by Trish Doller
On the beach, a couple of islanders crack open conchs and the scent of fried fish hangs in the air. The place is packed, inside and out, and a pitcher or two of sunset-pink rum punch anchors nearly every picnic table on the beach.
I grab an unoccupied seat at the end of a small bar and order a beer from a bartender named Leon, feeling a little guilty because Keane would enjoy this place. I feel worse when I realize the first person who came to mind was not Ben. Except Keane has been my constant companion for almost two weeks and it feels strange to be somewhere without him.
As I people-watch, the woman sitting beside me tilts her left hand to admire her wedding ring. She’s about my age. A newlywed. My thumb reflexively grazes the underside of my ring finger to adjust my ring, but it’s not there.
My engagement ring was a family heirloom and Ben gave it to me on a random Tuesday night while I was watching TV.
“So, there’s this secluded little beach in Trinidad called Scotland Bay,” he said from the other end of the couch. He’d almost finished charting the course through the Caribbean and was working on the last map. “And I was thinking that if we can make it through the entire Caribbean without you wanting to murder me … maybe we could get married on that beach.”
I pretended he was interrupting me, even though I loved the idea of marrying him on a secluded beach on a tropical island. “Yeah, I guess.”
“Hey!” He snatched the TV remote from my hand and replaced it with a small blue velvet box. It was old and some of the velvet at the corners was worn away. “I’m trying to propose to you.”
On our first date—the one at the lighthouse—he’d spread a blanket on the sand. As we lay on the ground, looking up at the stars, he’d asked me to marry him. I laughed because I’d known him for three days, but I said yes.
“You already proposed,” I reminded him. “I’ve already accepted.”
“Yeah, but now I’m being serious.”
“Are you telling me you weren’t serious then?” I nudged him with my elbow, then opened the box to find a ring—a sapphire set with a halo of small white diamonds and pale blue aquamarines. My breath rushed out in a soft oh. I hadn’t ever imagined the perfect engagement ring, but this was it.
Ben took the ring from the box. Slipped it on my finger. Before he kissed me, he said, “I was serious then. Now. Always.”
I look at my bare hand. Ben’s parents took the ring after Ben died. It belonged in the Braithwaite family, their lawyer told me, and there was nothing in Ben’s will that said otherwise. All that remains is a fading tan line around my finger where the ring used to sit.
Fuck this. I’m not going to sit here feeling terrible. And after ten months of isolating myself from well-meaning friends and family, I’m kind of over being alone. I flag down the bartender.
“Hey, Leon,” I say. “I need something fun to do this afternoon. Something off the beaten path. Something adventurous.”
“I know just the place.” He grabs a paper napkin and talks while he draws a map. “It’s called Osprey Rock and it’s quite remote, so you need to be careful. Do you have a car?”
“Yes, a Jeep.”
“Good. The road is very rough,” he says. “Out there is a cove you can explore that pirates used as a hideaway, and if you’re feeling brave, you can cliff jump at Split Rock, but I don’t recommend doing that alone.”
“This is perfect. Thank you.”
On my way to the Jeep, I text Keane.
What you need: towels, swim trunks, water leg, lunch food, booze. I’ll be there in about fifteen minutes.
already mine (16)
“Anna, you have to tell me where we’re going,” Keane says as Leon’s directions take us down miles of bumpy dirt road, past salt flats and through scrubby vegetation that make it seem like we’re hopelessly lost. “What if it’s dangerous for a disabled man like me? It’s irresponsible for you not to tell me.”
He’s been trying to pry the secret from me since I got back to the marina and told him we were going somewhere cool. I laugh. “You’ll be able to do this. Trust me.”
After about five or six miles, when it feels like we are as far from civilization as we can possibly get, we reach a dusty parking lot beside a small beach. I glance over at Keane, who grins. “Oh, this is grand.”
“It gets better.”
