Float Plan(44)

“Agda, this is Anna,” Keane says. “We are traveling together to Trinidad.”

“It’s good to meet you, Anna.”

“Likewise.”

“Come with me.” She calls the words over her shoulder, already in motion. “I will show you to your room.”

The balcony serves as the hallway for the house, and I follow Agda to the end, where French doors stand open, inviting the sun and air into the bedroom. The bed seems enormous after weeks at sea and the blanket on top is a patchwork of old wool sweaters. A patchwork quilt for a patchwork house. My grubby bag on the floor is like a sliver of thumb across the corner of an otherwise perfect photo.

“This room is best because it has its own water closet.” She pulls back a white shower curtain in the corner to reveal a toilet and tiny wall sink. “And it is closest to the shower.”

She leads me back outside. Beside my room is an outdoor shower built of wood with a yellow canvas curtain. “My favorite time is when you are showering and it begins to rain.”

“This house is bizarre.”

Agda laughs. “It is bizarre, but we love it.”

“Me too.”

“I will leave you to shower or sleep or whatever you would like to do,” she says. “We have Wi-Fi if you need to write emails, and later we will go to Foxy’s for Christmas dinner, yeah?”

“Thank you.”

Agda smiles in reply and suddenly I’m alone. Keane finds me leaning against the balcony railing, trying to pick out the Alberg in the fleet of cruising boats moored in the harbor.

“Now that I’m finally thinking of it as my boat, it needs a name.”

“Don’t think too hard about it,” he says. “Boats reveal their names to you in good time.”

“Did you make that up?”

He nods. “It’s a solid theory, though, right?”

“I’m going to go try out that shower.”

“I wanted to warn you,” he says. “Agda typically walks naked to and from the bath.”

“Good to know, thanks.”

“You could do the same, if you like. When in Rome and such.”

“Shut up.”

He laughs as he bumps his shoulder against mine. “Don’t use all the hot water.”

Not nearly as brave as Agda, I draw the yellow curtain across the shower, but above me the sky is midmorning blue and the air is cool on my skin. Even though I can hear everyone’s indistinct chatter at the other end of the balcony, I can’t help feeling alone. This is my first Christmas without Ben. I turn off the faucet, but my thoughts keep flowing. I put on his old How the Grinch Stole Christmas! T-shirt, faded green and worn soft, and a red polka-dot skirt more festive than I feel.

“Anna, you are so cute! You are the Grinch.” Agda pours a glass of pink rum punch and slides it across the table to me as I sit. “Eamon has been trying to explain his job to me and I can’t get my brain around it. So, you tell me what you do.”

“Well, right now, I just … sail.” I look past her at the harbor and take a deep breath. “My fiancé died by suicide almost a year ago, and I was having a hard time dealing with it, so I quit my job, took his sailboat, and left.”

“About your fiancé, I am very sorry,” she says, touching the back of my hand with light fingers. “But it is a very brave thing you are doing.”

“I’m not so sure about that.” My laugh isn’t entirely genuine, but I don’t want to cry. “After I nearly got hit by a cargo ship on my very first crossing from Florida to Bimini, I realized I had no idea what I was doing and hired Keane.”

“See, now I know you are brave. Sullivan is a wild man.”

I take a sip of rum punch. It’s very sweet and very strong, making my eyes water. “How did you all meet?”

“We had a mutual friend who owned a dive shop on Martinique, and we happened to be visiting him at the same time,” Keane says. “I was maybe twenty-four or twenty-five, between boats—”

“You were there with that French girl,” Agda interrupts. “What was her name?”

“Mathilde.”

The people around us are evidence enough that Keane has a history, but Mathilde is History with a capital H. Her name conjures the image of another effortlessly cool girl—like Sara on Chemineau—who looks perfect in a bikini. And at that age, Keane must have been the human equivalent of a bug zapper.

“Yes! Mathilde!” Agda slaps the table. “I have to tell you, Sullivan, we hated her. She was so dull.”

“I reckon I wasn’t dating her for her personality,” he says dryly. “My personal bar was set pretty low in those days.”

Eamon laughs. “What’s changed?”

We all wait while Keane drains his punch. The ice cubes rattle in the glass and the air is filled with the sounds of birds and frogs. The legs of his chair scrape on the floor as he pushes back to stand. “Everything.”

He walks away, his mood darkened, and Eamon shakes his head. “Always dramatic, that one.”

I follow Keane.

He’s cycled back to where he was last night on the boat, but given that I’ve just struggled with my own melancholy, I can’t fault him for it. He drops into an old cracked leather chair in the corner of the room he’s sharing with Eamon.