Washed Ashore

Part 1: Waking Up at Sea

Oh no, I’m going to be sick, she thought.

She lay there, eyes shut, taking a deep breath. She could feel the spins through her feet.

Oh no, I can’t be sick.

Overwhelmed by the feeling she was moving in a wave, she felt like a boat in the ocean—her stomach rising with the tide in her throat.

Oh no, I’m going to be . . . seasick?

She opened her eyes and sat up. There was no time to question where in the nautical hell she was; she locked eyes with the bucket at the bedside, and there went the remains of whatever was yesterday.

Panting, she opened her eyes again and looked down the . . .

Galley? Is that a galley?

She noticed her socks, her shoes, and a towel arranged on the floor.

“There’s a bottle of water if you need it,” he said from across the room.

She froze. That voice. She knew it. She didn’t need to look at him.

“Oh, no,” she also said aloud, unintentionally and shocked by her own voice.

“It’s okay. That’s what the bucket’s for,” he said.

She closed her eyes for a moment before meeting his.

“What the hell is going on?” she asked slowly. She didn’t want to give him a moment of triumph over this moment of weakness, but she also wanted to know—genuinely—what the hell was going on.

“What’s it look like is going on?” he asked.

What smarm on this asshole.

He retrieved the bucket from her and disappeared into the bathroom.

She opened the bottle and took a sip, buying time to find her words.

“Well, it seems like you’ve commandeered me on a sea voyage. Now, how about you get me back to land so I can go home?” she said.

“Commandeered? That’s presumptuous.”

“It’s doubtful I asked to sail away with you.”

“You didn’t ask for much except to not go home. And in your state, you certainly couldn’t get there.”

Of course, he makes it my fault.

“Look, I don’t know where we are, but how long until you get me back to shore?”

“Again, it’s presumptuous—”

“Michael, spare me the snark. I’m sorry for whatever let you think I wanted on this raft,” she said.

She started peeling away the blankets, careful not to show relief at finding she was fully clothed. She pulled her legs over the side of the bed and put on her socks and shoes. She eyed her jacket and purse hung on the chair across the room, across the . . .

Galley? What the hell do you call this part of a boat?! Who cares, just get off of it.

He smirked.

“Just don’t. I don’t know why you thought it was appropriate to show up yesterday, and I’m sorry if I was misleading in whatever state I was in. But please, go upstairs and turn this boat around,” she said. She stood and began retrieving her belongings, amazed at the steadiness of her unexpecting sea legs.

“Fine, fine. Whatever you want,” he said. He turned and climbed the small stairs to the upper deck.

Almost as quickly as he disappeared, he hollered down, “Okay, you’re free to leave.”

She eyed the room as she headed toward the upper deck. She stepped onto the deck and guarded her eyes from the sun. As she slid on her sunglasses, she saw they were docked. At Pardo’s Marina. The marina by the bar. Michael’s bar. The bar on her walk home from the funeral.

They had not left shore.

She looked at the bar. She looked at Michael. She looked toward the harbor. Back at Michael.

“You asshole,” she said.

“I’m the asshole? You’re the one who accused me of kidnapping at sea,” he said.

“Look, I just need to go home,” she said, heading toward the ladder to the dock.

“I said that yesterday. But now you could at least stay for a cup of coffee. It’s fresh. You look . . . like you need it,” he said.

For that moment—a very swift moment—she wasn’t listening to him but staring at the ladder. The flimsy ladder led to a wobbly dock with an unsteady walk back to shore. A shore where the last few weeks existed and waited for a version of herself she was not ready to revisit. Not just yet, if she didn’t have to.

She turned slowly and looked at him again. He clownishly held up a coffee mug that read “I’m with stupid” with a finger pointing upward.

“One cup. But only because that cup is honest.”

“Milk and sugar?” he asked, pouring coffee into the mug set atop a mosaic tile table.

“Just black,” she said, looking around the deck to break his gaze. “Quite a vibe you’ve got here.”

“You just got here, and you’re judging my decorating?” He placed the coffee in front of her.

“Sorry, and thank you for the coffee. So, how the hell did I end up on this decrepit vessel?” she asked, sipping her coffee and raising an eyebrow at him from behind her sunglasses.

Of course, his coffee is delicious.

Part 2: The Ending of the Beginning

17 days ago.

It started 17 days ago.

Or it ended 17 days ago.

All that ended was your marriage and your ability to be trustworthy and naive.

Three weeks ago, she took the car in for its 65,000-mile check-up. The music was pure elevator and hardly masked the sound of car sales being made nearby. But the coffee was free, the snacks were free, and the service was fast. The friendly woman behind the counter checked her out within two and a half hours, though she was oddly apologetic. It was a milestone appointment, she explained.

Oh, what a milestone it turned out to be.

“My apologies, this level of service appointment takes longer. But your car is in great shape. We threw in a free detailing. You’ll find a list of services rendered and a bag of belongings moved during the cleaning on the passenger’s seat. Have a wonderful day,” the clerk said, handing her the keys.

She slid into the driver’s seat. She didn’t bother with the receipt. She didn’t bother with the bag. But when she slammed the brakes for a stoplight, the bag had a life of its own.

The stoplight was at the intersection of Winston and 9th. They had lived there for ten years, and somehow it always surprised them. She swore the red light changed on a timer all its own. “Tricky Winston,” they called it.

In the coming days, this moment would be on loop in her head. The plastic bag, clad in the car dealer’s logo—“Car King: Where You Get the Royal Treatment”—jutted forward and hit the floor. Something spilled out. It was almost camouflaged against the floormat. She returned her eyes to the road and drove home.

