On the Island

by Tracey Garvis Graves

  “Maybe we should divide this into thirds,” Anna said, studying the bottle of shower gel. “Wash all our clothes, wash our hair, and wash ourselves. What do you think?”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  We took everything down to the lagoon and filled the life raft container with water. Anna squeezed some shower gel into it. When all the clothes were submerged, she washed them thoroughly. I was down to one pair of shorts, a sweatshirt that didn’t really fit me anymore, and Anna’s REO Speedwagon T-shirt. I went naked a lot. Anna had enough to wear but I sometimes convinced her to have a naked day, too.

  ***

  I turned twenty in September. I started getting dizzy when I stood up too fast, and I didn’t always feel the greatest. Anna worried a lot and I didn’t want to tell her, but I wanted to know if she was getting dizzy, too. She said she was.

  “It’s a sign of malnutrition,” she said. “It happens when the body finally uses up its stored nutrients. We aren’t putting enough of them back in.” She reached for my hand and looked at my fingers, running her thumb over the brittle nails. “That’s another sign.” She held out her hand and examined it. “Mine look like that, too.”

  We braced ourselves for the approaching dry season and the end of regular rainfall. And somehow, we kept on surviving.

  Chapter 33 – Anna

  I threw up my breakfast one morning in November. I was sitting on the blanket next to T.J. eating a scrambled egg, and the nausea came out of nowhere. I barely got three steps away before I puked.

  “Hey, what’s wrong?” T.J. asked. He brought me some water, and I rinsed my mouth.

  “I don’t know but that was not staying down.”

  “Do you feel okay?”

  “I feel much better now.” I pointed at Chicken who was walking around by us. “Chicken, that was a bad egg.”

  “Do you want to try some breadfruit?”

  “Maybe later.”

  “Okay.”

  I felt fine the rest of the day but the next morning, right after I ate a piece of coconut, I threw up again.

  In a repeat of the day before, T.J. brought me water, and I rinsed out my mouth. He led me back to the blanket.

  “Anna, what’s wrong?” he asked, a worried expression on his face.

  “I don’t know.” I lay down and curled up on my side, waiting for the nausea to subside.

  T.J. sat down beside me and smoothed the hair away from my face. “This is going to sound crazy, but you’re not pregnant are you?”

  I looked down at my stomach, nearly concave since I hadn’t gained back the weight I’d lost when T.J. was sick. I still didn’t have my period.

  “You’re sterile though, right?”

  “They said I was. That I probably always would be.”

  “What did they mean by probably?”

  He thought about it for a minute. “I remember something about a slight chance fertility could come back but not to count on it. That’s why everyone wanted me to bank my sperm. They said it was the only way to be sure.”

  “That sounds pretty sterile to me.” I sat up, feeling a little less nauseous. “There’s no way I’m pregnant. Between the two of us, it’s probably impossible. I’m sure it’s just a stomach bug. God knows what’s living in my digestive tract.”

  He took my hand. “Okay.”

  Later that night, right before we fell asleep he said, “What if you were pregnant, Anna? I know you want a baby.” He wrapped his arms around me tighter.

  “Oh, T.J. Don’t say that. Not here. Not on the island. The baby would have horrible odds for survival. When you were sick, and I thought you might die, it was almost more than I could take. If we had to watch our baby die I’d want to die, too.”

  He exhaled. “I know. You’re right.”

  I didn’t throw up the next morning, or any mornings after that. My stomach stayed flat, and I didn’t have to worry about having a baby on the island.

  ***

  T.J. walked up to the house carrying the fishing pole.

  “Something big just snapped my line.” He went inside and came back out. “This is your last earring. I don’t know what we’re gonna do when I lose this one.”

  He shook his head and turned to go, heading back to the water to catch enough fish for our next meal.

  “T.J.?”

  He looked over his shoulder. “Yeah, sweetie?”

  “I can’t find Chicken.”

  “She’ll turn up. I’ll help you look for her when I get back, okay?”

