Jonny and I decide to wait until late November to make the crossing from the Caribbean to Africa. It’s a challenging trip, with difficult winds and crosscurrents, and that’s under the best of conditions. Until then, we opt to, as Jonny puts in, “bum around a bit.” I think he’s angling to take on another crew member or two, because a west to east trip with only two people, even on a catamaran designed for minimal crew, is tricky as hell, and would be made safer by additional hands.

Fine by me, just don’t expect me to be best friends with any of them.

We left Venezuela and followed the coast, for the most part. We put in at Trinidad and Tobago for a while, and then took another short jaunt up to Grenada, where we stayed for a few days, drinking rum like it was about to be discontinued. Just like the old days, which was exactly what I needed. We’d hit bar after bar, making friends and telling outrageous stories. We left Grenada, and Jonny convinced me—which didn’t take much work on his part—to hit up Barbados. So then we ended up staying in Bridgetown for most of a week.

Which is where we met Martinique. A French expat, an experienced sailor, and the only woman I’ve ever met who could go shot for shot with Jonny. Shit, not just the only woman, but the only person aside from myself. Going shot for shot with Jonny Núñez is a competition I only attempted once and vowed never to repeat. Martinique, though? She did it three nights in a row, at three different bars, and it was Jonny who put the kibosh on a fourth.

It is four in the morning, we’ve been drinking since nine the previous evening, and we are currently on The Hemingway, in the saloon, playing a drinking card game that doesn’t really make sense for three people.

Martinique is shuffling the deck. “I have a question,” she says, bridging the cards and then rifling them into a stack to shuffle them again.

“I’m sure one of us has an answer,” I say. “Maybe not the right one, but an answer, at least.”

“Where are you going after you leave Bridgetown?” She eyes me, cutting the deck with one hand and pouring shots for each of us with the other.

She’s in her early thirties, maybe late twenties—it’s hard to be sure. She has the air of a woman who has seen much of this world and a lot of life in a short span—worldly-wise, knowing brown eyes, long blond hair she keeps in a loose braid. A killer body, a yoga body, a swimmer’s body, strong, athletic, toned, but curvy enough that I find it hard to not stare at her. Over the last three days, she’s worn what seemed to be a kind of uniform for her: short khaki shorts that barely covered her ass, a tank top or V-neck T-shirt, and Teva sandals and a pair of mirrored sunglasses on top of her head, the arms shoved into her hair.

Jonny shoots me a glance, telling me silently it’s mine to answer.

I waffle on how to answer. We’ve spent a lot of time over the past few days trading stories of our various voyages, and it’s clear Martinique knows her way around a boat and the open sea. She would be a valuable asset on the transatlantic voyage, both as an extra pair of hands and as someone new to break the monotony. She’s funny, sharp, and has no problem keeping up with Jonny’s acerbic and sarcastic sense of humor, or my often-stony silences. Plus, she’s beautiful.

But on the negative side, she’s beautiful. She’s a distraction. A potential problem. The last thing I need in my life is a funny and beautiful woman.

I know, intellectually, that I should tell her we aren’t looking for any additional crew. I know it. I don’t need the distraction, the temptation.

But I’m sick of being haunted by the specter of what used to be. I need something new in my life, and this is a new chapter, right? It doesn’t have to be a thing. She’s just someone to make the transatlantic trip more pleasant.

“South,” I answer, eventually. “Georgetown or Paramaribo, most likely.”

She deals, and nods, then fixes me with another look. “And then? Long term, I mean.”

“Africa.”

She nods again, and each of us examines our cards. “I am trying to make my way back to Europe. I ’ave been gone for quite a few years, and I think it is now time to go back to Marseilles. See my family. See my father, before he is gone.”

I nod, and glance at Jonny. He shrugs a shoulder, his expression closed. I know he approves of her for the voyage, or we wouldn’t have spent the last three days drinking with her, but it is my decision, in the end.

I fidget with my cards and sigh, knowing I’m probably making a mistake. “The crossing, then. I don’t know my plans beyond that.”

She smiles at me, warm and bright and sharp. “The crossing. Wonderful. Thank you, Christian.”

I keep my smile in return small and somewhat cold. “Looking forward to the journey, Martinique. We’ll have a lot of fun, I think.”

Her gaze glitters, and her grin is enigmatic. “Oh, I’m sure we will.” She plays the first card, takes a drink, and winks at me. “Call me Marta.”

Later, after she’s left for her hostel, Jonny pokes his head into my quarters; I’m lying in my bed, letting the room spin, and wondering exactly what I’ve gotten myself into by agreeing to have Marta make the crossing with us.

“You are sure about this, Chris?” Jonny asks.

“About what?”

He snorts at me. “Don’t play stupid. Marta— you sure it’s a good idea bringing her?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

Jonny expels a breath. “Because she’s a nice-lookin’ lady and you’re two years into a dry spell. And you’re not in a good place in your head or heart. And because I saw the way she was lookin’ at you.”

