Float Plan(32)

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 head. 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?”