  We searched everywhere. She’d wandered away before, but never for very long. I hadn’t seen her since early morning and she still hadn’t come back by the time T.J. and I went to bed.

  “We’ll look again tomorrow, Anna.”

  I was sitting under the awning the next day peeling breadfruit when T.J. walked up. I knew by the look on his face that he had bad news.

  “You must have found Chicken. Is she dead?”

  He nodded.

  “Where?”

  “Out in the woods.”

  T.J. sat down, and I put my head in his lap, blinking back tears.

  “She’d been dead at least a day,” T.J. said. “I buried her next to Mick.”

  T.J. and I ate our food as soon as we killed it because we worried about food poisoning. Knowing that Chicken had been dead too long to eat saved us from making a meal out of our pet.

  T.J. and I were, after all, extremely pragmatic.

  I didn’t feel like getting out of bed a few days later, on the morning of Christmas Eve. Curled up on my side, I pretended to be asleep whenever T.J. checked on me. I cried some. He let me get away with it that day, but the next morning he insisted I get up.

  “It’s Christmas, Anna,” he said, bending down beside the life raft until his head was level with mine. I looked into his eyes, alarmed by how lifeless they appeared. The color surrounding his pupils appeared a shade duller than I remembered.

  Getting out of that bed was one of the hardest things I’d ever done. I only succeeded because I sensed it wouldn’t take much to bring T.J. down to my level and that was something I simply couldn’t handle.

  He convinced me to go down to the water with him. “It’ll make you feel better.”

  “Okay.”

  I floated on my back, feeling weightless and insubstantial, as if my body was breaking down from the inside out, which it likely was. The dolphins joined us and brought a genuine smile to my face, if only for a minute.

  We sat on the sand afterward, as we had so many times. T.J. sat behind me, and I leaned back against his chest. He wrapped me in his arms. I pictured my family back home, gathered around the big oak table in my mom and dad’s dining room, eating Christmas dinner. My mom would have spent the day cooking and my dad would have been right alongside her, getting in her way.

  “I wonder if Santa Claus was good to Chloe and Joe,” I said. I missed watching my niece and nephew grow up.

  “How old are they now?” T.J. asked.

  “Joe’s eight. Chloe just turned six. I hope they still believe in Santa.” Unless someone spoiled it for them, they probably did.

  “I promise you and I will spend Christmas together in Chicago next year, Anna.” He squeezed me, hard, and didn’t let go. “But you have to promise me that you won’t give up, okay?”

  “I won’t,” I said. And now both of us were full of shit.

  The calendar in my datebook ran out at the end of the month, and I’d have to find another way to keep track of the date in 2005.

  Maybe I wouldn’t bother.

  Chapter 34 – T.J.

  Anna and I walked hand in hand on the beach the day after Christmas. Neither of us had slept well the night before. She wasn’t very talkative, but I hoped she might cheer up now that the holidays were over.

  I noticed something strange about the lagoon. The water had receded almost to the reef, leaving a huge area of dry seabed behind.

  “Look at that, Anna. What’s going on?”

>   “I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve never seen that before.”

  Stranded fish flopped back and forth. “This is weird.”

  “Yeah. I don’t get it.” She shielded her eyes with her hand. “What’s that out there?”

  “Where?” I squinted, trying to figure out what she was looking at. Something blue had formed in the distance but it confused me because the size was all wrong.

  And whatever it was, it was roaring.

  Anna screamed, and I understood. I grabbed her hand, and we ran.

  My lungs burned. “Hurry Anna, come on, faster, faster!” I looked over my shoulder at the wall of water coming toward us and realized it wouldn’t matter how fast we ran. Our low-lying island didn’t stand a chance.

  Seconds later, the wave arrived, ripping Anna’s hand from my grasp. It swallowed her, and me, and the island.

  It swallowed everything.

