Float Plan(56)

“Actually, I’m surprised,” I say. “When you went to confession the next day—”

“I didn’t go to confession.”

“Liar.”

“Listen, I was simply asking the deacon his professional opinion on whether what happened with Sara—or didn’t happen, as the case may be—might be a sin,” he says. “He told me my judgment probably wasn’t the most sound but gave me an unofficial blessing to be sure, and here we are.”

Sharon covers her smile with her hand, but Desmond laughs so hard that tears trickle from the corners of his eyes.

“The whole incident might have been avoided if I’d told Anna how I felt at the time,” Keane goes on. “But given we’d only known each other one week, she’d have thought me mad.”

“How would that be different from now?” I ask.

He winks. “Because now you’re stuck with me.”

The rest of our story gets lost in laughter and Sharon telling us how she was my age when she met Desmond during the Montserrat Festival, where he was competing in the Calypso Monarch singing contest. “He was a terrible singer,” she says. “But so cute, I didn’t have the heart to tell him.”

“It’s the Sullivan charm,” Desmond says. “Once you are hooked, there’s no escaping it.”





true affection (27)





Sunday feels like a leaving day.

Desmond takes us to the dive shop in Little Bay, where Keane rents a tank and spends the morning scraping barnacles from the bottom of the boat. I clean the cabin and send Happy New Year emails home, telling my mom and Carla that we are on Montserrat. But I’m not ready to share my relationship with Keane yet. It’s too new and I want to hold on to the secret a little longer. Together we take stock of our supplies, but since we’ve had most of our meals with the Sullivans or on-island, we buy only a twelve-pack of Coke and some fresh fruits.

“We should go soon.” Keane gives voice to what I’ve been thinking as we return the dive gear to the shop. “Desmond and Sharon would have us stay as long as we like, but I fear wearing out our welcome.”

“What’s next?”

“Guadeloupe, Dominica, and Martinique are all about a day’s sail apart from one another, and the weather will be with us,” he says. “We can visit any or all of them. It’s up to you.”

I don’t even consider Ben’s route anymore. We’ve blown past islands he wanted to visit and been to places that weren’t part of his plan. The only thing I regret is not helping to do the research so I would know what each island has to offer.

“What would you choose?” I ask Keane.

“Martinique is my next favorite place in the Caribbean,” he says. “I’d drop anchor for the night in both Guadeloupe and Dominica and go ashore at Martinique.”

“Let’s do that.”

We take a taxi to the house to gather our things and say goodbye to Sharon and Miles, promising we’ll return to Montserrat soon. Miles hugs Queenie until she wriggles away. At the harbor, we’re loading the dinghy with our gear when Desmond’s patrol car drives up and he gets out. I wait for him to play the Irish cliché game with Keane, but instead Desmond only says, “I wish you could stay a bit longer.”

“We could,” Keane says. “But Miles has to go back to school and Sharon to work, and we don’t want to become an imposition. Best remember us with fondness.”

“That would assume I’m fond of you.”

“Kiss my arse, Sullivan.”

Desmond grins and pulls Keane into a hug. “Farewell, my friend. Come back to us soon. And, Anna”—it’s my turn for a hug—“you are always welcome in our home.”

He watches from the dock as we pull anchor and motor away. He is a blur in my eyes as I wave goodbye.



* * *



We sail from Montserrat to Guadeloupe, where we anchor in the harbor at Deshaies. Eat. Sleep. Wake up in the morning and sail to Dominica. We spend the night in Prince Rupert Bay. Eat. Sleep. Sail. On our way to Martinique, I try my hand at fishing and land a small blackfin tuna that we eat for lunch, seared, with homemade guava salsa. As Keane predicted, the wind has been in our favor, and the only difference between these crossings and previous easy hops is that we spend less time arguing over Scrabble and more time kissing. We’ve slept together in the V-berth but haven’t had sex. At first I appreciated Keane’s patience as I got used to the idea of having an intimate connection with someone other than Ben. But … we’ve waited long enough.

In Martinique, we anchor in a harbor that looks like a postcard come to life. Where turquoise ocean touches white sand beside the red-roofed village and green mountains behind. The hills surrounding the bay are a welcoming hug and the wooden jetty appears to come straight out from the front door of the village church.

“Welcome to Les Anses d’Arlet,” Keane says. “The best place on earth.”

“Wait. I thought Montserrat was your favorite.”

“Taken as a whole, it is,” he says. “But I could easily live out the rest of my days in this village.”

“Well, my expectations suddenly got higher.”

I take the dinghy to shore and use a computer in a restaurant to clear through customs. While I have Wi-Fi, I rent a guesthouse up the hill from the beach. When I go back to the boat for Keane and Queenie, I tell him to pack an overnight bag. “I have a surprise for you.”