Float Plan

by Trish Doller

  Four days later the rains are still coming down—sometimes a light mist that hangs in the air, and other times so heavy that it feels as though the world is nothing but water. The idea of dry land feels like a memory. We spend the better part of our time trying to stay dry, trying to keep boredom at bay. Keane reads several chapters of Moby-Dick before declaring it “utter shite.” Corrine teaches us how to play euchre. I train Queenie to pee on a little swatch of carpet in the corner of the cockpit. I send emails to my mom and Carla, assuring them I’m okay. I don’t tell them I have a dog because how would I explain when I don’t even understand it myself?

  Sometimes it feels as if I’m trying to paint over my old life and I feel guilty that Ben isn’t one of the new colors. Other times I miss him so much, I want to pack up and catch the first flight home, as if he’s waiting for me in Fort Lauderdale. As if running away from his absence isn’t the reason I’m here in the first place.

  * * *

  “We have a decision to make,” Keane says as we sit together in the cabin, eating scrambled eggs with leftover lobster from a second dinner with Corrine and Gordon. Today we’ve officially overstayed our cruising permit for the Turks and Caicos. If we stay longer, waiting for the perfect weather, we’ll have to pay an additional three hundred dollars. Despite the rain, I’ve grown comfortable here, maybe even a little lazy. I dread the crossing. But I’m not sure I can afford to stay.

  “This is probably the end of it,” Keane says. “Once this system breaks, we should have decent weather for the rest of the trip. Maybe we should wait it out.”

  “But you need to get to Puerto Rico,” I say. “This is slowing you down.”

  “I am exactly where I want to be, Anna.”

  My face grows warm, but I don’t have the luxury of dwelling on what that means. Not when we have to decide what to do. Not when, really, I already know. He was right about the intimacy that comes with living on a boat. In the past eighteen days, I have learned that he hops to the toilet at 4:00 A.M., especially if he’s had a lot to drink. He eats too fast from years of squeezing in meals aboard racing sailboats. And that he sleeps deepest on his back. We are tuned in to each other’s moods. We share meals, chores, and, now, a dog. Sometimes I catch him looking at me with his feelings, bare and unguarded, flickering across his face. I don’t understand why he would want a messed-up girl like me. Yet in those moments, when his longing calls to mine, thoughts of Ben always interrupt, reminding me of what I lost.

  “If we leave now, the crossing is going to be brutal,” Keane continues. “Under the best of circumstances, this is the kind of trip that can wear down your soul. In weather like this, you’ll feel as though you’ve sold it to the devil.”

  “Do you have enough money to stay?” I say. “Because if I’m going to make it to Trinidad and get back home, I need to be more careful.”

  “I could pay it,” he says. “But it would be dear to me, as well.”

  “I’m scared of the weather.”

  “Then let’s wait,” Keane says. “We’ll divide the cost and stay until we get a window.”

  Queenie jumps up on the cockpit bench and turns her soulful eyes on him. He makes her give him a high five—a work in progress—before giving her a bit of lobster. He looks at me. “What do you think?”

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “Anything.”

  “Do you think I can handle the crossing?”

  He doesn’t blink. Doesn’t even consider. “Yes.”

  “So let’s go,” I say. “We’re ready. Let’s go now.”

  Like the good surrogate mother she’s become, Corrine tries to talk us out of leaving. Gordon listens to the weather forecast and quietly suggests we wait, but says that if we’re determined to go, we should sail as far as Big Sand Cay and anchor for the night.

  “Take it in pieces,” he says. “It’ll be a bumpy sleep, but it will give you a chance to rest.”

  Corrine gives us double-bagged loaves of mango bread. Gordon gifts us with a pair of ten-gallon jerricans filled with fuel and warns us to turn back if conditions become unmanageable. The dark green band of precipitation on the TV weather forecast doesn’t look manageable to me, but Keane doesn’t seem worried. He lashes the fuel cans to the deck and deflates the dinghy. With a knot of doubt settled heavy in my stomach, we motor away from Providenciales.