  Chapter 35 – Anna

  When the wave hit it pushed me forward and then pulled me under. I spun and somersaulted under the water for so long I thought my lungs would explode. Knowing I wouldn’t be able to hold my breath much longer, I kicked and clawed with everything I had toward the sunlight shimmering above me. My head broke the surface and I coughed and gasped, struggling to get enough air.

  “T.J.,” I screamed his name but as soon as I opened my mouth, water poured down my throat. Tree trunks, large pieces of wood, bricks, and chunks of concrete floated in the water, and I didn’t understand where any of it came from.

  I thought of sharks, and I panicked, flailing and hyperventilating. My heart beat so violently I thought it might burst through my chest. My windpipe constricted and it felt like trying to suck air through a straw. I heard T.J.’s voice in my head.

  Slow down your breathing, Anna.

  I inhaled slowly, dodging the debris. Fighting to keep my head above water, I floated on my back to conserve energy. I yelled T.J.’s name again, screaming for him until I lost my voice, my pained cries reduced to nothing more than a hoarse whisper. I strained to hear his voice calling for me, but there was only silence.

  Another wave came then, not as powerful as the first, but it pulled me under, spinning and turning my body in circles. Again, I swam toward the sunlight. When I surfaced, gasping, I spotted a large, plastic bucket floating in the water. My fingers stretched toward the handle and I grabbed it, its buoyancy barely keeping me afloat.

  The sea calmed down. I looked around, but there was nothing but blue.

  Hours passed, and gradually my body temperature dropped. I shivered, tears pouring from my eyes, wondering when the sharks would come because I knew, eventually, they would. Maybe they were already circling below.

  The bucket kept my head above water, but the effort required to constantly shift position, so it remained at an angle that wouldn’t cause it to submerge, exhausted me.

  I would have given anything – paid any price – to be back on the island with T.J. I’d have lived there forever, as long as we could have been together.

  I dozed, jerking awake when the water covered my face. The bucket slipped from my grasp and floated a few yards away. I tried to swim toward it, but my limbs no longer functioned. My head went under, and I fought my way back up.

  I thought of T.J., and I smiled through my tears.

  You like Pink Floyd?

  I was trying to reach those little green coconuts you like.

  You know what, Anna? You’re all right.

  I cried, letting it all out. My head went under, and I thrashed about, using the last of my strength to come back up.

  I’ll never leave you alone Anna. Not if I can help it.

  I think you love me too, Anna.

  I went under again and when I surfaced I knew it was for the last time, and the panic, the panic and fear were running neck and neck, and I screamed, but I was so tired it sounded like a whimper. And just when I thought, this is it, this is the end of my life, I heard the helicopter.

  Chapter 36 - T.J.

  When the wave hit, it tore Anna from my grasp and tossed me up and down and around. I coughed and choked and couldn’t breathe, and the waves pulled me back under every time I managed to get my head above water.

  “Anna!” I yelled her name repeatedly, fighting to keep the water from going down my throat. I spun in a circle, but I couldn’t see her anywhere.

  Where are you, Anna?

  The trunk of a tree crashed into my hip and pain shot through my body. Endless debris swirled around me, but there was nothing big enough to grab onto before it passed by, carried along by the churning waves.

  I slowed my breathing, trying not to panic.

  She has to fight. She can’t give up.

  I floated on my back to conserve my strength, yelling her name and listening carefully for a reply. Nothing but silence.

  A second wave hit, smaller this time, and I went under again. A large tree branch bobbed next to me when I surfaced, and I clung to it. The thought of Anna trying to keep her head above water killed me. She was terrified of being alone on the island but being alone in the water was a nightmare neither of us had ever thought about. She said she felt safe with me, but I couldn’t protect her now.

  I only left you alone, Anna, because I couldn’t help it.

  I called her name again, pausing for a full minute to listen before trying again. My voice grew weak and my throat ached with thirst. The sun, high in the sky, beat down on me, my face already stinging with sunburn.

  The waterlogged tree branch sank. There wasn’t anything else to hold onto, so I alternated between treading water and floating on my back.

