The Long Way Home

by Jasinda Wilder

  with only the cry of gulls for answer

  30

  [Somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean; May 15, 2016]

  It’s been smooth sailing, up until today. We rounded the Horn without any issue whatsoever, and we’re making incredible time back across the Atlantic. Favorable winds, no trouble. Jonny and I sail in perfect synch, needing very little by way of communication.

  Until today. We’re nearly back to Florida when things go sideways on us.

  It started out innocently enough. A stiffer wind than usual, the kind of wind that has something cold in it, something sharp. A wind that just…smells of trouble. I know we both noticed it, but neither of us wanted to say anything. He caught my eye, and I sniffed the wind, and he furrowed his brow. He pulled the sheet a little tighter, and we tipped a little as our speed picked up.

  Just a wind.

  But then, after a few hours, the stiffer-than-usual wind picked up even more, and Jonny had to let the sheet out again or risk tilting too much. With only two of us and little enough ballast, it’s game over if we tip. So we let out the sheet and it snaps and bellies taut, bulging pregnant. Even with the sheet let out, we’re fairly flying across the waves, which are growing larger with every passing moment. A bit of a lift and smack at first, that’s all, white spray crushed skyward by the hulls. And then the lift is accompanied by a momentary pause as we drift over the crest, and then we’re rocketing down the side of the wave like the first drop on a rollercoaster. Then the lift is preceded by an upward coursing, and the wave crest curls and we’re thrown downward once more. The sky, once blue and clear, is now obscured by a seething mass of scudding thunderheads. Flashes of lightning crackle and spear and lance and dance all around, and the waves grow larger and the winds blow harder.

  “This is no good, hermano.” Jonny says.

  I study the wall of clouds approaching us from every direction. “Yeah, no shit.”

  We exchange long glances, and then Jonny eyes the storm. “You got a storm sail, yeah?”

  I nod. “Of course.”

  “Think we may need it.”

  “I’ve never used one,” I point out.

  Jonny just laughs. “Me neither.” He gestures at the thunderheads, low and dark and laced with lightning. “But with the speed she’s blowing up, I think this may be the time to try it out.”

  “Fine by me. I’ll follow your lead on this.”

  I haul out the storm sail, silently thanking all the sailing forums I read which advised that, if I did pack a storm sail, to resist the temptation to stow it somewhere out of the way, on the logic that if you do end up needing it, you’ll likely need it in a hurry. Jonny and I have the fluorescent orange sheet raised in minutes, and the mainsail reefed. By this time, though, the storm is in full rage. Rain pelts sideways, blowing cold and hard, like needles of ice. Wind howls, and the waves rise ever higher, curling crests swelling to breathtaking heights.

  Jonny and I have sailed through any number of storms, including a typhoon off the coast of Okinawa. Of course, that was a much larger ship with a full crew and a captain with thirty-six years of open ocean experience. This is just Jonny and me and The Hemingway, and what is shaping up to be one hell of a preseason hurricane.

  Jonny opens a storage compartment and comes up with two life vests, hands me one and dons the other himself. I take it from him, fasten it on. In all the years I’ve been sailing, that typhoon is the only time I’ve put on a vest, and the fact that Jonny thinks they’re necessary now scares me.

  I can read a storm almost as well as he can, and I know he’s not overreacting. Especially not when a monster wave roars toward us, lifting our bow to the angry sky until we’re nearly vertical. It crests and we abruptly tip over the wave crest as if it were a fulcrum, and our tack down the back of the wave into the valley is so fast we begin to heel. Our starboard hull lifts completely clear of the water, and then we’re smashing into the bottom of the trough between waves, halting our momentum momentarily, and the hull smacks down hard enough to jolt us both.

  And then we’re slicing up the front of another wave, higher than the last, its peak towering twenty feet high easily, and this time, the downward rush is even faster and we heel even harder despite the tightly reefed mainsail. I’m holding on as hard as I can to the wheel, braced, ready for the smash at the bottom.

  Lightning sears across the sky, a deafening roar of thunder blasting so loud my ears ring. Wind and rain are one, a single violent entity, turning all the world into a single wet wall of stinging, blinding, crushing ferocity.