We lock our valuables in the glove compartment and follow the curve of the beach toward the cliff path marked on Leon’s napkin map. As we’re walking, I notice a small white-and-brown dog sitting on the sand. There’s no one else on the beach—not a soul for miles—and I wonder if the dog is lost. It stands, tail wagging as we pass, but doesn’t try to follow us.
We hike up a path lined with cacti and other prickly windswept foliage that push stubbornly out from the cracks in the rocks, until we reach a series of large holes in the ground, one of which has a wooden ladder extending down into the cliff.
“So, according to my bartender, pirates used this cove as a hideout,” I say right as Keane says, “Anna, look at this.”
He’s pointing at a patch of rock carved with SHIP ST. LOUIS BURNT AT SEA 1842, the first S worn away with time and weather. There are other rocks with the names and dates of people and ships, some as old as the late 1700s. Most of the words have been weathered too smooth to read.
“I wonder if the Saint Louis was captured by pirates en route to its destination and was towed here,” I say.
“It’s possible,” Keane says. “Perhaps once they’d plundered the cargo hold, they set fire to the ship. Or it could have blown off course in a storm and got struck by lightning. But these carvings … they feel like graffiti. Or pirate bragging rights. This is brilliant.”
We climb down the ladder into the cave. The sun is high in the sky, drenching the space with light. The mouth of the cave overlooks a tiny sheltered cove. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the cave would have blended into the rocky coastline, rendering it practically invisible. I spread a blanket on the floor, where we eat sandwiches and drink Red Stripe. I snap dozens of pictures with my phone before snatching up a driftwood stick from the floor and holding it against Keane’s neck, like a sword. “Surrender all your treasure or I’ll slit your throat.”
He burrows his hand into the pocket of his shorts and produces a one-cent coin with a harp on one side and a Celtic bird on the reverse. “An Irish penny from my birth year,” he says, placing it in my palm. “It’s traveled the world with me.”
“You’d better keep it.” I hand him the coin. “It might be good luck.”
“You’d make a terrible pirate,” Keane says, but returns the penny to his pocket and smiles like he’s glad to have it back. “This place is fucking fantastic.”
“It gets better.”
“You’ve already said that.”
“I know.” I poke him lightly between the shoulder blades with the stick. “But back up the ladder you go.”
Leaving our clothes in the cave, we climb up to the top of the cliff and follow the scrub trail to the very tip. Separated from the bluff is a column of rock with an osprey nest at the top. We stand at the edge of the cliff. The drop is about fifty feet, straight down into crystalline turquoise water. In the distance a sailboat heads toward Puerto Rico—or maybe the Dominican Republic—and Keane’s smile is luminous. “This reminds me of my friend’s place on Martinique.”
“Want to jump?”
I didn’t think it was possible for his smile to get wider, but it does. “Are you sure?”
“No, but … yes.”
He laughs. “On three?”
“One … two … three…”
The wind rushes past me as I drop, my body straight as a pin. As far as jumps go, it’s not terribly daring, but the distance between the cliff and the water feels like forever. My feet slide first into the ocean and the force of impact wedges my bikini bottom into my ass crack. I knife through the water, deep enough that my toes graze the sandy bottom and I feel the depth pressure in my hea
d. I propel myself upward toward a bright spot of sunlight. Keane’s treading water beside me when I come up. “How was it?”
“Terrifying and amazing.”
He nods. “Thank you for bringing me here, Anna.”
“Thanks for coming with me,” I say. “Here … and on this trip. Maybe I could have done it all by myself, but it’s better with company.”
We swim until we reach the pirate cove, where we lie on our backs in the sand, watching the puffy white clouds drift past. The sun is warm on my skin and I can’t remember the last time I felt so content.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Anything,” Keane says.
“What, um—what happened to your leg?”
“I was in Saint Barths for the New Year’s Eve Regatta,” he says. “It was a fast round-the-island race, just a bit of fun. Nothing serious. We finished in first place and the owner of the boat took the crew out for victory drinks. Outside the bar, I realized it had gone midnight in Ireland, so I paused to ring home and wish the family well. I was standing in the road between two parked cars when a Mercedes came around the corner and struck the first car, pinning me between the bumpers. Broke my left leg. Shattered the right.”
