Uncharted Waters

Dr. Takahashi placed his stethoscope on Jonah’s back. “You’re good to go. I’m releasing you today. But remember. You’re not the hotshot you once were."

Jonah slumped forward on the table. His ribs ached when he breathed. "I'm not dead either."

"You nearly were," the Doctor said. "You forget that?"

Jonah didn't answer. He winced as he put his shirt on and stared at the floor.

"You’re seventy, Jonah. I’d advise against going on any solo sailing adventures. I’ve got the word from the master and commander, your wife, and I agree with her.”

“Humph,” Jonah grunted.

The doctor faced Jonah and peered into his eyes. “I’m serious.”

“It’s my life, Doctor, not yours—or Frances's”

“Get someone to go with you.”

Jonah tried to think of someone, but no one came to mind. Besides, he had other things to worry about: facts neither the doctor nor his wife knew. No, he’d be going alone the next chance he got.

The opportunity came not a week later. If he waited longer, the weather would be too cold. So, one early morning he came into the kitchen wearing his sailing gear and carrying his yellow slicker.

Frances was reading her iPad and looked up. “Where do you think you’re going?”

She had the worry in her eyes Jonah’d seen for forty years of marriage. They were both older now, but she also still had the same spark in her brown eyes he’d fallen in love with. Dammit though, he was once a lion. He could still roar a few more times. He avoided his wife’s eyes. “Sailing. A new boat, and I’m going to sail while I still can.”

“No, you’re not. Not alone you’re not.”

Jonah opened the kitchen door.

Frances called after him. “You're not doing this again.”

He turned back with his face tight and lips drawn thin. "Doing what?"

"Running off when you don't want to talk."

"I'm sailing, not running."

"You call it whatever you want."

“I’m going.” The kitchen door slammed behind him, his stomach bound up in a knot that always came when he argued with his wife.

Frances stood in the kitchen door with her arms crossed while he drove off. Her eyes pierced the back of him and he half wished he’d never be back, but missing Frances always drew him back. When he wasn’t with Frances, how could he reach for her in the night, how could he know she was there?

Not more than an hour later, Jonah manned the helm of his 35-foot sloop as it slipped the dock. Early morning, the pink sky rose in the eastern sea. Icy fall air hailed a winter to come, and seagulls screeched their complaints, diving and soaring. Only the shrimpers were on the move earlier. Their wakes spread in the harbor, the ragged boats dangling their nets, the outriggers like lost arms feeling their way. Jonah breathed deep. It was enough, the aloneness of it. The smell of fresh shrimp, ocean salt, and most of all, the decision he’d made to enjoy it while he still could.

The 30-horse diesel soon left the harbor behind, and now he felt the calmness that came when the world couldn't get at him. He turned the VHF to channel 16 just to be safe. Nothing but hiss. The antenna cable must’ve come loose. He made a note in his head to fix it. SEARCHING, his phone displayed. He smiled at the irony. All his life he’d been searching but felt he’d never found who he was. Everywhere he lived, he felt like an outsider. Like the seagulls swooping and diving in the early dawn, questions dove at him a thousand times—who was he, really?

He sipped bitter coffee from a thermos and felt the wind grow stronger, tucked his yellow slicker tighter around his throat, and eyed the wind angle. After throttling back, he slipped to neutral and drifted. The mainsail went up clean, the wind cracked against the canvas as he trimmed the sheet. He then unfurled the jib. The boat heeled leeward, and like a feral animal, gained its stride and broke for open water. Spray misted his face in the wide open sea and endless sky. But when he turned inward to his thoughts, his stomach dropped. The feeling of remembering something forgotten, but too late to fix, washed over him. Fear gripped anew the empty hollowness of what remained of his life.

Even before retirement, decisions mixed up in his mind. Two years ago, he had it all worked out to buy the Port Richie office building. A goldmine on paper, he knew it was right, the numbers a simple thing all stacked up like three by five cards in his head. But then the cards in his head mixed up and scattered like he’d gripped the pile too hard. His mind forgetting like this scared him, a place he’d never thought he’d be. He couldn’t get back to himself.

