Float Plan(18)

As I row to shore with my five-pound bag of potatoes, there are already people on the beach. Some came by powerboat this morning, anchoring in the shallows. Others came by dinghy from boats in the harbor. A small tour boat arrived about fifteen minutes ago with some people from a resort on a nearby island. People seem to be having fun, taking selfies and shooting videos of the pigs. Maybe Keane is wrong.

I reach shallow water and a large brown-spotted sow places a hoof on the side of the dinghy, bellowing at me as she tries to scramble up. Overwhelmed and a little frightened, I toss a potato and she retreats to gobble it down, crunching through the skin and the raw white flesh. Some of the other pigs see this new source of food, paddle over, and swarm me. It takes no time at all to empty the bag.

The food exhausted, the pigs abandon me, swimming off in search of someone else to feed them, the way Keane predicted. I want to cry. Not because he was right. Not because the pigs aren’t adorable. But because Ben was wrong. There is no real freedom here. Only an illusion built with rotting fruit, bits of bread, and five-pound bags of potatoes.

I left Keane sitting in the cockpit, clanking and swearing over the outboard motor, adding and subtracting parts in an effort to get it running. I’m not ready to go back yet, not quite prepared to admit he told me so. I drag the dinghy up onto the sand and walk the tide line, gathering stranded starfish. Splashing the living, keeping the dead. Someone at his funeral told me that Ben will always be alive in my memories, but it’s not the fucking same at all.

The morning sun arcs upward on its path toward noon and a lizard of unknown origin scurries past my feet when I return to the dinghy. The pigs don’t bother me as I row back out to the Alberg.

“Doing okay there, Anna?” Keane asks as I come up the swim ladder. The outboard has been cleared away and I wonder if he’s managed to fix it, or if all those fucks were sworn in vain.

“I don’t know.”

He spreads his arms. “Need a hug?”

I laugh and cry as I step into his embrace. Into arms that know exactly how tight I need to be squeezed, against a warm shirt the smells like salt and engine grease and comfort.

“On another day I might have loved the pigs,” I tell his shoulder. “But today … you were right.”

“I didn’t want to be.”

“Can we leave?”

“Absolutely. Yes.” Keane releases me, and part of me wishes I could have stayed a little longer in the shelter his arms provided. “Whatever you want.”





amplified (9)





Port Howe, at the southern end of Cat Island, is a welcome reprieve after more than sixty sloppy miles of motor-sailing from Pig Beach. The water is calm, the day barely past sunset, and only one other boat rests at anchor in the bay, a large ketch-rigged sailboat called Chemineau. Old-school rock and roll drifts across the water, accompanied by laughter, a faint hint of cigarette smoke, and a female voice that sha-la-las along with Van Morrison.

“Hello!” a big voice booms across the distance, and three sets of arms go up, waving at us. In one of the hands I see the glow of burning ash. This is the first time we’ve been welcomed into an anchorage.

Keane cups his hands around his mouth and calls back in greeting as I wave. We position the boat close enough to be friendly, but not so close that we run the risk of colliding.

“Come on over!” the big voice calls when our anchor is set.

After spending the past couple of days in a blue funk, I’m a little sick of myself. And even though being excited about meeting new people has never been my default, I’m ready to get off this boat. Keane swings down into the cabin and rummages through his duffel.

“Will you be coming?” he asks, sniffing and discarding a gray T-shirt.

“Yes.”

Both of us are windblown and steeped in sunscreen, but I scrub my face and replace Ben’s old white button-down—my unofficial sailing uniform—with a red floral halter top. I leave my feet bare and spritz on perfume to cover the sweat. Keane changes into a pair of jeans and I wonder if he’s trying to hide his prosthesis.

“Makes meeting new people a bit less awkward,” he says, reading my mind.

“I guess I’m a little surprised. You don’t seem self-conscious about it.”

“I’m not, but I don’t always want it to be the first thing people notice about me.” He takes a bottle of Guinness out of his bag. “I’d rather they notice my charming personality and devilishly handsome face.”

“What charming personality?”

“So, you admit, then, that I’m devilishly handsome?”

I tilt my head back and squint. “Nope. Not seeing it.”

Keane places his hand over his heart. “You’ve cut me to the quick, Anna.”

I laugh. “Come on, honey, let’s go meet the new neighbors.”

Together we launch the dinghy and I hold the bottle of Guinness while Keane rows us to the other boat. Their main boom and the mizzen boom are strung with Chinese paper lanterns, and the music has switched to Crosby, Stills & Nash. It reminds me of Ben’s collection of old vinyl records, locked in a Fort Lauderdale storage unit with the other things his mother took from me. Ben would love rowing over to meet new people on a boat dressed in light. He’d say the whole point of this trip is to experience a bigger world. I miss my small world that revolved around him, but tonight I refuse to let sadness get a foot in the door.