God help …

Breath of …

She struggles over and gets her feet under her again.

Takes hours, while the rocks creak and scrape.

Jen takes a breath—it’s reflex and she can’t fight it—and shoves off for the surface. Reaches up and pulls her outstretched arms down as hard as she can. Then again. She has to make that bright white light. Has to get the air that’s in it.

But she’s not going up; she’s tumbling again, pounded by the rocks. Hears them laughing.

Thinks:

John, Casey, Brock …

Mom, Dad …

Brightwhitelight

Kickagain

Breatheagain

Kick!

Then sudden black, and only black.

Casey and Brock are already there, searching the surface, then diving to work the rocks, like crabs, pulling themselves along the bottom, through the half-light, waiting to see their mother somewhere in this hard, dim place.

The wave has passed and the sea heaves around them, smooth and powerful.

The rescue and ESPN choppers clap overhead, and the jet skis rooster-tail through the sea, and the boats pitch awkwardly on the outskirts of the impact zone.

Casey and Brock forage halfway between the Pit and the Cauldron with the help of an eastward, post-set current where she went in, buried by the breaking wave.

They search through a sheltered grotto, bits of seaweed and broken kelp swirling, a finning rockfish backing deeper into its cave. Gravel rises from the bottom in a small tornado.

Eyes alert, Mahina waits on her jet ski, Thunder tethered to her rescue sled.

Casey, big and strong and eight feet underwater now, pulls himself along the floor of this dark world, squinting for a sign of her. An occasional ray of sun penetrates. He’s looking for the orange of her wetsuit, or a glimmer of her helmet, maybe, or a zipper, or the yellow pull handle on her inflator, or the pale luminosity of her face.

Brock crabs along six feet to Casey’s right, hoping for something soft against his gloves, a flicker of color in the near dark, the bump of her body against his. The smaller rocks click and pop around him. Mahina’s jet ski irritably idles above.

Even this close, they can barely make each other out. Three times they surface together for breath, then submerge again: the Stonebreaker twins, born seconds apart one afternoon, twenty-four years ago, now searching for the woman who gave them life.

Then, there she is, right in front of them.

Suspended in the gloom, arms and legs spread like a skydiver, helmet gone and hair lilting in the current.

She is looking at them very calmly. But does she see?

Casey gets under her left arm, and Brock under her right, and they bear her from the water to the rescue sled.

Eyes closed and not moving or breathing, but a distant pulse.

Casey does chest compressions in the rocking sea, and talks to her.

Brock breathes for her, and gently pats her cold white cheeks.

Mahina chants in her native language, words that sound welcoming and hopeful.

Casey, as he pushes and pauses: “Mom, come back. Like, be here.”

Brock, between breaths: “We gotcha, we gotcha.”

Mahina: “Aia ‘oe ma ‘ane’i. Kakou. Kakou.”

Casey: “Ah come on, Mom! Mom!”

Brock: “Breath of life! Coming in!”

Then a brutal silence as the living assess the dying.

Broken by Jen, who full-body spasms and blows a storm of seawater into the air.

And another.

And again.

She’s still spitting up and moaning as they get her into the helicopter rescue basket, and the deputy latches the gate.

38

The next evening Jen attends the Monsters of Mavericks awards dinner in the Oceano Bar and Grill.

Her bruises and cuts pulse dully, her neck aches, and her wheelchair is cold steel. Can’t quite get warm. Her right eardrum is broken, but no bones. A miracle, they said. Her balance is way off when she’s standing or getting out of the chair. She’s still a bit hazy on what happened, but the doctors in San Francisco say her traumatic, short-term memory loss will probably return. Bed rest. Set your alarm or have someone wake you up once every hour. Oxycodone if you need it. You’re one tough woman, Jen—you’re the Monster of Mavericks.

She picks at the rice and teriyaki chicken, half listens to the MC—actor Robin McKenna from the streaming drama Legends of the Wave. She’s in a short silver dress with a bow across her breasts, looks like a present to be opened. There’s a huge screen behind her, vivid with film and video:

Stupendous waves that look even bigger through telephoto lenses.

Off-the-lips, barrel burials, bottom turns.

Wipeouts.

The old seventies Five Summer Stories music plays beneath the amplified boom of the waves.

“Let’s start off with the awards that hurt!” Robin McKenna announces. “But we have happy endings here! The women’s worst wipeout—no surprise—goes to Jen Stonebreaker!”