They walked in fine white sand, along a curve of sea. It felt good on his feet. The water was clear blue with scattered shadows of black coral. She walked high up, in the soft, dry sand, near the signs that warned of explosives; he walked in the wet sand, in and out of the surge. Small fish swam in the shallows. It was late morning, and the limestone cliffs at the end of the beach blazed bright white.
“You don’t love me, ” he said.
“What are you talking about?”
A few hundred yards out, large waves broke on the fringing reef, and beyond them, in the distance across the sound, were the rumpled hills of Culebra. To the east was the tall, wide mountain of St. Thomas. They were on the northeast tip of Vieques. The bombing had been mostly to the south, but they had seen three unexploded bombs underwater while snorkeling. And, there were all those signs warning visitors not to walk off the beach into the bushes.
It had been six months since they had sailed out of Florida, joyful and expectant. They had had their first fight crossing the turbulent gulf stream to the Bahamas, in the middle of a sleepless night. After a stay in Nassau, they worked down the Exuma Islands to Georgetown, and then south into the Caribbean. There were good days, making love in the cockpit off sandy cays, anchored in water clear as a swimming pool, and there were more fights, on the tough overnight passages, especially running from Long Island past Mayaguana to the Turks and Caicos. She had threatened to fly out of Provo and leave him alone with the boat. It never came to that, but the hurt remained.
“We were fine in Luperon,” she said, stepping down to dip her feet in the water.
“This is not Luperon.”
“I’m enjoying this, don’t turn it ugly.”
“You don’t love me, is the problem. You never say ‘I love you’. You only say ‘I love you, too’. There’s a difference.”
“You don’t know what I feel.”
“And when I poured my heart out to you, telling you how I understood how difficult it was for you, telling you how much I appreciated your effort, after that long speech, you went to bed without even saying ‘good night.’ You never said you appreciated me. You never said you loved me.”
“You make me crazy.” She turned away, and walked ahead of him.
The fishing village of Luperon, on the north coast of the Dominican Republic, had been good. It was easy and cheap. The kind of place that holds you. You have to work at it to leave. It’s too easy to put off the rolling seas, the nights at the helm, the storms, the rough work of cruising. It’s easier to pretend you see something worthwhile there. We came to Luperon for a week and stayed three years. It was a common refrain, cheerfully spoken, but tainted by resignation. They had had enough — they weren’t about to continue bashing themselves and their boats. For what purpose? For him, it was the journey, not the destination; for her, it was him, but he never understood that.
They reached the cliffs and stood still, gazing out over the blue water. It was difficult to harden your heart among such beauty. He took her hand.
“The dinghy!” she yelled. She shook off his hand and began running. He took after her, toward the spot where they had pulled their small boat up on the sand. There was no boat. Their only way back to their ship was gone. He looked out and saw it bobbing offshore. He ran fast, passing her, to the west end of the beach. There, he judged the dinghy to be 200 to 300 feet off-shore. He figured he could make it.
“I’ll swim to it,” he yelled, running into the water and wading around the coral rocks. He swam furiously out to sea, quickly tiring. He switched to a side-stroke to conserve energy. Looking back, he saw her wading in to follow him. “Stay on the beach,” he yelled. She didn’t listen.
He alternated between a fast, energy sapping crawl, and an easier side-stroke. The dinghy got closer, but at a frustratingly slow rate. As he swam towards the boat, it drifted away, caught in an off-shore breeze. The distance he needed to swim kept increasing. He was in good shape, after all the work of cruising, but he was no long distance swimmer. He kept going, convinced he had no alternative. They could not lose the dinghy. He swam, and the boat drifted. He tired, but he judged the gap was cut in half.
I may not make it, he thought. Then, he forced the thought from his mind. He looked back to shore. It was too far to swim back now. He had no choice but to make it to the boat. If he panicked, he was done. He had only to keep going, and he would eventually catch it. He could see it getting closer each time he looked up, but each time he also saw it was still a long way. His arms began to ache and his lungs pumped. Could he make it? He shook the thought away. He looked up again and gulped air. The fear was not as easily dismissed now.