  I fought to keep my head above water. The time passed and my exhaustion grew. Squinting into the distance, I spotted a wooden beam floating. My arms and legs barely had enough strength left to propel me toward it. I grabbed it, grateful that it supported my weight without sinking. My cheek rested on the wood, and I weighed my options.

  It didn’t take long to realize I didn’t have any.

  Chapter 37 – Anna

  The man in the wet suit splashed into the water next to me. He spoke, but I couldn’t hear him over the sound of the helicopter blades. He held my head out of the water and motioned with his free hand for someone to lower a basket.

  I wasn’t sure if it was real, or a dream. The man put me in the basket; it rose and another man pulled it into the helicopter. They lowered it again and pulled the man in the wet suit back up.

  I shivered uncontrollably in my T-shirt and shorts. They wrapped me in blankets and I struggled in the midst of exhaustion more profound than I’d ever experienced to form the words I wanted to say.

  “T.J.” It came out no louder than a whisper, and no one in the helicopter heard me. “T.J.,” I said, a little louder.

  The man lifted my head and put a water bottle to my lips. I drank, satisfying my raging thirst. The cool water soothed my throat, and I found my voice.

  “T.J! T.J. is down there. You’ve got to find him.”

  “We’re low on fuel,” the man said. “And we need to get you to the hospital.”

  I struggled to understand what he was saying. “No!” I sat up, grabbing his shoulders. “He’s down there. We can’t leave him here.”

  Hysteria overwhelmed me, and I screamed, the sound filling the helicopter. The man tried to calm me down.

  “I’ll have the pilot alert the other helicopters. They’ll look for him. Everything’s going to be okay,” he said, squeezing my shoulder.

  I couldn’t get the image of T.J. slipping under the surface, and not coming back up, out of my head. I shut down, and went to a place deep inside myself where I didn’t have to think or feel. The homecoming with my family, the scene I’d played out in my head hundreds of times over the last three-and-a-half years, failed to elicit any emotion at all.

  The helicopter banked sharply and we headed for the hospital, leaving T.J behind.

  Chapter 38 – T.J.

  I couldn’t identify the noise at firs
t. It hit me suddenly, when my brain figured out that the thwack-thwack-thwack sound was helicopter blades echoing in the distance.

  The sound grew fainter until I couldn’t hear it anymore.

  Come back. Please turn around.

  It didn’t. My hope turned to despair, and I knew I was going to die. My strength was fading, and I had a hard time holding on to the beam. My body temperature had dropped, and I ached everywhere.

  I pictured Anna’s face.

  How many people can say they’ve been loved the way she loved me?

  My fingers slipped off the beam, and I struggled to grab it again. I held on, drifting in and out. A dream about sharks jerked me awake. A faint sound in the distance became louder.

  I know that sound.

  My hopes soared, but I had used up the very last of my strength and I lost my grip on the beam, my fingers sliding down the wet surface. My head went under and I drifted downward. I instinctively held my breath as long as I could until, eventually, I couldn’t.

  I floated in a sea of nothing, weightless, until another sensation overpowered me. Death wouldn’t be peaceful after all. It hurt, the crushing weight of it pounding on my chest.

  Suddenly, the pressure vanished. Seawater spewed from my mouth, and I opened my eyes. A man in a wetsuit knelt beside me, his hands hovering above my chest. My back rested on something solid, and I realized I was inside a helicopter. I breathed in deeply and as soon as I had enough air in my lungs, I said, “Go back. We have to find her.”

  “Who?” he asked.

  “Anna! We have to find Anna!”

  Chapter 39 – Anna

  I nestled deeper into my numb place. The man gently shook my shoulder, and I didn’t want to talk, but he wouldn’t stop asking if I could hear him. I turned toward his voice and blinked, trying to focus my swollen, tear-filled eyes.

  “What’s your name?” he asked. “One of the other helicopters just pulled a man out of the water.”