Float Plan(16)

“Christ.” He tips backward until he’s lying on the deck again. “I’m a useless bastard and you should probably put me off the boat immediately. I am so sorry, Anna. I reacted badly to some disappointing news and it was wrong of me to take it out on you. Can you forgive me?”

“We’re going to Pig Beach.”

“Yes, we are.”

“You should probably clean up,” I say as he slowly gets to his feet. “You’ve been wearing your leg all night.”

Keane returns from the shower dressed in an olive-green T-shirt and a pair of khaki shorts. He smells like sunscreen instead of whiskey. “I have one more errand before we go,” he says, dropping off his toiletry kit and a different prosthetic leg that has a web of white plastic. The socket is blue with a raindrop pattern that suggests this is some sort of waterproof leg. “Shouldn’t be more than fifteen or twenty minutes.”

True to his word, he’s back on time and carrying a small outboard motor on his shoulder. Just about the right size for a dinghy. “I’ll have to build a bracket for it”—he holds up a plastic shopping bag—“but now we won’t have to row.”

An outboard for the dinghy was another thing Ben never got around to buying. He could have afforded a brand-new motor, but one of his favorite games had been finding deals online, so I know how much outboards cost. “I can’t—I don’t have the money for that.”

“I know a guy,” Keane says. “And this one was a steal because it doesn’t run. Yet.”

I try not to smile, but I can’t help myself. It’s a thoughtful gesture and, although I don’t know him well, buying a broken engine as an apology seems like a very Keane Sullivan thing to do. “Are you sure you can fix it?”

He shrugs. “About eighty-two percent.”

A laugh escapes me. I can probably forgive him. “Thank you.”

“No, Anna, thank you.”

“Shut up,” I say. “Let’s get out of here.”





a small fire (8)





Nassau at our backs, the Alberg finds a six-knot groove and soars toward the Exumas. We return to deep water, rich blue and rolling, and the rush of waves along the length of the boat is music. Wind and water come together like a song. Pleasure and guilt weave a vine around my heart when I try to conjure Ben, but there’s nothing like this in our history. I will never create another new memory with him.

I escape into the cabin, trying to keep Keane from seeing me cry. I’m wiping my eyes on my T-shirt when I hear him say my name. “Bring the bucket when you come, will you?”

His tone is calm, so we’re not sinking. I don’t think there’s any need to panic, but I grab the bucket and quickly climb topside. Something shoots past my head and splashes back into the sea. Scattered around the deck are half a dozen flying fish, in various stages of death. Some of the little silver bodies are unmoving—dead on impact—while others heave, their gossamer wings spreading and fluttering as though trying to take off.

“Scoop them up,” Keane says as another fish flings itself into the cockpit. “We can have them for dinner.”

Flying fish are not a new phenomenon for me. Ben and I encountered them once, but keeping one was purely accidental. It flew right past us, through the open companionway, and we didn’t find it until we got back to the dock. I’m not sentimental about these little kamikazes, so I gather them into the bucket.

“The fillet knife is in my sailing bag,” Keane says. “You’ll want to gut them before you put them on ice.”

“Me?”

“Why not? This is the perfect opportunity to learn. I’ll talk you through it.”

The bucket wobbles in my hand as the fish flop around inside. They’re so much smaller than the mackerel, and I can see myself slicing open a finger. I hold the pail out to him. “Never going to happen. I will happily cook them, but if you want these fish for dinner, you’re going to have to clean them yourself.”

Keane looks at me. His eyes are hidden behind sunglasses, but the corners of his mouth twitch like he wants to laugh. Finally he grins and accepts the bucket. “Fair enough.”

I take over the tiller.

“So, Anna,” he says, slicing open the belly of a fish no longer than his hand. He’s brutally efficient, yet somehow gentle. “Do you mind my asking how old you are?”

“Twenty-five. You?”

“I’ll be thirty at the end of the month. On the thirtieth, in fact.”

“My mom always called those magic birthdays. When your age is the same as the date,” I say. “Mine happened when I was five.”

“And was it magic?”

“Well, I got everything I wished for,” I say. “My grandma made me a cake with purple roses, I got a princess doll with a light-up tiara, and my dad took the training wheels off my bike. It seemed magical at the time, but in retrospect, my expectations were pretty typical for a five-year-old.”

“On the other hand, you’ve had twenty years of believing that certain birthdays hold magic,” he says, and a beat later: “I’d wish to be twenty-five again.”

There’s a note of something in his voice that keeps me from asking why. He does nothing to fill the uncomfortable silence as he finishes the fish. Even after he comes back from putting them on ice, Keane sits in the cockpit, staring off toward the horizon. We sail this way for miles, running along the Exumas chain, until it looks like the sun is touching the ocean. If the red sky in Bimini was the work of an angry artist, this one is messy purple fingers dragged slowly through gold.