He looked back and saw her swimming lightly, then floating. She couldn’t help, but she followed anyway, as if rooting for him.
He looked up one last time. It seemed a miracle. Only a few more feet. Don’t give up now. You can reach it. You can do it. Think how fine it will be to grab the side of that boat. Think how good it will feel to be safe. He plunged forward in a strong crawl. He smiled, and gasped. He reached for the sky.
It was a good feeling, and he floated happily for a minute, catching his breath, flushed with gratitude, holding onto the side of the dinghy. He truly had thought he would not make it. He had thought this is how it ends. Relieved, he pulled himself up and sprawled across the bottom of the boat. When he sat up, he looked back to see her floating. Thank God. All she has to do is float until I get there. He pulled the starter and the engine sprung to life. He spun the boat and aimed at her bobbing head.
“I’ll just hold on,” she said, exhausted, grabbing the side of the boat. “Pull me to the beach.”
“No. I’ll help you,” he answered, knowing she wasn’t thinking clearly. He wanted her safely inside the boat. She didn’t argue. She tried to climb in but didn’t have the strength. He grabbed her arm and pulled her up; she plopped into the center of the dinghy. She gulped air greedily, and looked up.
“I love you,” she said.
###
That night, back aboard the sailboat, they made love. She was receptive in a way he remembered when they first dated. The resentment was gone; there was no more anger. She was happy and carefree, even though the boat rolled at anchor in the swell. He was thankful, but he didn’t expect it to last.
“Let’s circumnavigate Vieques,” she said, lying in his arms.
“What? Really?” He had wanted to cruise the southern coast, but she had vetoed the idea. The anchorages were too exposed, and too likely to be swarmed by mosquitoes.
“It will be fine,” she answered his thoughts.
The next morning they weighed anchor, and sailed to Bahia Salina del Sur. The wind shifted unexpectedly to the north. They anchored in calm waters, and there were no biting bugs. Unbelievably, the rogue breeze kept up all week, letting them happily explore the coast.
They snorkeled quiet, clear waters, around mounds of brain coral, and through stands of stag and elk horn corals, delighted by the brightly colored fish, flashes of reds, oranges and blues. Yellow conch amused them, pushing their shells along the bottom with crabby feet, and they watched lobsters wave sturdy antenna and study them anxiously with beady eyes.
The nights were thick black with towering stars overhead. They swam naked through dazzling electric-white blooms in the phosphorescent bay of Puerto Mosquito. They made love every night, finally returning to Green Beach at the west end.
“How wonderful,” she said. “Could we circle again?”
“Of course not,” he laughed, enjoying her enthusiasm. “We’ve got to get south before the hurricanes.”
“Maybe, we’ll have none this year; have another glass of wine.”
Early that afternoon, as they rounded the southwestern tip of land, the wind veered off north, to the usual east. He couldn’t believe their good luck; the anchorage off Green Beach would have been rough in the northerly breeze. He had expected to tough it out and move on, but now the seas settled, and they enjoyed another calm night. He felt somehow blessed.
The next morning, as they hauled sail and rounded Escollo de Arenas, the wind shifted again, this time to the south of east. It allowed them to fetch Culebra on a comfortable beam reach. The boat cut along through an easy swell on a steady breeze, sailing itself for the most part. It was the best sail they had ever had. He let out a line and quickly caught a beautiful dorado. He cut off large fillets and tossed the carcass overboard. There was no blood on the deck to wash. That was peculiar, but welcome. They made Ensenada Honda before dusk and motored into the harbor to anchor off Dewey.
