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Like Driftwood on the Salish Sea
By Richard I. Levine
When they met in the fourth grade, it was love at first sight for Mitchell Brody and Jessica Ramirez. He was the freckle-faced kid who stood up for her honor when he silenced the class bully who’d been teasing her because of her accent. She was the new kid whose family moved to San Juan Island, Washington, from San Juan, Puerto Rico, and whom Mitch had thought was the most beautiful girl in the world.
She was his salvation from a strict upbringing. He was her knight in shining armor who had always looked out for her. Through the many years of porch-swinging, cotton-candied summer nights, autumn harvest festivals, and hand-in-hand walks planning for the ideal life together, they were inseparable…until 9/11, when the real world interrupted their Rockwell-esque small town life, and Mitch had joined the Marine Corps.
This is not just the story of a wounded warrior finally coming home to search for the love, and the world he abandoned twenty years before. It is also the story of a man who is seeking forgiveness and a way to ease the pain caused by every bad decision he’d ever made. It’s the story of a woman who, with strength and determination, rose up from the ashes of a shattered dream; but who never gave up hope that her one true love would return to her. As she once told an old friend: “Even before we met all those years ago, we were destined to be together in this life, and we will be together again, because even today we’re connected in a way that’s very special, and he needs to know about it before one of us leaves this earth.”
Like Driftwood on the Salish Sea is available at Amazon.
Jess gently and methodically
caressed the fly rod and sent her hand-tied lure through the air with
confidence and grace. Back and forth it sailed with effortless rhythm,
as if it were a weightless feather being carried on a breeze. It was as
if she had been a world-renowned conductor leading a philharmonic as the
gentle sounds of woodwinds and strings flowed through her ear buds, no
different than the crystal-clear water of the river as it flowed over a
path that for time immemorial had been orchestrated by all that had come
before it. Over the years she had mastered the art, not so much for the
sport of teasing a steelhead or a rainbow trout onto the end of her
line, but rather from the repetition of returning to the same little
spot on the Clearwater, her favorite refuge. This was the very place
where Mitch had introduced her to the melodic seduction of his most
private collection of music. It was a playlist he had long guarded, a
playlist that betrayed the commanding presence of his large muscular
frame, his athletic prowess, and the simple way he had always looked at
life.
Having first brought Jess to this place a month after
the September 11th attacks, Mitch had arranged the weekend getaway after
he had been presented with a no- win dare from his father to be as
patriotic as Alex. When she’d learned of his enlistment, it had caught
her off- guard. When he’d said basic training was twenty-four hundred
miles away at Parris Island, she’d been speechless. But when he’d told
her he was leaving in less than ten days, she’d struggled to catch her
breath. As far as she had been concerned, South Carolina might as well
have been another planet somewhere far beyond the stars that blanketed
the black velvet nights of this pristine wilderness.
She had
been overcome with emotion during that trip to the Clearwater River in
Idaho. The crispness of the morning mountain air, mixed with the sounds
of the crackling campfire and the rushing water just a few feet from
their tent, had been a confluence of ingredients no master chef could
have ever conceived. Jess had enjoyed every second of the experience
until the sting of the news he was leaving was more numbing than the
water itself. And while they both lost interest in the river’s
offerings, the hours spent on the drive home were filled with tears,
promises of fidelity, never-ending love, and a long life together
tending to the small farm of their dreams. It was a dream they had
carefully crafted during long secluded walks when even the innocent
world of San Juan Island disappeared, and time seemed as if it would
stop long enough for all the pieces to float seamlessly into place.
Again, she drew back and set the custom-tied fly to flight and followed
its arc before it kissed the water’s surface. In her mind, the only
thing that ever landed more softly or with equal intent was the brush of
Mitch’s lips across the back of her neck on those long summer evenings
when counting fireflies had sparked dreams of the perfect life together.
Over
the years, the river had become the special place where Jess could
escape the pressures of the successful life she had carefully carved.
Just being there enabled her to decompress, and to relive the weekend
where she had surrendered to her long-suppressed desires, seducing the
love of her life while simultaneously absolving him of any
responsibility for having complied, albeit with little resistance.
During their high school years there had been plenty of times he had
taken her just short of that point of no return. And while his
conscience would inevitably get the better of him, she had always hoped
he would have forgotten that he was a gentleman. What she hadn’t
realized at the time, was that their dreams and those promises would
never come to fruition. What she could never let go of, however, was her
need to make the yearly return to this place to resurrect that moment,
as if continuing to do so would somehow or in some way ease her pain by
keeping the possibility of that unfulfilled fantasy alive.
As
she cast her line once more, she looked past the riverbank toward her
tent, hoping as always that she could be transported back to the time
when Mitch emerges from the warmth of their sleeping bag to watch how
prolific she had become at his favorite recreational pastime. And just
as she fell a little deeper into the warmth of his smile and his
embrace, just as she placed her head against the memory of his chest and
felt his heart beating strong and fast, she was abruptly pulled back to
reality when her rod jerked with equal intensity, nearly being pulled
from her hands just as the line snapped.
– Excerpted from Driftwood on the Salish Sea by Richard Levine, KDP, 2025. Reprinted with permission.
A twenty-five-year cancer survivor, he’s a strong advocate for the natural healing arts. In 2006 he wrote, produced, and was on-air personality of The Dr. Rich Levine Show on Seattle’s KKNW 1150AM and after a twenty-five-year chiropractic practice in Bellevue, Washington, he closed up shop at the end of 2016 and moved to Oahu to pursue a dream of acting and being on Hawaii 5-O.
While briefly working as a ghostwriter/community liaison for a Honolulu City Councilmember, a Hawaii State Senator, and volunteering as an advisory board member of USVETS Barbers Point, he appeared as a background actor in over twenty-seven 5-Os, Magnum P.I.s, NCIS-Hawaii, and several Hallmark movies. In 2020, he had a co-star role in the third season episode of Magnum PI called “Easy Money.”
While he no longer lives in Hawaii, he says he will always cherish and be grateful for those seven years and all the wonderful people he’s met. His 5th novel, To Catch the Setting Sun, was inspired by his time in Hawaii.
Like Driftwood on the Salish Sea is Levine’s first foray into the romance genre.
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