  Waves rise and fall behind us, obscuring and revealing the island as it recedes. We are quiet and my stomach churns mutinously. I have never suffered from anything more than minor nausea since I first started sailing with Ben, but now I’m overtaken by seasickness and salty saliva fills my mouth. I white-knuckle the lifeline, hurling the contents of my stomach into the sea. I heave until I’m empty, and heave some more, my throat burning and my nostrils stinging. The thought of spending three more days in these conditions makes me cry.

  “Are you okay?” Keane asks when I sit back down in the cockpit.

  “No.” My mouth tastes sour with vomit.

  “Do you want to go back?”

  There is nothing on earth I would like more than to turn this boat around and return to Providenciales, but sailing was what I signed on for when I took Ben’s boat. I struck a bargain with Keane to help me, not do all the work for me. Still, it’s tempting to go back. Skip the crossing entirely. “No.”

  We take turns on the tiller, giving each other breaks for food and the bathroom, and to check on Queenie. Keane rigged up a little nest for her in the alcove beneath the V-berth. We don’t talk much and nearly everything I eat comes back up, leaving me hungry and miserable for the eleven hours it takes to reach Big Sand Cay.

  The deserted island of sand provides scant protection from the wind and waves. Queenie bravely pees in the cockpit, but I feel guilty for putting her through this and wish we’d never taken her from Provo. I try to play ball with her in the cabin, but the pain medication for her stitches wears her out, so I bring her into bed with me for the night, hoping I don’t puke all over her.

  Keane gives me the first watch the next morning, but the sky is so thick with gray that there is little difference from night. Lightning crackles along the horizon as he carries Queenie down into the cabin, leaving me alone on deck. The waves are the largest I’ve ever encountered—six-foot swells we endlessly dip and climb, dip and climb. I don my harness, clip myself to the jack lines, and stare at the horizon as my stomach churns, trying to keep from throwing up. A losing battle.

  Keane brings me a pair of seasickness tablets, which come up before they’ve even had a chance to go down. He brings me two more, along with a gallon of Gatorade that I sip while my fingertips shred inside his sailing gloves. The muscles in my arms grow sore as I fight to keep the boat on course. There is no pleasure for me in this kind of sailing and no lies that will trick my brain into believing otherwise. This is miserable and painful, and when Keane comes on deck for his turn at the helm, I am overjoyed my watch has ended. He, on the other hand, is cheerful. Ready to do battle with the ocean, to do this sport he loves.

  With Queenie’s muzzle resting on my thigh, I sit in the warm, dry cabin and dab antibiotic gel on my blisters and wrap my fingers in gauze. After a week of real meals, a cup of noodles feels like shabby fare. My stomach is concave with hunger. After I’ve eaten, I play tug-of-war with Queenie using one of Keane’s old T-shirts tied into knots. Then I take her up into the V-berth, where we fall asleep.

  * * *

  “Why didn’t you wake me?” I ask Keane as I hand him the Captain America mug filled with coffee. It’s become his mug of choice and seeing him use it doesn’t bother me anymore. He stood a double watch—eight hours straight—while I slept. Behind Keane, a wave looms, almost as tall as him, and I have to look away to keep my stomach from lurching. Over and over we are scooped up by the waves and lifted to the crest, before we slide back down into the trough. It’s a slow, relentless roller-coaster ride.

  “I’ve been enjoying myself,” he says, shouting over the wind.

&n
bsp; “You have a very weird idea of fun,” I shout back.

  “Maybe, but it’s all I’ve ever known.” He laughs to himself. “You’d be surprised how many girlfriends I’ve abandoned to appease the wind gods.”

  “How many?”

  “Every last one of them,” he says. “Things are grand for a while, but then I need to go sailing. It’s no fault of theirs. It’s just … it’s in my blood.”

  “Your blood is ridiculous.”