Best for everyone meant lights out, and he was ready. Not ready all the time, but now he more often rubbed the thought of his passing in the early hours while lying in bed while his wife slept next to him. He’d whisper and hold close the how and where and then the dream would start. A beast with red eyes nuzzled him in the dark of his bedroom, and it carried a fetid smell. It was a Leviathan haunting him, a sharp-toothed whale, and it wasn’t loving. It would creep up to his side and tell him about death’s promise of no more worries, a black void. There must be a three by five card in his head to tell him why or how to make the whale leave him alone, but the cards were all mixed, some missing entirely. How can you find a thought you forgot you had? Ever larger, the whale meant to swallow him. He smiled, dismissing the story his name was known for. But the chill up his back knew it was true.

But it was silly to think like this when he was sailing. He had a brand new 35-foot Catalina 355 with the wind rising.

He’d called the boat Purpose. Frances, his wife, had named it. “You need a purpose,” she said. “Or go back to work.”

But going back to work meant keeping the cards in his mind in order. And mixing up the stacked cards in his head was something he’d never share. He’d keep the secret between him and the whale.

Purpose was a beauty. A single-masted lady with gentle lines which leaned into the wind just like she was meant for. And now he was out further than ever before—but each horizon merged with the others. What horizon should he turn to? In the gray clouded void above, where was the sun? He suddenly felt dizzy and stumbled to the wheel. The compass spun lazy circles and taunted him with no true heading. He checked the VHF but all he heard was static. The antenna. His anger spiked. Why hadn’t he checked it? Desperate, he searched the sea. There were no boats in sight. Grabbing the wheel for balance, his head whirled. Doubling over, his gut heaved. He fell to his knees, then fell flat on the slick deck.

Lying there he drifted in and out. The vision of Frances the last time he saw her came to him, she standing in the kitchen door with her arms crossed. Her face was drawn with worry. His mind slipped back to the early days. He saw Frances in a more modest kitchen when they were first married. They were covered with flour, hands all over each other. The two of them were giggling about a burned rhubarb pie. They fed each other a piece before dragging themselves to the bedroom.

As he gained consciousness, the stubborn foolishness of his going alone gnawed at him. He focused on one thing: go home. Disgusted with himself, he was a man who had everything, when, a spoiled little boy thought he had nothing.

After lying still for a time, his head settled. Feeling relieved, he stood up with his hands still shaking to lower the sails. Before he did, he needed to come about, so he swung the wheel hard to starboard. For a moment he heard something deep, a thrum from something large and beneath the boat. "Get a grip," he muttered. The sails flapped, losing the wind, but the mainmast’s line caught on another he’d forgotten to secure. It was a stupid thing to do, and he knew better, but he needed to reach high to free the line.

That’s when the boom swung around and hit him square in the head.

As he went over the side, his thought before hitting the water was he’d forgotten to tie in, forgotten to tether himself to the boat, forgotten, dammit, to use his lifeline. The ash-colored water cluthed at him—cold and merciless—and he gasped, freezing. A wave swept over him and dragged him down. He came up sputtering saltwater and floundered with his arms to stay afloat, thrashing at the waves. His heart pounded in his chest.

The boat’s white fiberglass stern deck was right in front of him. He reached, but the boat slid to port and his hand slipped on the smooth swim platform. Kicking hard, his hand touched the edge again, but the sea dropped in the next swell and pulled him away. His heart didn’t just pound, but dropped, plummeting into his stomach. Now the boat drifted away. He’d have to swim for it and kicked with everything he had, pulling with his aching arms, screaming.

Exhausted, he treaded water. Ahead of him, he could see the hull with the mast rising above. Then he saw only the mast, then no mast at all. That’s when the realization struck him. He was going to die.

He flipped forward and pulled his boots off. The slicker dragged him under, so he pulled one arm at a time from the rubber-like sleeves and let it sink. After getting tired from treading water, he grabbed his knees and bobbed in the waves, rising and dipping in the icy swells. When he floated up, he’d exhale, his lungs burning, then pull as much air as he could like a desperate newborn bird. After taking a breath, he held it as he sank and then float back to the surface. Already, the freezing water numbed his legs, the tingle going dead from his knees down. Even if he had the strength, what would happen when he couldn’t feel his arms anymore?

