Daddy looked me over. Then, with a sigh, he reached past me and pried the pantry open. He slid me out of the way like I was a sack of potatoes. Mumbling as he ducked in after his can of soup, he said, “Sorry you’re gonna go away mad, then.”
Briefly, I considered closing the door on his head. Instead, I snatched up my coat and slammed the back door as I headed into first evening. When he talked down to me like that, it made me feel melodramatic. Worse, I hated that. I liked being even. Quiet. I liked things just so.
All this too-big raging gave me the adrenaline shakes. Raising my voice, slamming up stairs, that was about as dramatic as I got. Walking real hard into the night. Maybe if I had a soundtrack, it would have seemed like a montage or something.
No personal soundtrack, though. I heard my feet and my heartbeat and the sea calling me back. My court date waited in the morning. My father waited at home. Not for me, just to suck up all the air. So I walked to my real home. To the wharf. To the water.
And this time, I didn’t wait for some mystic boat to show up for me.
Nothing was in my control anymore, and I wanted just one thing. The water and me. The ocean. This place between land and heaven that had been my home as long as I could remember—I wanted to master it one more time. I told myself that after court, I’d stay off the Jenn-a-Lo for good.
Right then, though, I boarded her proudly.
The cabin stank of cigarettes, and I’m pretty sure of beer, too. The whole thing was sour, like somebody else’s sweat. There was a Post-it on the dash, slashed with Daddy’s familiar handwriting. 42 pounds. Not even enough lobster to pay the light bill.
Stroking my fingers beneath the dash, I pulled the extra key from its hidden place and started the engine. One last time, out on the boat that raised and made and ended me.
It purred, mechanics sending a velvet vibration through the hull. I turned a light on long enough to maneuver past the rest of the fleet. Then I cut it and sailed into the dark. The lighthouse warned me away from the shallows and the shoals. Sailing into the night, I put Broken Tooth and Jackson’s Rock behind me.
When I cut the engine, a perfect quiet came in. Waves whispered, but no one spoke. No birds cried. I stepped onto the deck and turned my face to the sky. A storm raged on open water, miles away from me. A delicate lace of lightning unfurled. It touched the water and the sky at once. It was electric, and I vibrated with it.
A heavy wave rolled in, raising the Jenn-a-Lo, then dropping her. It wasn’t much of a lurch, a kiss from the storm in the distance. Dark clouds pressed black against blue, but where I sat on the water, they parted for the moon. It was bright and hung low, wearing a faint halo. That meant rain or snow soon, a near-perfect prediction.
Another wave swelled against the horizon, a brush of moonlight gleaming on its peak. It wasn’t a storm wave, nothing like. It didn’t chop or crash. It rolled, like a giant had dropped a boulder into the ocean. The swell skimmed toward me. It was slow. It looked lazy. But it burrowed beneath the boat and tossed her.
The hauler bashed the cabin wall. I slid across the deck and nearly went over. All I saw was black water. Felt the spray of it on my skin as the Jenn-a-Lo righted herself.
Grabbing the rail, I held on tight through the next wave. My heart beat too fast, making up for breaths that were too shallow. When a boat rolls, everything you see is wrong. The ocean above you. The sky underneath. Water slapping on the deck, looking like it flowed backwards.
I reached for the EPIRB, then jerked my hand away. It was a new one. It would send a distress signal. But if the Coast Guard came, I’d have to leave the Jenn-a-Lo on the open water, lost to the tides.
I didn’t know why I was panicking. I’d been on plenty of rough seas. Rode out waves so high and white, we called them bed sheets. Survived any number of pop-up squalls. So I clung to the cabin door’s frame as the next swell hit.
Everything shifted again.
The stern raised against the sky. An awful cry filled the air, the hauler wrenching against its bolts. Our soda cooler tumbled down the deck, crashing into me. Ice fountained from it, frigid bullets against my skin. Even that was lucky. If there had been a full load of traps on deck, I’d have already been dead.
The boat crashed down. The cooler bounced up and out, flung into the sea. The hauler gouged the cabin wall again, right next to my head. It left a deep welt in the wood. Ice cubes skittered beneath my feet.
Slicked with sweat, I dragged myself into the cabin. Righting myself, I twisted the key. The engine growled, then caught. It didn’t make a difference. The next wave hit. Daddy’s hula girl, hanging from the radio, went horizontal.
I cracked my head against the windshield. A wave crashed inside my head, this one dark and full of sparks. A hot streak of blood spilled down my temple. I ignored it. Instead, I flipped all the lights on. The radio, too. I had to get my bearings.
The engine was running, but it would be dangerous to steer into the sea blind. There had to be other boats out, farther out. Daddy’s Girlfriend would have advice too.
As warning lights flashed, the bilge alarm went off. The radio whispered white noise. In the cacophony, I caught a snatch of an automated warning. Storm surge in conjunction with unexpectedly high tide causing three- to four-foot waves. Danger to small vessels, and no freaking kidding.
Alarms blared around me. Taking on water! Check engine! When I keyed the mic, the static went quiet. But no one answered my call. With the lights on, I saw the chaos clearly. Sharp, angry angles of waves ahead of me, peaked like meringue. Then, the slow rise of the Jenn-a-Lo’s bow, anticipating the strike to come.
It hit, and the boat lunged once more. More water spilled onto the deck. That wasn’t enough to sink the boat. The bilge pump was already on, pumping as fast as it could. The Jenn-a-Lo was made to stay dry. We hauled traps onto the deck all day long, draining them out the sides.
No, that wasn’t the problem.
Another wave struck. It came down like a fist. That was the problem.
The ocean, when it was riled, could drown a boat. Not sink it—drown it. Shove it beneath the surface and hold it there. It wasn’t sinking if you filled with water all at once. It was drowning, drifting. A graceful submission. Gliding to the bottom to lay with other boats and other sailors, all sacrificed to the great blue.
Trying to find my way up, I gagged on the acid of cigarette ash. Rubbing grit off my face, I lurched when the ocean punched the Jenn-a-Lo again. Cords hung everywhere. They dangled like innards, the guts of some black beast cut open. Everything stank: salt and ash, spilled bait, fear sweat. I was flashes of cold and hot at the same time, trying to find my feet.
The mic swung close. I scrambled to catch it and keyed the button. “Mayday, mayday, mayday. This is the vessel Jenn-a-Lo, call sign ZMG0415.”
The sea answered, groaning like it was possessed. Like it was alive. I dropped the radio and turned. A wall rolled toward me. Black, streaked with silver, it was its own constellation. Poseidon rampant. Neptune at war.
All at once, I was calm. I wasn’t going to have to explain what I was thinking when I took the boat out. I wasn’t going to have to plead guilty or let a defense attorney tear me up. I wouldn’t ever see Seth driving around with another girl.
A sharp touch of regret twisted in me: I wouldn’t see Bailey again. My mother. My father. One more sunset on the Atlantic.
Before that registered, the wall came down. I was swallowed by the sea.