ENTRY 1
HI DAD,
I’m going to write you until this pencil wears out. Until all of me wears out. I’m not sure what’s real and what’s not anymore, but these words, they feel real. Solid. And there’s a chance my letter to you will wash up on the right shore.
The wreck, the one that started all this, lies a hundred feet under the Atlantic, close to Key Largo. Ten miles offshore, you’ll find a place where the water turns blue-black and the salt spray tastes different, coppery. And you’ll feel it as soon as your boat passes over the spot. Something wrong beneath your skin, as if the blood moving through your heart has gone sour, like old milk.
If you feel all that, you keep going. Get to shore. Promise me. The whole point of writing any of this down is to save you.
The last day we saw each other, I lied and said the charter was cancelled because of high seas. Mom never cancelled it. She needed the money, the new captain said it was okay, and we had ten divers with full pockets who wanted to see pretty fish, and, well, you know how it is.
The weather didn’t look bad while we were still docked, especially with the wall of hotels and condos that circle the marina like a giant, overpriced windbreak. But once Captain Phil got us out past the Haystacks, the gusts picked up, and we knew we were in trouble. The ocean started up that trick that makes you think your boat’s made of balsa wood and Elmer’s glue, not tough fiberglass and metal. But you know me, I never get sick; I didn’t even when I was little and you took me fishing on black flag days. The tourists spent most of the ride hurling, watching the sea, not the horizon like I told them.
The week before, Phil went out by himself and found the wreck and marked the place with a buoy. When I spotted it, small and white and bobbing about a hundred yards off the bow, the shiver hit me for the first time—that feeling you get when someone walks over the spot your tombstone will go one day. I thought about the water, and how there was just too much of it—too deep, too dark, too cold below the first thermocline. Not a good day to dive.
Phil got up and ambled over to me, which is the only way to describe the way Mom’s new captain walked. Like his pilot’s chair was his horse, and he was just heading into the saloon. He scratched his salt-and-pepper stubble and ran a sweaty hand over his shirt, a lavender stone-washed wife beater that made him look like a total dirtbag.
“Your mama tells me your job is babysitting the green ones,” he said.
“Someone’s gotta make sure none of the divers fall over and get a concussion.”
Phil eyed me in a way you’d hate. I zipped up my wet suit the rest of the way, wishing I’d chosen the one-piece that morning instead of the bikini.
Phil tipped his head toward the starboard side of the Last Chance. A diver, his wet suit new and top-of-the-line, had his head over the side like he was slowly melting into the Atlantic. A five-hundred-dollar mask, also new, sat in a pool of seawater at his feet.
Phil’s face broke into a smile. “Good luck with that one, girlie.”
“Like you’ve never been seasick. Happens to everyone eventually.”
Mom passed by and nudged me with an elbow. “Seriously, Tasia. Get the customer in the water.”
“Should I hook a bucket to his waist, or just strap it to his head to puke into?”
“Divers who don’t dive are bad for business.”
I knew what she really meant. No more bad online reviews about a “terrible” experience at Blue Dolphin Scuba Charters. The one time I posted a reply telling the whiner we have no control over the wind and waves and a hair-trigger gag reflex, business tanked for a week. And I got grounded.
Mom pointed at the seasick diver, who was now stumbling toward the head, and then pointed at the water before putting on her mask. She sat on the edge and rolled off backward into the waves, disappearing under the surface like a stone. I waited for her to resurface and give the signal—a fist on the top of her head—to tell us she was okay. There’s always a little girl in me who thinks when Mom is gone, even for a split second, she’s not coming back.
Too cold, too dark, too deep. Get out and go home.
Our craft bobbed and rolled in the waves like a toy in a bathtub. I stumbled over to the diver, who hadn’t made it halfway to the head before throwing his upper body over the side again.
“The horizon, Mr. Marshall.” I squeezed his shoulder. “Keep your eyes there. Above the waterline.”
He tipped his chin up to stare into the distance, his expression the dictionary definition of miserable. The waves crested white froth that the wind pulled off in ribbons. Then the churning blue-gray waters exhaled and flattened, bit by bit, before the whole show started up again. Beautiful. To me, to you. Not to Mr. Marshall. More crests, swell, and foam sliding over the surface. It was chaos from there to the coast, and he was again watching the sea.
The moon was still out, hovering a handbreadth above the place where blue sky and gray sea met. I pointed at it.
“Fix your eyes on the moon, Mr. Marshall. She’ll stay still.”
He shook his head, fisting his mouth. “Sia, I don’t think I can do it. Go on without me,” he said through his knuckles. “Don’t want to hold anyone up.”
Behind me, another diver splashed into the water. That shiver was still with me, and I fought the urge to tell him he was right to stay up here on the Last Chance, that I would join him for a topside vomit party. We would watch the moon disappear into the day together.
Instead I hooked an arm around his neck and walked him over to the bench and his expensive fins. “Once you get in, you’re golden. Boat’s no good in these waves. Nausea will disappear once you’re off the roller coaster.”
A touch of hope shone through the green pallor and his embarrassment. “Really?”
“Like flipping a switch.”
I hooked the tank to his BC, which he kept calling a “buoyancy control device,” like he was a walking textbook of proper diving terms. I didn’t bother correcting him. Like the rest of his equipment, the BC was uber expensive, the kind that’s made of ballistic nylon and has pockets for everything. I pulsed a healthy shot of air inside—the last thing we needed was this guy to get into the water and sink like a stone—and held it open for him, like a valet with a smoking jacket. “Come on. If I’m wrong, you can get out and lie on the floor for the next hour.”
The poor guy listened to me.
And I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to forgive myself.
He fit the regulator into his mouth, took a deep breath, and gave me a weak thumbs-up. The other divers were in the drink, only their heads and the bloated tops of their inflated BCs visible as they bobbed in the waves, all watching to see what he would do. The neon-pink mask girl waved him in, and the diver with the navy stripe on his arms gave him an encouraging okay sign. They’d only met him that morning, a guy arriving solo on the docks with a big, shiny bag of gear and a seven a.m. smile, but he was already one of us.
And I remembered something you said to me once: The sea brings us closer. All of us, tiny and vulnerable and out of place in a big, wet world, poised at the top of the ocean, ready to drop, and we suddenly realize how much we need each other.
One giant stride and he was in. I gave Phil a mock salute and followed Mr. Marshall. The warning in my gut was nothing but a murmur, one I could barely hear over the wind. I finned my way over to the buoy that marked the drop line and grabbed it. It felt solid, comforting.