The water calmed, and he fell into a pattern, bobbing and breathing. Sometimes he’d tread water, but this became harder with the numbness. Calmness came over him. He had nothing left to do, just wait. Beneath him, he imagined a dark shape, the fetid breath of his dreams, the whale. Maybe he’d get swallowed after all.

There was the insurance policy in place, a million to Frances. The girls would grieve, his funeral a small collection of friends. But the kids already had their own lives, and wouldn’t the insurance be the better bargain for everyone?

Why hadn’t he turned toward, rather than away? When Frances said, “Look at me. A new dress,” why didn’t he notice it? Why not, “You’re beautiful, the perfect color,” and give her a hug that meant something? Why not, “Can’t wait to have you on my arm,” instead of “Nice” and glance back to the sports page? He heard her voice even now, but she’d stopped speaking.

On those days when he saw Frances staring out the kitchen window, all tightened up with worry about the bills, or a child sick, or getting older all over her face, why couldn’t he save her? The look broke something inside him. When had the regret started, the acceptance of his own failure, the loathing of who he had become?

His arms were numb when he pushed them down in the water to rise once more. He choked out a laugh as the sun broke through and blinded him as he took one last look. A bank of clouds cut through the distance. It was a fitting ending with the sky’s scarlet horizon so far away, yet close enough to breathe. He took a final breath, so deep his lungs near burst to hold on to life one last time.

The weight of his body took him deeper, and he kept his legs together and arms to his side to check the water’s resistance. It seemed he’d never stop descending. Above him, a brightness glistened. But the light faded as he dropped. Below him a dark shape loomed.

Exhale.

But he couldn’t let himself exhale, and his lungs burned. At first one leg kicked, then the other.

His arm pushed down.

Then the other.

Now he kicked harder.

His lungs would never hold. They were on fire.

He could see the surface.

Too late, he exhaled, tasting salt.

But he wasn’t breathing water.

Air rushed into his howling lungs as he broke the surface. He looked for the sun, but it was gone. He was in the shadow of Purpose in front of him. She had circled around, rudderless.

The fiberglass swim platform, the refuge of the stern landing, swung almost within reach. But his arms were just too numb. In the next swell, he was not swept away, but lifted and gently placed on the wide berth. He lay there for a long time in the sun.

Purpose motored slowly by the other sailboats lined up in their slips. Jonah threw the wheel and the water churned in reverse. He tied down on the cleats and stepped onto the dock. The sailboat club looked the same, the happy hour crowd just starting to show up. The sky was the same. He’d seen the late afternoon sun fall off the western bay many times. And Jonah was much the same. He still knew his mind would never get back to the sharp edge it’d been. But there was Frances at the end of the dock coming towards him with her limping, bad hip. There she was with the same worried look her face carried like a well-worn memory.

“I almost called the Coast Guard,” Frances said. She gave Jonah a once-over. “What’s wrong with your head? You look awful. You’re bleeding.”

“I’ll be alright. I’ll get the First Aid Kit.”

“Ok. See you at home?” Frances moved to go.

“Frances.”

“What? I’ll see you at home.”

“Were you at book club?”

“Sure. Like always.”

Jonah smiled. He turned towards her.

Frances looked at him, curious. “What?”

“Let me fix up my head and then you and me have a drink at this club we never go to. I want to hear all about that book you’re reading. I’ll bet the sight of you will turn a few heads.”

“Those days are long gone.”

“Not for me.”

Frances scoffed. “You say.”

“The thing is...” The words caught in his throat, his eyes tearing up.

“Jonah?”

“We need to talk about something.”

“You think I don’t know? I can help you if you let me.” Frances took Jonah’s arm and flashed the brown eyes at Jonah he knew so well.

He smiled, though the dock jostled and he steadied himself. He'd tell her soon, just not tonight.