“Oh God. That’s terrible.”
“I woke in a hospital in Miami, where the doctors told me they’d have to take my right leg,” Keane continues. “But the last thing I could recall was being on the phone with my mother and I was too worried about her to understand what the doctors were saying.”
His story triggers the memory of coming home from work and finding Ben’s body on the kitchen floor. It wasn’t the tequila and pills that killed him. He’d choked on his own vomit. When I saw him, I fainted, and when I came to, I was convinced I was waking from a nightmare and was so relieved that Ben wasn’t really dead, until I saw him a second time.
“Anna, are you okay?”
Tears are pouring down my cheeks and snot trickles from my nose. I wipe my face with my hand, laughing a little. “Of course you’d be more worried about your mom than your leg.”
“She heard the whole thing as it happened.”
“You don’t have to explain,” I say, rolling onto my side to look at him. “I know what kind of man you are.”
When he turns to look at me, we are so close that I’d only have to lean forward to kiss him. His eyes are dark and inscrutable, and he licks his lower lip. I lean in, and I can hear the rush of blood in my head. I can hear the beat of my heart.
“Anna.” He lifts his hand and touches my cheek, the pad of his thumb against my lips. “Wait.”
I blink, confused. “You don’t—”
“Oh aye, I do,” he says. “Jesus, you have no idea. But before you go down this road, you need to be certain what you want. If anyone will do, you need to find someone else.”
His hand rests lightly on my face and it’s a wonder his hand hasn’t caught fire from the embarrassment pumping through my veins. I pull back and stand.
“Your pain is still too close to the surface,” Keane says. “I mean, just four days ago on Samana you were mourning for Ben. And even now I can’t tell if you’re crying for me or him. You can’t expect me to play rebound to a ghost. I won’t do that.”
Feeling like a colossal fool, I retreat up the rocks into the cave. I’m pulling on my skirt when I hear a sharp bark from above. And a second. I look up to see the dog peering down through the hole. It barks again, this time more urgently.
“Do you want to come down here?” I scale the ladder. The dog is not wearing a collar, but it is a she. Her brown eyes are bright, and she allows me to carry her down into the cave. I sit cross-legged on the floor and she climbs into my lap, relaxing as if I’m her personal pillow.
“Anna—” Keane comes into the cave but stops abruptly when he sees the dog. “She’s lovely,” he says, squatting down to scratch behind her light brown ears. “She looks like a terrier, but with those stubby legs, she may be mixed with Corgi. I reckon she’s a pot hound.”
“A what?”
“There are a lot of strays in the islands,” he says. “And many of them get their meals from the locals who feed them what’s left of their cooking pots.”
“Pot hound. Cute.”
“It is, but there’s a bit of a population-control issue.”
“This place is pretty remote for a dog to be wandering,” I say. “Do you think we should take her back to town with us? Maybe there’s a rescue organization or shelter.”
“At very least, she’ll have better opportunities to eat.”
I pull on my tank top, then carry the dog out and to the Jeep. Keane follows with what’s left of our picnic. I shouldn’t have tried to kiss him. I was out of line. But my embarrassment is way too close to the surface to do anything but pretend it never happened.
* * *
The pot hound rescue staff clucks and fusses over the little dog, petting her head and playing name-that-breed, but they are less than thrilled at the prospect of taking her in.
“We have so many,” says a frazzled-looking woman with a mass of springy black curls. She introduces herself as Dr. Suzette Brown. “Are you sure you don’t want to keep her? We could put her into the system, administer vaccinations and spay her, and adopt her straight back to you. We’ll even waive the adoption fee.”
“We’re on a boat,” I say.
She waves her hand dismissively. “Lots of people keep dogs on boats.”
“We’ll be leaving for the Antilles in a day or two,” Keane says. “It can be a wretched crossing.”
“The dog will need to stay quiet after her surgery,” Suzette says. “Being cabin-bound will be a good way for her to heal.”
