The Girl in the Mirror(29)

No sat phone.

How far away is help, even if I do find the phone? The nearest countries are the Maldives, the Seychelles, Madagascar, Somalia. Hardly the world’s richest countries. Do they have search-and-rescue planes? Do they have search-and-rescue anything?

“Mayday, mayday, mayday.” My voice trembles as I speak into the VHF radio, but I remember what to say. Bathsheba’s call sign. Man overboard. Our latitude and longitude, course and speed. I read the numbers off the GPS.

It’s hopeless, though. I need the SSB radio, but as Adam said, it’s broken. I can’t get a peep out of it. The VHF is for use within sight of land or another ship, and we haven’t seen either since Thailand. I keep it switched on, but of course no one replies.

I try to set off the emergency beacon, even though Adam said it was obsolete, but it’s dead. I can’t even turn it on.

Bathsheba is faster under sail than motor, so I turn off the engine and unfurl the genoa. The silence is gruesome. I know for certain that I am alone on board. Still, I write a list of essential tasks, including “search inside boat.”

Summer’s harness, with its inflatable life jacket, lies on the pilothouse floor. I whimper when I see it.

I must make unbearable calculations. I must make sure I search the area where Summer is most likely to be. Don’t think about her not being on the surface. Don’t think, Summer’s body. I must cover maximum ground in the time Summer can stay alive. I can’t think sharks. I can’t think exhaustion, although I know that without her life jacket, Summer will have to tread water to keep afloat. But I force myself to think about hypothermia. The equator is sweltering hot, but even here, seawater will suck Summer’s body heat away.

Certain macabre conversations come to mind from years ago. Drunken sailors clinking cocktails in the marina, thrilling themselves with the horror of the words man overboard, careless of the kids eavesdropping on their thirdhand stories. But I’m grateful. I’m grateful to these morbid drunkards because they told me how long Summer can last. A man was found alive once, once, after twenty-eight hours, but it was in a strait, not the open ocean, and the water in the area was exceptionally warm. Even so, it was considered a miracle.

Life comes in pieces. Memories, colors—the white sail glimpsed through the skylight, the golden-headed gannet—flash through my brain with hallucinatory sharpness. My emotions are ridiculous. I feel a strange pleasure that I’m left-handed, since the injury to my right hand won’t slow me down as much as it might have. I’m proud Bathsheba is sailing so fast. I’m nailing this rescue.

But my heart knows the truth. Men overboard are found in movies, but the reality is different. Even if someone sees you go over, it can be hard to get you back. When I woke this morning, it had been nearly twelve hours since I saw Summer. Unwoken by her, my weary body had called in overdue sleep, slumbering so deeply that Summer’s decision to hoist the mainsail, and the noise and change in motion that would normally have had me springing onto the deck, failed to rouse me. Now I have no idea when she did it. No idea where she went over. No idea how.



By noon, I’m back in the zone.

This gives me a clue as to when Summer raised the sail. The wind boundary, where the southeast trades give way to the equatorial tumult, doesn’t move much in a day, so if it took me six hours to get back to the zone, it stands to reason that we left it six hours before I woke. Midnight or maybe a little earlier, since we’re moving faster now.

I have to think hard. Summer would have raised the sail after she left the zone.

Wait. She can’t have fallen after midnight. That was when she was meant to wake me. There’s no way Summer would have sailed on through my watch.

I’ve narrowed down the window of time. Maybe forty minutes before midnight, ten minutes after. With insane elation, I redraw my search radius. Allowing for the uncertain rate of drift of a body—a swimmer—I have a search radius of five nautical miles.

I must do the geometry. Area of a circle. Pi times the radius squared. Thank God I know this stuff.

I have a search area of seventy-eight square miles.

My sister has been in the water for twelve hours. She has twelve more hours to live, sixteen at most, and the sun sets in six hours. I don’t know how much fuel is in Bathsheba’s tank, but searching under sail at the edge of the zone is complicated. I can’t make Bathsheba sail straight upwind, and the sails obscure my view.

Stay alive, Summer. Stay alive.

I set the yacht on course and shove the autopilot remote control into the pocket of my shorts. I pack the VHF radio and a water bottle into a backpack, along with some chocolate, although I can’t imagine ever eating again. I furl the sails and start the engine. I clip on my harness with its carabiners. I put on my skipper’s cap, and sling sunglasses and binoculars around my neck.

I climb the mast again.

No fear this time. Death seems a small thing. At the top, I clip myself to the masthead so my arms are free. I can steer Bathsheba from up here, using the remote control.

Nothing to do now but look.

And think.

Nine years of my life melt away. The hundred million has distracted me for nine years, but it’s forgotten now. All I can think about is Summer, my twin, the better half of my soul.

I love Summer. I’ll never love anyone, man or woman, as I love her. It’s not her beauty or her kindness or her blessed life. I love her because she’s my sister, and I’d kill for her, I’d die for her, if I could.