Life By Drowning

"I am not a coward,” Helen Reardon cried out. "It doesn't make me a coward.” The words tasted like baker's chocolate, failing utterly to satisfy her craving for sweet absolution. She began sobbing again, more quietly than before.
"What else is left, for me?” she recited aimlessly. "What can I do now? Start all over? Again?" The sobbing increased in both intensity and volume. "I just won't do it again. Never again! And no one can make me. I'll kill myself first!" And that, of course, was precisely what she had already decided to do.
The weather in Southern California was usually quite pleasant this time of year, but this year, like everything else in Helen's life, it had turned to green corn whiskey. A storm of rare violence had swept the area leaving hundreds homeless, Helen among them. Her beach house had simply fallen into the sea and, except for the occasional shard, had disappeared.