  “You’ll have to tell me something I don’t know.” He stands, my cue to take over the tiller. I’m nervous about doing a night watch but remind myself it’s only four hours. I can handle it. “I’m going to sleep and give the leg a bit of airing out, but if you need me, give a shout.”

  The moon is obscured by clouds, the stars covered, and the night is oppressively dark. There is no moonlight bouncing off the waves, only the red and green running lights on the bow, crashing through the surf. Water washes down the sides of the deck into the cockpit and swirls down the scuppers. Just when the cockpit is drained, the boat plows into the next wave. My face is coated in sea spray, and like this morning, I have to fight the tiller to stay on course. I consider starting the engine to motor-sail for a while, but we don’t have enough gas to get all the way to San Juan. We have to save the fuel as a last resort. Despite everything, this is not.

  Three-quarters through my watch, I attempt to eat a crumbled slab of mango bread. Nausea rises up almost immediately and I ease myself toward the cooler for the bottle of Gatorade. A wave broadsides the boat and throws me hard against the lifeline. I grab hold, but the next wave hits harder and hurtles me over the line, into the sea.

  Beneath the surface I am panicked and disoriented.

  Thrashing.

  Unable to tell if I’m upside down or right side up.

  The water is pitch black and the salt stings my eyes as I struggle to find the surface with no moon to guide me. My harness is still attached and when the boat lifts on the next wave, I slam sideways against the hull. Pain flashes from my shoulder to my fingertips, and my left arm refuses to cooperate as I try to pull myself along the harness line to the surface. The harness jerks and once more I’m lifted from the water. I grab a breath of air and the next second I’m smashed headfirst against the boat.

  Stars shimmer behind my eyes.

  I see my life unfold in bright flashes.

  I see Ben.

  Darkness pulls at the edges of my consciousness and I know that I am going to drown. My lungs burn from holding my breath. I can’t hold on, but I know that I don’t want to die to be with Ben. I would rather live without him.

  foundering (18)

  My eyes open to the soft golden glow of the cabin lights and Keane’s face hovering above mine, his dark brows knit together by worry and fear. The left side of my face pulses as if my heart has shifted into my cheek, and I feel a dizzying rush of blood to my head when I try to sit up. But unless my version of heaven includes Keane Sullivan, I am not dead.

  “Who is steering the boat?” My throat feels as if I’ve been eating sandpaper and he hands me a tumbler of water. The boat pitches on the waves and I hear the sails flapping in the wind. The answer is no one. We are foundering.

  “You fell overboard.” Keane ignores my question. “Do you remember?”

  “No,” I say at first, but memory clicks into place and I recall being tumbled like clothes in a dryer and salt water choking my lungs. “I mean, yes. Some of it. What happened?”

  “I woke when the boat veered off course,” he says. “When I heard thumps against the hull, I scrambled topside and hauled you out of the water.” He is not wearing his prosthesis. Pulling me from the water and getting me down into the cabin was nothing short of heroic. “I don’t think you’ve broken your cheekbone, but it’s swollen and bruised. You’ve dislocated your shoulder and likely have a concussion.”

  From the corner of my eye I see the bump protruding beneath my misshapen shoulder, and the pain is a sustained throb that sharpens when I try to move my arm. I don’t look squarely at the damage because my mouth is already pre-vomit salty and I’m afraid I will faint. I close my eyes and take a few deep breaths through my nose until the nausea subsides.

  “This may hurt, so I apologize in advance.” Keane takes a roll of bandages from the first aid kit. “I would reset your shoulder myself, but I fear doing more damage than good. I’ll immobilize it until we can get to a doctor.”

  He wraps the bandage snug around my shoulder before fashioning a sling from a blue bandanna to hold my arm against my chest. His fingers are gentle as he knots the sling behind my neck. My vision blurs with tears. “You saved me again.”

  “It’s not as if I had another option, Anna.”

  A small wet laugh slips out at the Keane-ness of his answer. “Thank you.”

  “Anytime.” He tucks a strand of damp hair behind my ear and kisses my forehead. “Every time.”

  “I want to go home.”

