The Sea Was Finally Quiet

The Sea Was Finally Quiet

Not placid, nor apologetic, just eerily quiet, as if it had finished shouting, curious about what I’d do next. The boat rocked. Listless, broken, tired as I was, each rise and dip was gentle enough to make me forget, for a few heartbeats, that I was alone.

She sat low in the water, heavy from the night’s storm. Mast snapped, sail gone. I dipped out water with my shoe, one scoop at a time, the way daddy taught me when the bilge quit. Every splash over the side felt like proof I wasn’t done yet.

Salt stung the raw places on my lips. My fingers were pruned and cramping from hanging on too long to the edge of the gunwale, enduring an endless night as the boat tossed and turned in the storm. Tattered, cold, and wet, I huddled, lost in my feelings. The storm had taken everything: my oars, the go bag, always in the boat as a rule, and my bearings. It had left me floating. That was something; maybe it counted as a mercy.

I wasn’t sure yet. My eyes skimmed the bottom of the small boat, looking for the bottle that had given me solace through the night. Fear had wormed through the whiskey haze, and instead of letting myself go into the angry waters as had been my thought, my hands gripped the gunwale, stubborn things that still wanted to live.

Ok, maybe I didn’t really want to die, but I was tired, tired clean through. Life had been a long row against the current, and I was worn out. I guess I wasn’t much different than a lot of people in our small town, just scraping to get by. Maybe it was the loneliness. No kin left, no friends to speak of except the fishmonger who bought my catches. Daddy left me the boat and the shanty-shack at the end of the road; that was my inheritance.

It wasn't that I meant to die, exactly. I just figured if the storm took me, no one could call it a suicide. Of course, a few might wonder why a seasoned sailor would go out in such weather. They’d say I got caught out in a storm; it happens. There wouldn’t be that many who would mourn. There was heavy prejudice against women who fished. A few folks would probably argue over the shack and the boat if it turned up.

I had the misfortune of being born a girl and the only child. Daddy never forgave me for costing him my mama. So, there you go. You can likely guess how the rest went. Everything I ever tried to do seemed to circle back to failure. “Can't even die right,” I muttered, and the words startled me. Then I laughed a half-cough, half-cackle that echoed across the water, sounding small and foolish.

I looked up, shielding my eyes. The horizon was clean and endless, no sound but the slap of the water against the wood. You don't realize how loud the world is until it ain’t. I wasn't thinking about dying anymore; I was out of the mood. One good thing about being a woman: you can change your mind.

Part of me was waiting for a rescue boat. Another part of me, older, quieter, knew that no one was coming. Not this time. It would take a bit for anyone to notice that I was missing.

When I looked down, the sea looked back, dark and steady, and in its stillness something shimmered. An eye met mine, black with a glint of blue, the skin around it tightening like a blink. My breath hissed from my chest. A pinkish albino dolphin, as real as the wet clothes I sat in, looked up at me! I blinked again. I could feel my heartbeat revving up; my whole body felt tingly, forgetting the aches and pains of being battered in the night. Wonder flooded me.

The thing I once believed in slid along the side of the boat, close enough for me to see the faint veins under its pale skin. “Damn it,” I whispered. Patting my pockets, no phone, no camera, I had nothing! I looked around, half sure it was just leftover whiskey fog.

The sun had climbed higher, turning the water a deep green-blue that hid everything but that flash of pink. I watched the light glint and skitter hypnotically over the skin of the dolphin. “Unbelievable,” I spit out, almost angry, “You can't show up now, making me think that I actually have something to live for!”

The dolphin’s dark eye kept watching, calm and knowing. I swear it was grinning. Then the water shifted, it rolled under the hull, and disappeared. The water lapped a bit more against the boat, sounding hopeful.

“No!” I said weakly. I took a deep breath and said it louder, “No, No don't go!” my words flinging like gull cries over the water. Maybe I cussed a little; it's a bad habit I've lived with. I had been looking for her my whole life. When I was six, I had drawn a pink dolphin and taped it to the old fridge. It was still there; the tape had yellowed a bit, and the picture had aged. Drove my daddy crazy, the way I was going on and on about it, all the time. I had seen it once, over the port side of the boat. Not one person had believed me, but I knew what I had seen, and I never stopped believing. Except I had these last months.

“I'm still here,” I whispered, almost apologetic. “Come back, please.” For a moment, I was that kid again, the world was new and sparkly, full of good things. It's like finding the perfect sand dollar on the beach, enjoying my favorite ice cream, and feeling the comfort of new rain boots. How did I forget all of that?

For a while, I sat still, feeling the silence pressing warm against my skin, till every disappointment I had ever felt floated up like driftwood. They circled me like a flotilla of grief and loss. The feeling of never being enough, losing the grant for my studies, losing daddy, and finally the loss of Bo, the best damn dog any girl ever had. That had me reaching for the whiskey last night. I breathed out a long breath and started to envision that soggy, gnarled driftwood breaking up and floating away.

That's when I saw it, one of my oars slicing through the water towards me, being nudged by that pink dolphin. The oar bumped against the boat side once, twice, asking to be noticed. I leaned over and pulled it in. The wood was a bit scuffed, but solid enough. I didn't think. I just set it in the water and pulled. The boat nudged forward, slowly. It wasn't going to be easy; I’d have some serious blisters.

“You —thank you, thank you! I said, laughing and crying all at once. “I knew you were real. All this time. I knew it! I just forgot for a bit, that’s all!” I was babbling and sobbing more, but I’d like to overlook that.

The dolphin swam alongside for one final glide, close enough that my fingers brushed its slick skin. Then it slipped down into the depths. I stared at my damp fingers, trying to fix the feel of its skin on my hungover mind.

For the first time since the storm, water whispered against the hull instead of slapping at it. The air smelled clean. A gull drifted far overhead, its shadow sliding over me; an acknowledgment that land was near.

Each pull on the oar sent a tremor through my arms. It hurt, but it was a good kind of hurt, the kind that means you're alive.

“For every year I looked for you,” I said softly, one stroke.

“For every time I wished and hoped to see you again,” another stroke.

“For every time I forgot what was important,” another stroke.

And that is how it went, me talking my heart out with every pull.

When I finally stopped to rest, I looked around, hoping for one last flash of pink.

The horizon was clean in every direction, no land, no sails, no proof that anyone else existed. And somehow, that didn't feel like loneliness. It felt like room.

Maybe there was land ahead, maybe not. Perhaps somebody would come looking for me, perhaps not. But the sea no longer looked endless; it looked possible. I dipped the oar again and felt the give and resistance.

“Keep going,” I whispered, not to the water this time, but to myself.

And the boat moved forward, cutting a quiet line through the bright, forgiving waves.