  The crash at the bottom never comes.

  The next wave is so hard on the heels of the previous, it lifts up beneath us and tosses us like a piece of driftwood, sending us spinning, airborne, and then the crash comes.

  I’m ready for it. Braced. Clinging to the wheel for dear life, desperately trying to keep us under some kind of control, even as the wind tries to blow us over and the waves crash and sling and roar and the currents rip at the rudder. I’m ready for the crash, when it comes.

  But sometimes, the crash is so violent there is no readiness.

  I hear the crunch of the hulls hitting water, and the jolt is an earthquake tremor felt at the fault line, the hand of a mighty god shaking the world like a snow globe. Or, just shaking me.

  Throwing me.

  I’m airborne, spinning, tumbling, pinwheeling in the wild rain-soaked sky, seeing lightning beneath me and waves above me and then thunderheads to my left and waves to my right, and then a flash of orange storm sail in front of me and then the crest of a fifty-foot wave obscures The Hemingway and a peal of thunder drowns out my scream, drowns out Jonny’s shout. I hit the water hard enough to knock the breath from me, and then a wave slams down over me, burying me under a mountain of briny lightning-lit jade. My lungs scream but I dare not allow myself to breathe. I haul at the water with shaking arms, kick with trembling feet. Swim toward the lightning—the only hint of up I can see. Another flash, and another, and I’m swimming in place as the waves toss and churn, and then I’m spat out, arms flailing as I breach out the side of the wave, gasping, sputtering, hacking, sucking in a breath as hard and fast as I can and clamping down on it before I’m plunged into the water again.

  I roll with the churn, and I pray to deities I’m not sure I believe in. Thrown skyward, fight to breathe, plunge under again. Stop trying to swim, conserve energy. Focus on not aspirating seawater. The churn claims me again, and again, and again.

  I know the odds.

  Lotteries are won more frequently than sailors survive being thrown overboard during a storm at sea.

  Hypothermia.

  Exhaustion.

  Thirst.

  Those will all kill me, assuming I don’t just drown in the sky-spearing waves.

  I fight.

  Ava.

  Ava.

  Ava.

  I see her face, almost as if her features are carved into the wall of the waves, or painted on the boiling black sky. She was warning me, in that dream. Pleading with me to put off the trip, to wait, to stay, to fly home, pleading with me. But it was a dream, and I couldn’t hear her, couldn’t make out her words.

  Another moment of free-fall, breathing salt spray and rainwater and blessed oxygen, coughing and gasping and splashing down and feeling the lifejacket pull me up so I can gasp another breath and then a wave smashes me under and I spin and tumble in the churn like a leaf caught in whitewater rapids.

  How long has it been? Five minutes? An hour? I can’t tell, there is no way to mark the passage of time when existence is nothing but fighting for the surface and sucking at the air and rolling with the churn and gasping as rain batters me and lightning sizzles and strikes and thunder pounds and waves rage.

  Already I’m exhausted. I cling to awareness by a thread, knowing if I give in to exhaustion, if I succumb to weakness, I will die. I’ll drown in the waves and breathe the sea spray and if I’m ever found, I’ll be a waterlogged corpse washing ashore somewhe
re in Africa.

  Or, knowing the caprice of my mistress the sea, Brazil.

  No.

  Not like this.

  I have things to say to you, Ava.

  I’m not ready to bathe in darkness, just yet. I fight, and I fight, and I fight.

  The storm rages on, endlessly. Day, night, which is it? Have I spent hours tossed by the wind and waves, or minutes? I’m dizzy and thirsty, surrounded by water and yet parched. Still storm-thrown. Abused by the waves, assaulted by battering walls of rain and slicing skeins of wind. Thrown and buried, churned and spat free. Gasping, sputtering, praying.

  Not to God, or the gods,

  But to Ava.

  It’s a simple prayer.

  Just her name, whispered in the clanging, dizzy, aching confines of my skull, over and over and over again.