  I am both healed and broken by the storm. Reminded how good it is to be alive, but tired of chasing after something I’m never going to catch. I don’t know what my life will look like without Ben, but it doesn’t have to be the pursuit of his dreams.

  “Okay.” The word falls heavy from Keane’s mouth and I hear his disappointment. “But we’re far beyond making landfall in the Dominican Republic and we can’t turn back. We have to press on to San Juan.”

  “I guess I don’t have a choice.”

  We are still two and a half days from Puerto Rico, but the silver lining is that they have good hospitals and cheap nonstop flights to Fort Lauderdale.

  “We have a bit of a problem,” Keane says. “My knees are aching, and if I don’t keep my limb clean, I run the risk of skin breakdown. If that happens, we’re fucked. So I’ll stand watch in ten-hour shifts if you’ll do two, but I can’t do this alone.”

  I wish we could pick up the VHF radio and make a distress call. Abandon this ship. But a dislocated shoulder is not life threatening. I will have to manage. “I know.”

  “Okay,” Keane says. “Get some sleep.”

  I’m awake, with Queenie snuggled up against me on the bed, as he dons his prosthesis and pulls on his weather gear. I’m awake when he climbs out into the cockpit and puts the boat back on course. After that, I’m asleep.

  We sail this way for two watch rotations. Before he goes to sleep each time, Keane prepares meals for me and mixes a gallon of Gatorade that he ties to the deck beside the tiller. I want to return the favor and prepare fresh water for him to wash his residual limb, but my shoulder is so swollen and stiff that I can’t move my arm. I almost wish he’d risked the damage and reset the dislocation himself. The rest of my body adapts to the waves, but I stick to a regimen of seasickness pills and painkillers, and after twenty-four hours, my head stops thumping, and I feel good enough to suggest I take longer watches so Keane can get more sleep.

  “Are you sure?”

  The pain in my shoulder is at the bottom end of terrible and I’ve finally been able to keep down food. The long stretches of sleep have helped. “I’ll be okay.”

  The front passes during the next thirty-six hours. The sea subsides and three-foot waves feel effortless by comparison. We shed our weather gear as the rain stops for good, and by the time the green mountains of Puerto Rico come into view, the sky has cleared and the sun dries us out. We are dead on our feet. And the dog hasn’t shit in three days, but we made it.

  We made it.

  * * *

  I turn on my cell phone for the first time since we left Bimini as we motor past old town San Juan and turn into the cruise ship–lined San Antonio Channel. The phone pings almost nonstop with texts and voicemails, but I ignore the messages to call for a dock at one of the local marinas and arrange for customs check-in.

  “I know the customs office is busy,” I tell the dockmaster. “But I have a dislocated shoulder and need to get to a hospital, so if there is any way to expedite the process, can we p
lease make that happen?”

  The customs officer arrives as Keane and I are securing the spring lines to the dock. We are wedged between a couple of huge fishing boats and the guys aboard them remind me of ChrisDougMike. Three and a half weeks seems like such a very long time ago, especially after the four days we’ve just had.

  The officer inspects our passports and boat documentation and verifies that Keane’s green card is valid. He issues a cruising sticker and collects the user fee. He even offers to drop me off at a nearby clinic.

  “Do you want me to come?” Keane asks.

  “Queenie needs a run.”

  “Shall I book you a flight back to Fort Lauderdale?”

  “Not yet.”

  He smiles. “Does this mean—”

  “I might like to spend Christmas in the Caribbean.”

  “I can make that happen.”

  I throw a grin at him over my good shoulder as I follow the customs officer down the dock. “I’m sure you can.”

  The clinic is about five minutes from the marina, but I fall asleep with my head against the cool window of the air-conditioned car. The officer wakes me up and helps me into the building. Once inside, I fill out the paperwork and call my mom from the waiting room.

  “Oh, thank God,” she says before I even have a chance to say hello. “Where are you?”

  “I just arrived in San Juan. Listen, Mom, I’m at a clinic—”