10 - The Letter, pt. 2

Ten years into our marriage, when Evan was ten, James was nine, and Carl was five, we bought a beach house on the Gold Coast. We'd both been made partners at our accounting firm within a year of each other, so we had plenty of money to go around and wanted to invest in something that wouldn't lose money. A beach house in a developing holiday hotspot that was only going to get hotter seemed just the trick. It was situated near a little town called Byron, on Byron Cape, at the top of a cliff. An incredible view, right over the ocean. There was a small road running down the cliff, for boat trailers and such, and at the foot of the cliff there was a shallow inlet that fed into the sea. Amazing spot. It took us hours to drive there from the city but we would spend all of our holiday time there, watching our boys playing in the incoming waves, learning to surf, building sandcastles. I'd love to take solace in those happy memories, but thinking of them does not bring joy or pain- just a kind of numbness. They've all blurred into one long moment, those years, a retinal afterimage, crowded out by the memory of that one, last day. It was the only day.

The day was Boxing Day, December 26th, 2006. Evan was fifteen, James was fourteen, and Carl was ten. As we had for the last four summer breaks before that, we had packed up the car and driven out to the cape. It was a four-hour drive and so the tension ratcheted up in the car, as it does when you have three boys in the back all bickering with their parents and each other. Evan was getting to the age where going to the beach with his family was not his preferred way to spend the summer, although he did adore his two brothers and perhaps felt that this may be the last chance to be as close to them as he was now. Still, he had just perfected the art of teenage sarcasm and his brothers, as usual, loved to mimic him at even opportunity. But all that tension just drained away when we reached our destination, as it always did. Not just the tension of the trip, but the tension of the city, our jobs, our schools, the never-ending push forward. This was our sanctuary, our solace. I still can barely believe it turned on us so.

We arrived a few days before Christmas and spent a few happy days getting reacquainted with our second residence. The first thing we did was run down the cliff road to the ocean, all of us racing each other to the line of the surf, eager to get in amongst the waves and wash the city grime from our faces. Evan soared ahead on his growing legs, far outpacing me, while James and Carl struggled to keep up with him, and I chased along behind them, grabbing at their heels as they ran, making them laugh. I glanced behind me as I ran, and saw Alison at the top of the drive, looking down at us, smiling. Her eyes were full of love. I stopped running for a moment and winked at her, blew her a kiss. She didn't catch it, or change expression at all, just kept smiling at us.

I continued to chase after the boys, yelling to Carl that I if I caught him, I'd throw him into the ocean. I gained on him just as he passed the water's edge, laughing and screaming with delight as he raised his little legs high into the air to leap over the first few shallow waves, scooping him up with one arm and running forward with him, tossing him into the air and catching him. After we got out to where the water was deep enough, I hurled him from me, sending him flying through the air and crashing into the ocean, giggling and yelling to his brothers. James wanted to be thrown as well, but he was already too big for me to lift onto my shoulders, let alone pick up and throw. Faster than I would have liked, he was turning into a man.

We played in the waves, splashing each other, the older boys dunking one another. Evan and James went out into the deeper water to bodysurf, slim pale bullets that shot along with the breaking surf, while Carl and I went and sat on the warm sand, watching them. Alison came down the track, a purple sari flecked with silver strands wrapped around her waist, billowing about her legs in the breeze. I still remember the random shapes it made as it moved about her. I still remember every pore on the skin of her calves. She sat on the sand between my legs, while Carl sat in the sand between hers, and she dried his head with a towel. Every now and then I would kiss the back of her neck and she would smile while she talked to Carl, and Carl rambled aimlessly in response. I wasn't listening to what they were saying; I was watching Evan and James, out just past the breakers, making sure they didn't go too far out of their depth. Beyond them, the sea stretched endlessly. I stared at the horizon and thought of nothing. Many times I have tried to remembered what Alison and Carl spoke of while they sat with me, I am sure that, on some level, my subconscious was listening to them and remembers. Sometimes I do remember, they were talking about dolphins, but it seems to change the next time I remember it, and then suddenly they are talking about the Loch Ness monster, so perhaps my brain just fills in what they were saying. Perhaps it is truly lost. Perhaps nothing was really as I remember it.

Christmas morning at the beach was always special; we would decorate the house on Christmas Eve, put tinsel everywhere. I was never a big fan of the enormous light displays some of our neighbors would spend thousands on; covering their entire houses in nightmarish, garish red lights, giant Santa?s, reindeer. But I always did like the quiet ambiance that a well decorated tree gave a room in the dark, the pulsing lights spreading strangely soothing colours and shadows across the walls. We put an angel at the top of the tree, and small nativity scene on the top of the bookcase, baby Jesus in his crib. I am not religious myself, but Alison was a recovering Catholic and didn't want to let go of some small habits. I would always hang some mistletoe under a different doorway each time, and then lie in wait until Alison walked through the right door, before pouncing on her for a pre-Christmas kiss. She would laugh and pretend to bat me away, but then we would kiss, long and passionately, like we were young again. We piled our presents under the tree on Christmas Eve, Alison and I trying to give the boys useful presents like clothes, books and calculators, all the while knowing that they were giving each other toys or games, different for each age group. Evan liked computer games. Carl liked Transformers. James liked both, though didn't want to admit to either.