  Ava,

  Ava,

  Ava,

  Ava,

  31

  [Ft. Lauderdale, FL; May 16, 2016]

  “Authorities are saying that this is in fact a tropical cyclone, despite the fact that hurricane season doesn’t officially begin until June first. According to the NOAA, this is one of the worst storms on record, and it’s still picking up steam as it heads our way. Already, this extremely rare preseason storm, officially named Hurricane Dorothy, has claimed several lives, and as it closes in on Florida authorities are saying to prepare for the worst.” The weather anchor, a trim, neat man in his late forties, works up a grim expression. “Folks, it’s time to batten down the hatches. With more information on how to be safe during a hurricane, here’s Melanie—”

  I shut off the TV, toss the remote aside. Try not to think about Christian, but fail. Is he out there, in that? Or is he safe in the Indian Ocean, making his way toward Indonesia? I wish, just for a moment, that I hadn’t been so rash, that I hadn’t shut off all my communications. But I had to. I had to. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t function. The thought of seeing him, hearing his voice, reading his words, it sent me into a downward spiral, and the only way out was to cut myself out his life completely. Don’t let him contact me. I sent him my goodbye. He abandoned me and didn’t look back, and now I have to start over.

  I listed the condo.

  I bought a prepaid cell phone and called my sister, Delta, and asked if I could come visit her for a while.

  I haven’t seen Delta since Henry’s funeral. She took two days off, all she could afford, and by that time I was already drowning in my grief, too lost in my sorrow to even see her, much less interact.

  We used to be close. We’ve exchanged emails on a weekly basis for years, and would talk on the phone a few times a month. But I never made the time to go see her, and she couldn’t come to me because she’s a single mom trying to support her five-year-old son on her own. Now I need her, and I regret not making time for her.

  She told me she only had a couch to offer, but it was mine if I wanted it.

  I have a suitcase packed. Snacks in the car, bills paid, mail held.

  But, this morning, as I’m about to leave for Chicago, I turned on the news while I ate breakfast, and learned of the hurricane heading this way, which started far out in the Atlantic, and a heavy feeling hit my gut.

  A feeling of fear, of foreboding. Dark, heavy as a ball of lead, thick, acidic. Burning.

  I remember the dream I had a month ago, of Christian. He was in the cockpit of his boat, feet kicked up, a hand on the wheel. Sails bellied full of wind, the sun setting golden-red in front of him. But he didn’t see the monster. It was right behind him, trailing behind his boat, ink-black cloud-claws traipsing and slithering across the surface of the sea, reaching for his boat. A lightning-sharp talon went tap-tap-tapping on the stern, but Christian didn’t see it. Didn’t hear it. Didn’t turn around to glance behind him. The monster was a thing of storm clouds and lightning, towering a thousand feet in the air, eyes flashing evil, mouth a gaping black maw with gnashing teeth like scything waves a hundred feet high. It followed just behind Christian, prowling, stalking, hunting. And he didn’t see it.

  I cried out, begging him to look behind. Watch for the storm, Christian.

  Then I woke up, and dismissed it as a stupid dream.

  And now, Hurricane Dorothy is raging her way across the Atlantic.

  There’s no reason to worry, I tell myself. He’s safe. He’s not out there. He already crossed the Atlantic, already rounded the Horn. He’s not out there; he’s not in this.

  I don’t even try to tell myself not to worry about him, that I shouldn’t care. I do.

  I have my prepaid cell, and the minutes card. For emergencies. I have his sat phone number written down on a slip of paper, which is on the island counter in front of me.

  I can’t help myself. I have to know he’s okay.

  It takes several minutes to enter all the correct numbers, but eventually the line rings.

  And rings.

  And rings.

  And rings.

  No voicemail, just an end to the ringing, an abrupt silence.

  With the hurricane on the way, I should leave now. Stick to the original plan. Get away from this condo, from the memories. From myself. Spend some time with my sister and nephew.

  But I can’t.

  The feeling of foreboding overwhelms me. Takes me over. Settles inside me, sinks in claws like roots.

  My cell vibrates in my hand, and I answer it without looking at the number. “Hello? Christian?”

  “Um, hi, Ava. It’s actually Delta.”

