband, said I looked like I’d gone nine rounds.
I couldn’t nurse her, either. She struggled to latch on, and after trying for a moment, she exploded in frustration as I shifted positions in a futile attempt to comfort her. I ended up pumping my milk and pouring it in a bottle for her to drink. At her one-month checkup, her pediatrician told me she was losing weight, wasn’t thriving. I turned my head away, so ashamed that I couldn’t get it right, couldn’t provide the most basic thing my daughter needed. Having won my first ten jury trials, I thought I’d be a mother who could take care of any problem, but Lita was such a hard read, a blank. I didn’t know what she needed from me.
When I wasn’t much older than Lita, one summer Saturday, my own mom packed up the station wagon with our thick blue beach blanket and took my older brother, Ken and me to a beach near our Bay Area home. We didn’t go very often because my mom didn’t like the sandy mess. After spreading out the blue blanket on the sand, Ken and I took off to explore.
Northern California beaches are full of traps for the unwary. The water is too cold for swimming. Rip currents undetectable from the shore suck swimmers out to sea. The trick is to swim parallel to the sand, instead of trying to swim back to the beach. As if a panicked swimmer has that presence of mind when she’s drowning. There are sneaker waves, too.
In winter, off the California coast, monster waves form out at sea, delivering a powerful punch once they crash on the beach without warning. They cannot be heard or seen but they dwarf the gentle, lapping sets of waves that normally break on shore. Every year, beach goers are lulled into a false sense of security unknowingly inching nearer to the danger zone until suddenly, a sneaker wave hits. They are unpredictable and deadly.
“Never turn your back on the ocean!”, my mother shouted to Ken and me. We could barely hear her over the sound of the surf. My brother and I loved to watch our ankles disappear in the sand as each wave washed in and out, depositing another layer over our feet.
“Don’t go in deeper than your knees!”, she cautioned.
The light was golden that day as we folded up the thick blue beach blanket, now heavy with a coating of sand, and plodded our way back to the car. A crowd of bystanders looking up at the cliffs above the beach blocked our way. A kid, about my age, was sitting on his heels, forty feet above the beach. Barefoot, jeans rolled up, wearing a ribbed t-shirt. He wasn’t crying but I could see a glassy fear in his eyes as he stared back at the people staring at him. He was trapped. He couldn’t climb up or down. The sandy loam sloughed beneath his feet every now and then. Cushioned in a divot above him was the beach ball.
Where was his mom? Why wasn’t anyone trying to help him? It was getting dark and cold.
As our station wagon pulled onto the highway, I saw the fire truck coming in the other direction. An uncertainty settled in the pit of my stomach. I didn’t say much that evening at the dinner table.
When I looked back on Lita’s childhood, I sensed I complicated my relationship with her. Lawyers are control freaks. They are paid to anticipate every eventuality and to prepare for it. I had approached my relationship with Lita as problem to be solved. Filling up her week with softball, hunter hack and art lessons helped me avoid the guilt I felt about not being there. Although I had privileges that many did not, I couldn’t help but feel I was a drive-by parent.
A sneaker wave crashed over the ridge of rocks behind Lita, knocking her off balance and sweeping her toward the ocean.
“Lita!”, I screamed, but there was no one to hear.
With Lita, it happened so fast I didn’t have time to think. Drenched with saltwater, eyes stinging, I could barely see. I lurched for her, locking on to her fly-sized eyes. Grabbing her arm, I pulled her to my chest just as another wave broke over us. Holding her tight, I scrambled over the sharp rocks to higher ground before the third set hit. The swoosh and slur of my heartbeat thundered in my ears.
Too stunned to cry, I sat on the sand, noticing for the first time the blood oozing from the gash in the palm of my hand. Lita was wet and frightened, cuddled on my lap. I warmed her body with mine, trying to make sense of what had just happened.
It wasn’t until I had a child of my own that I understood why his image haunted me, why I still held the memory of the boy stuck on the cliff at the beach. Life is a daring adventure until suddenly it’s not. One moment you’re chasing a beach ball and the next you’re trapped on a cliff, soil crumbling beneath your toes.
In one endless instant with Lita, I remembered. Life was fragile and uncertain. Each day, without knowing it, I walked that fine line between an ordinary life and a wrecked one. Eventually, that voice in my head which cast doubt on my mothering quieted.
She was safe with me now. Back in the car with Lita, heater on full blast, my hands trembled as I cautiously pulled our car onto the highway.
“Never turn your back on the ocean!”, I warned.