The kids always woke early and, while we had repeatedly made them promise not to, made a discreet yet thunderous noise until we awoke, bleary eyed, and came into the lounge to hand each other presents. I don't think anything can recapture the excitement of Christmas that young children feel, but still, their excitement is infectious. That's one of the advantages of having kids- you get to feel young again, even if only by proxy. We spent a happy morning exchanging the gifts under the tree, each of us hugging the other, the kids breathless to try out their new toys. However this year I had arranged for a special surprise to be hidden in the garage of one of our neighbours. While the boys were inside, gorging themselves on Christmas candy, I went to the property next door, wished everyone there a very merry Christmas, and picked up a present for the entire family: A three-man dinghy, complete with 2-stroke outboard motor. I snuck it into the yard and then draped a sheet over it before calling everyone out into the yard. Alison was already in on the surprise, but I enjoyed watching her feign curiosity about what was under the sheet. The shape made it pretty clear, but the boys were still leaping into the air with anticipation. With a flourish, I whipped the sheet off the boat and was rewarded with screams of joy at what lay beneath.

We spent the day messing about in the boat. The boys wanted to take it out onto the ocean, but the boat had not come with any life jackets included, so until I went into town to pick some up in the correct sizes, it was not safe to take on the open sea. However we still had a good time, a great time really, pottering about in the inlet, which was always calm and never much deeper than even Carl could stand up in. I taught Evan how to work the engine, then left them to it, watching them drive up and down the inlet, never too far out of sight, Evan mastered the controls quickly, and would scare his brothers by accelerating suddenly, or turning sharply, sending them flying to one side of the boat. He seemed to enjoy being in control, taking responsibility for his siblings. He heeded me, never drove out of sight of the house, never tried to drive out of the inlet and into the ocean. It seemed the perfect present. They exhausted themselves on the water and by the time it got dark and we had to bring the boat up the cliff road and into the garage, they were all worn out. Alison and I enjoyed a quiet brandy by the light of the Christmas tree while our children slept.

The next day, Alison drove up the coast in the morning to see her mother, who lived in Tweeds Heads, which was about an hour up the coast. I told the boys I would drive to the Lennox marina and pick up life-jackets for us all, and then we could see about taking the boat out onto the ocean. I said I'd only be a couple of hours. When the boys first asked if they could take the boat out into the inlet while I was away, I said no, and as usual they all complained as one. I was not a father who normally gave into complaints, but Evan took me to one side and said, quite reasonably, that he knew the boat better than I did now, and he would make sure the other two boys didn't do anything dangerous. I still remember his face; remember thinking of him as almost a man now. Being so proud of him. I said it was okay, as long as he was careful. I didn't tell him not to take the boat out of the inlet. I didn't hug him before I left. I wish I had hugged him before I left. I wish I had hugged them all, and held onto them tightly, and never let them go.

I was away from the house for a little over two hours. I had picked up five life jackets, a large for me; three mediums for Evan, James and Alison; and a small for Carl. I had stopped into the bottle shop for a six-pack of bottled beer, and the corner store for some milk and butter. I knew the moment that I got back that something was wrong. The boat was not in the inlet, and the boys were nowhere to be seen. The calmness around the beach house was eerie, empty. I felt a cold black brick in the pit of my stomach, but I didn't call the coast guard right away. That would have been admitting to myself that the worst had occurred, something I was not prepared to do. I walked down the cliff park and walked up the inlet a short way, to see if they were exploring up the river, around the bend. I walked half a kilometre up the beach and saw nothing. Heard nothing in the distance. I turned around and walked back to the beach house. There was an icy hand of panic reaching up from my stomach, through my throat, ready to throttle my brain, but I forced myself not to run. I walked at normal speed. When I got back to the house, I looked out over the cliff and surveyed the ocean. Saw nothing.

Then I called the Coast Guard.

Then I called the surf life patrol, and then I called the Police. I didn't call Alison. I wouldn't have known what to say. When she arrived back at the house it was nearly six in the evening and the Police were at the house. They had sent teams of local volunteers up the river to search for the boat. They had searched until the river became a point where no boat could have passed. They found no boys, they found no boat. The surf life guard had boats patrolling the shoreline for twenty miles in both directions. They found no boys, they found no boat. There was a Coast Guard helicopter patrolling the seas in a forty-mile semicircle that extended out from the house. I could see it's light, pulsing in the distance. That meant it was beginning to get dark. There was no light on the boat.

I was numb with grief. I couldn't talk. I just held my head with my hands and tried to stop it from breaking apart. A Police officer explained to Alison what appeared to have happened. She walked towards me. I don't know what I expected to have happened, if I thought she would hold me, kiss me, break down crying on my shoulder. When she reached me, she slapped me, then turned and ran crying to the bedroom. I didn't follow. Just sat there, shocked. The Police officer tried to comfort me, explain that many people reacted harshly in times of extreme stress. I barely heard him. I was falling into a chasm of grief so vast and bottomless; I am still falling, nine months later.

Their bodies were found washed up onto the shore over the next three days.