She pulled into the garage. She turned off the car. She grabbed the bag and its spilled contents: a lacy, beige woman’s thong.

Not only was it small, certainly not her size, but it was beige.

She sat in the car for an eternity, but for what also felt like a flash.

Time is meaningless when you watch your life fall apart.

She pulled the ‘leave it on the counter so he knows he’s caught’ move. She didn’t know where this spiteful move came from—they had never been this way with each other—but she didn’t know herself as a woman scorned either.

It was exactly one hour and forty-five minutes until he got home. It was thirty minutes after she heard his footsteps enter the kitchen that he called her in. She hoped those thirty minutes were an eternity for him, too.

The fight that ensued was a match. Round One: Who is she? How old is she? Where did you meet her?

“Does it matter?” he asked.

“It does if you don’t want to tell me,” she barked back.

This ignited Round Two: How many were there? How long has this been going on? Was I not enough for you?

“You should leave,” she concluded, disinterested in the answers.

He got in the newly manicured car and sped off.

It was 17 days ago, and she could still hear his car colliding with another in the Tricky Winston intersection.

Metal on metal, crumpling like tin foil.

Part 3: Sailing into the Unknown

Writing the obituary was like announcing the death of her husband and her marriage to a stranger.

Both wounds were wide open, and she hated to admit the resentment was a gusher. Every word she wrote was laced with disdain.

“He graduated from SCU.”

And you think he was faithful there?

“He dedicated his life to service.”

Serving who, exactly?

“He is survived by his wife of 10 years.”

Survived is a strong word right now.

His infidelity had surfaced like a shark and sunk their ship in minutes. Or it felt that way for her. They would never have the chance to know if they could grow the grace needed to throw each other a life vest.

Til death do you part, but she hadn’t given much thought to how she would behave when that happened.

But fickle bitch was not on your bingo card . . . but neither was widow.

Planning the funeral was done in a daze. Because her husband died or because so had her marriage—she didn’t and might not ever know.

She sat with herself, her feelings, her anxiety, and made one decision: his secrets would be hers. Why did his mother, his sisters, his nieces and nephews—why did anyone need to know now? He hadn’t cheated on them.

How do you plan a funeral for a man you suddenly don’t know?

Her fingers fumbled through photos, seen so many times but now unrecognizable. She couldn’t look too long, panicked she would see a shade of uncertainty, of infidelity.

At the funeral, she was eerily on autopilot: Shake the hand, take the hug, accept the condolences, and share a memory. More importantly, she went ice cold to the comments.

“He is gone too soon.”

“He was such a giving soul.”

“What will you do without him?”

On her recessional, the emotional gauntlet to day 18, her gaze was almost unbroken, less a woman distracting her from the back of the room. Her sunglasses and her waist-tied, mid-thigh jacket in the middle of summer like a thief—there was no uncertainty.

This is when the day went dark. Or at least somehow darker than the last two weeks.

Part 4: Crash Landing

From the casket to the double doors, passing her in the wake, it was a blur.

She blew through the venue and exhaled like she was surfacing from unimaginable depths.

There aren’t many places to hide in a marina town. Even fewer if it’s the town where you live. Impossible if it’s the town where you grew up.

Standing in the fresh air of Pardo’s Marina, she was equally terrified but somehow refreshed.

Then it was panic.

Followed by insecurity.

Followed by callow images of her, standing at his funeral, as a participant in their loss.

She stormed the nearest place to hide.

The nearest unknown and unfrequented place in this marina.

The nearest bar—don’t lie to yourself.

The Pardo(n) Me.

It was where the marina-kin drank. It was where misguided tourists drank—or didn’t, after their disappointment with the vibe (or so said the online reviews).

It was also a dive she had not visited in ages because she was neither a sailor, a tourist, nor someone looking forward to seeing an old friend.

She was a few drinks in before he showed up. Through a side door, clearly on business, arms full with a crate of . . .

. . . is that fish? Of course, he’s a guy who crates fish. All those Pacey jokes must have come true for him.

But then it was a bar-wide pause. Unexpected. Unnecessary. But somehow undeniable. Then suddenly she was telling a friend—an old friend, an unacquainted friend, a friend slightly forgotten, but a friend who would listen to—a truth yet untold.

Part 5: Sail Away

Back on deck, she looked at him across the mosaic table and her “stupid” coffee mug.

“So, what then?” she asked.

“It wasn’t my business and it’s not my business,” he said.

“But?”

“But, you washed ashore at my bar. We see boats in worse shape than you all the time. And you know what we do? We try to see the best in them and clear off the barnacles for what’s next,” he said.

“So now I’m a boat?”

“Well, you’re not a mermaid. Look at yourself.”

“Watch it, sir,” she smirked.

“Just tell me you remember the ‘Someday’ conversation,” he asked.

“Some day? No. Your bar overserves its clients,” she said, tipping her empty mug toward him.

“It’s not about some day. It’s about the Someday,” he said, refilling her mug.

“This seems pedantic.”

“Pedantic? It’s prescriptive,” he said. He sat down across from her, both elbows on the table, an upside-down “If you can read this, I’ve capsized mug” in his hands.

Her inhale was deep and her exhale was a wind.

“I’m sorry if in last night’s escapades I have forgotten,” she said.

“It was hardly an escapade. It’s forensics. We’re talking about the Someday. Your husband purchased it for someone . . . for some day,” he said, pointing across the marina to a boat, more yacht-like than her current vessel. “He didn’t show up to the Pardon Me often, but he showed up. And he spoke about her a lot. He just didn’t know how to get her ready to sail."

There were deep sips of coffee from both sides of the table, from Stupid and from Capsized.