“But we’re not—” I point back and forth from Keane to myself, struggling with how to tell the rescue vet that we’re most definitely not a couple, only to find that Keane has wandered off, inspecting leashes and squeaking fetch toys.
“What I’m not hearing,” Suzette says, “is that you don’t want her.”
The dog’s warm little body is snuggled against my chest, right over my heart. I can see my life unfolding into one in which I come home to this dog. Until this moment, I haven’t been able to see my life unfold at all. She gives me a tiny dry lick near the corner of my mouth, one that says I am already yours. I press my face against the short hairs on the top of her head. “I want her.”
“You won’t regret it.” Suzette takes the dog from my arms. “Pot hounds make the best dogs.”
I make arrangements to pick up the dog—my dog—tomorrow, and Suzette offers to have one of the volunteers download and fill out entry forms for all of the Caribbean islands. “I’ll sign off on the medical work myself.”
“You would do all that?”
Suzette shrugs. “It takes time and money to care for these dogs, especially if they’re not adopted right away. An hour or two of paperwork costs far less than a month or more in foster care.”
“We’re going to need lifeline netting so she can safely navigate the deck.” Keane returns, his arms overloaded with a green nylon collar and matching leash, a bag of dog food, a package of training treats, and a mesh bag of tennis balls. “And it wouldn’t hurt for her to have her own life jacket.”
“Maybe we should start by giving her a name.”
“I might have gotten a bit carried away because I’ve always wanted a dog,” he says. “Or proximity to a dog. I mean, she’s your dog.”
“We found her together. She can be your dog too.”
“Perfect,” he says, opening his wallet to pay for the dog supplies. “Because I was thinking that since we found her at the pirate cove, she should have a proper pirate name. I thought maybe we could call her Gráinne”—he pronounces it grawn-yeh—“after Gráinne O’Malley the Irish pirate queen of Connacht, who you might know as Grace O’Malley. But that’s a bit unwieldy, so perhaps we should call her Queenie.”
“You could have just suggested Queenie.”
“But how do you
feel about the name?” he asks as we walk out of the building to the Jeep. Already I don’t like that I have to leave my dog behind.
“I love it.”
When we drive back to the marina, Keane and I don’t have much to talk about, aside from the dog. Without Queenie as a buffer, I feel ridiculous for throwing myself at him, so when we reach the boat, I retreat into the cabin and hide in the V-berth. The boat shifts as Keane leaves to wash his limb and rinse his prosthesis, leaving me to replay his rejection on an endless loop in my head. Why did I try to kiss him? What would have happened if he’d let me? I stare up through the open hatch until he returns.
“I’m sorry if I embarrassed you,” he says quietly, leaning against the narrow doorway into the V-berth. I pretend to be asleep. “Close quarters and spending every waking moment with a person can … well, it can be amplifying.”
He continues, so I know he knows I’m faking.
“One day the stars will align,” Keane says. “And you won’t be thinking about Ben, and the next man—whoever he may be—is going to be one lucky bastard.”
The floor creaks as he moves away, and I hear the familiar sounds of him removing his prosthesis and getting into bed. He exhales softly. “Good night, Anna.”
My thoughts are a jumbled mess. Is he right? Are close quarters to blame? Am I suffering from a kind of anti-kidnapping Stockholm syndrome? Any other explanation would betray Ben’s memory and be unfair to Keane. But I can’t quell the quiet fear that trying to kiss him wasn’t a mistake.
the rain comes (17)
The rain comes as we eat homemade shrimp pizza with Corrine and Gordon aboard Patience. It begins with soft splats on the deck and intensifies into a steady tattoo. We relocate from the covered cockpit to their cabin and Gordon’s black Lab hides from the thunder in the aft cabin. Queenie—an inflatable pillow around her neck to keep her from licking her stitches—looks at me, bewildered. Yesterday she was roaming free and now she’s been drafted onto our weird little team. I wonder if we’ve done the right thing, taking her away from the only home she’s ever known, but I’m comforted by the warmth of her body as she presses against me.