  “Shit.” I breathe out a sigh of worry. “Sorry, Delta. I’m just trying to get hold of Chris, and he’s not answering. I thought you were him.”

  “Sorry to disappoint, sis.”

  I try to laugh it off. “No, not at all.”

  “Hope you don’t mind me saying so, but you sound…off.”

  “I’m just worried, is all.”

  There’s a silence. “I know things have been rough for you since…”

  “You can say it, Delta: since Henry died.”

  “Right. I want to help any way I can. I mean, obviously, you’ve been struggling. I haven’t wanted to bug you about things, and I figured you’d reach out when you needed me.”

  “Delta, I’m sorry, I just…you can’t imagine.”

  “No, I really can’t.” Her voice is thick with sympathy. “If Alex ever…god, no. I can’t even imagine.” Another silence. “How are you coping?”

  “I’m…not.”

  “What about Chris?”

  I choke. “I know you read my blog, Delta.”

  “So it’s true? He just…left?”

  I try to breathe, and don’t quite succeed. “Yeah. Yeah, he did.”

  “What a bastard. I thought better of him than that.”

  “It’s…it’s more complicated than that, Dee. It’s not all on him.”

  “I don’t give a shit what you may have done or said or whatever, Ava, there ain’t a single reason that would excuse his ass just up and leaving you alone like that.”

  “You don’t know, Dee,” I whisper. “You don’t know.”

  “Sounds like you’re defending him, almost.”

  “I…I don’t know. There’s too much for me to cope with…and I was so…and he—” I fight a sob. “I need you, Delta. It’s so hard, and I can’t breathe and I can’t do this anymore.”

  “I’m here, honey, I’m always here. You know that. Get your skinny ass to Chicago, okay? My house is yours for as long as you need. Me and Alex, we’ll take care of you.”

  “I…I can’t leave. Delta.”

  “What?”

  “There’s a hurricane out there, and I just…I know it sounds stupid, but I have this feeling, a bad, bad feeling, and I can’t shake it. I’m scared for him.”

  “He’s out there? Where the hurricane is?”

  “I don’t know. Last I knew, he was going around the Horn.”

  “I don’t know what that means,” Delta says.

  “Sailing around the southern tip o
f Africa, into the Indian Ocean.”

  “So he shouldn’t be in the hurricane, ’cause that’s in the Atlantic, right?”

  “Right. But I still just…if something happens, and I’m not here? I shut off my phone and my email. I wanted to—I needed space from him, from us, from everything. I was going to go see you, take a road trip. Get away. But I can’t. He doesn’t have any way of contacting me and he’s not answering his satellite phone and…I just have to stay, Delta. I’ve never felt anything like this.”

  “Mom always did say a woman’s intuition was never wrong.” I hear a small voice in the background, and Delta’s muffled answer. “Look, I’ve gotta get Alex to school in a minute.”

  “I’m sorry, Delta. I shouldn’t be bothering you with all this. You have to take care of Alex.”

  “Nonsense, girl. I’m your big sister, of course you’re gonna bother me with it. It’s what we do.” She says something else to Alex, and then returns to me. “Listen, honey, if you feel that strongly about staying, then you have to stay. And if you need me, then I’m gonna be there.”

  “You can’t take any more time off work.”

  “That’s my business, not yours. You’re getting a visit, okay?”

  “I can’t ask you to come all this way, Delta. And what about Alex’s school?”

  “He’s five, Ava. What’s he gonna miss? Snack time, recess, and gluing construction paper to more construction paper.” She emphasizes her point with a snort. “We’re coming, and that’s that. God knows I need a damn vacation anyway.”

  “If you’re sure.”

  “Of course I’m sure. I’ve got your back, Ava. No matter what.”

  “God, I love you, Dee.”

  “I know you do. Now, get a bed made up and stock up on wine. You’ll see us in a couple days.” I heard her in the background, talking to Alex. “Hey buddy, guess what? We’re gonna go see Aunty Ava down in Florida. How’s that sound?”

  “YAY! Ava Ava Ava! And Uncle Chris?”

  “He’s gonna be gone. He’s on a long business trip, okay, buddy? It’s just gonna be you and me and Aunt Ava.”