She found an expensive bottle of Chardonnay lost in the bilge. The dorado, marinated in lime juice and herbs, was tender and sweet and delicious. He couldn’t believe his turn of luck. Everything was going so right. She was happy and fun, with no hint of the ugliness. It was almost too good to be true, as if he had died, and gone to heaven. He laughed at the thought, and then kicked his toe against the bulkhead for the assurance of pain.
There was no pain.
###
She stood alone on the beach, and peeled petals off a rose. The petals drifted out on the breeze, as the dinghy had, as he had. Tears rolled down her cheeks and dropped into the sea at her feet. It had all happened so quick. It was all so unnecessary. The scene replayed like a bad movie in her head: the jolt of fear, the running down the beach, the disbelief at seeing the boat off-shore, the swimming, tiring and keeping afloat. He swam on, kept swimming, the boat drifting out of his grasp. He reached up to the sky, and then he was gone. She had swam frantically, trying to find him, but he was gone. Nothing. Only the slight roll to the water and the dinghy shrinking into the distance.
She surprised herself by not panicking. She swam and floated, looking for his head, his hands, anything she could grab. If only she found a piece of him, she would pull him to shore and revive him. He was still alive; she just had to find him. She kept at it for a long time.
Eventually, she could no longer see the dinghy, and the futility became obvious. Slowly, reluctantly, without admitting it to herself, she swam in circles that crept closer to a large rock. She knew she could not make it back to the beach. She climbed onto the rock and collapsed, exhausted. Her muscles burned; she sucked in air heavily, and she cried. She choked on her tears, she cried so strong.
Alone on the rock, with waves slapping and spitting sea upward, she stopped crying. A hollow fear grew in her belly and she shook all over. She was overwhelmed by a sudden desperate loneliness. She missed him terribly. How could she face never seeing him again? She was alone on a rock off a deserted beach. There were no roads to the beach. There were no foot paths. Only the vicious sea that had swallowed him. On shore, there were only thick bushes and hills that looked impassable. Slowly, she began to understand her predicament. How could she get back to their ship? How could she get help? How could she feel the warmth of his skin again?
When she cried out, she found the courage to face her situation. First, I have to get off this rock and back onto the beach. Her only option was to swim, but she couldn’t make herself get back into the water. Fear would rise up inside her and crush her spirit, bringing a fresh set of tears and stammering breaths; then, she would slowly push it back down and gain control. Finally, she simply slid under a wave and swam away from the rock towards the beach. Take your time. Don’t panic. Float and swim, slowly. Don’t tire yourself out. She kept herself in a kind of trance and worked slowly towards the beach. Only when her feet dragged in sand did she realize she had made it.
She sat in the sand for a time, trying to convince herself it was all a nightmare, that he was not really gone. Then, she began to climb the hill behind the beach, on the dangerous side of the explosives signs. A couple of hours later, a navy patrol spotted her pushing through the bushes and cursing.
“Don’t you realize you could blow yourself up?”
“Yes, I do,” she answered. “That would be good.”
No body was found. They towed her sailboat to Culebra, and anchored it off Dewey. Other cruisers looked after her. They held a memorial service. She refused to think about the future. Finally, they left her alone on the beach to toss flower petals into the sea.
###
He lounged in the cockpit as she poured another glass of wine. He had given up trying to hurt himself. It didn’t work. Nothing was painful, and she was always so damn pleasant. There was nothing he could do wrong. She had no complaints. She looked after his every need. The made love so often, he tired of it.
Everything was perfect, too perfect. What did he have to do to be wrong? He couldn’t push her into a rage, even when he tried. She saw through the insults and laughed. She bent to his every wish. He actually began to miss the fights. It wasn’t that fighting was fun; no, it was awful. The thing about fighting was, it created contrast. If there are no valleys, there are no hilltops. When it had been good between them, it had been really good. Now, it was always good, and that meant, it was never really good.
“More wine?” she asked.
“The hell with the wine,” he answered. She smiled and filled his glass anyway. “Heaven is not all it’s cracked up to be,” he grunted.
“Heaven?” she answered.
James K. Richardson