“She wasn’t looking at me any kind of way.”

He blows a raspberry. “Yeah, okay, bro. Whatever you say.”

“Fine, I’ll bite. How was she looking at me?”

“Like she wanted to eat you for dinner.”

“She’s just along for the transatlantic.”

“So you say now.”

“So I say now, and so I’ll say all the way across. Not looking for that, Jonny.”

“Good. Because that would be a complication you don’t need.”

“No shit.”

He hesitates. “Look, Chris. I’m your friend. Maybe even a mentor in some ways. I’ve got your back. I’ll check your shit when your shit needs checkin’, okay? But I ain’t your papa. I’ll tell you how I see it, but I ain’t gonna police your ass, okay? You make that mistake, it’s on you. This is me warnin’ you—that girl has her eye on you. Don’t go there, me etiéndes, amigo mio?”

I throw a pillow in the direction of his voice. “Yes, yes, yes. I got it. Fuck off so I can sleep.”

* * *

We’d made good time from Barbados to Rio, which was our last stop on this side of the world. Marta had proven herself to be every bit as valuable as I’d predicted, and the three of us had meshed well together, falling into an easy sync as a crew. Jonny and I had discussed the possibility of a fourth person, but I’d squashed that idea after some thought. For me, it was hard enough having one new person aboard, and the thought of two new people made me queasy. I liked Marta, but I kept my distance, as much as one could on a relatively small boat such as this.

I’d overestimated myself, I was realizing. Jonny is a known commodity, to me. An old friend, someone with whom I have a history. Someone who knows me, knows what I am going though.

Marta? She knows nothing. I’ve resolved to keep it that way. She doesn’t make it easy, though. She’s a natural conversationalist, and it used to be my nature to let the talk flow freely, let the conversation go wherever it ended up. And for the most part, it was fine; we would talk about music and art and the exotic locales we’ve been to and favorite drinks and favorite cuisine, and eventually she would find something to do somewhere else. And then I would breathe a sigh of relief, because I’d weathered another moment alone with her; each time it was just Marta and me, I would feel as if I was being tempted, and then I would tell myself how stupid that was, how greatly I was overestimating my own attractiveness. I wasn’t attracted to her or her to me. I may not currently be with Ava physically at the moment, and we may be experiencing a deep and agonizing separation, but I was still committed to her. Marta was just a passenger and deckhand on my boat for a few weeks. No reason for any weirdness.

But sometimes…she would get curious. About me. And that’s what I struggled with. I didn’t want to talk about any of that, with anyone. I wanted to pretend it hadn’t happened. I wanted to keep pretending this life on the sea was all there was, all there ever had been. But then Marta would ask a probing question.

Like now. She sits opposite me. I’m behind the wheel, feet kicked up, an e-reader in hand. The sails are trimmed and bellied out taut in a favorable wind carrying us eastward toward Africa. The sky is blue and clear, the waves rolling past and around and beneath us, the sun is high, just past the midpoint. And Marta is on the couch a few feet away, eying me over the top of a magazine, which looks like a French version of People. She’s got her mirrored wraparound sunglasses on, making her expression unreadable. She’s in her customary too-short shorts and a tank top. Jonny is forward, earbuds in, sunning himself.

“So, Christian. May I ask, why are you making this voyage?” She asks it casually, seemingly as passing conversation. But yet I feel her attentiveness as a second skin upon my flesh, wrapping around the moment.

“I’ve only been to Cape Town twice and Jo-burg once. I’ve always wanted to go again.” I shrug. “Now’s as good a time as any.” Truthful statements, all, and vague enough.

She flips a page of her magazine. “I meant…” She waves at the sea around in an expansive, all-encompassing gesture, “in a more…philosophical or personal sense. More deeply. The voyage as a whole. Not merely this leg of it, only. Why are you sailing? You and your friend, the very funny Jonny.”

“I can’t speak for Jonny, necessarily, but I’ve known him long enough to know the sea and sailing and fishing are all he’s ever known. He’s sailing because it’s what he knows.”

“And you?”

I shrug, trying for nonchalant. “I…needed a change. A big one. I sailed with Jonny awhile back, and when I decided to do this, I knew I needed him along for the ride.”

“You are trying for a circumnavigation?”

I shrug again. “Eh. Not in the particular sense of the word, no. I hope to get all the way around eventually, yes, but…I’m in no rush to get anywhere in particular. Last time I was out, we sailed west to east, from the Caribbean down around Tierra del Fuego and then up to Indonesia by way of Hawaii. This time, I want to see things going in the opposite direction.”

She flips another page, the sound of the paper snapping seeming irritated; I may be attributing too much meaning to the turn of a page, however. “So you’re sailing just to sail?”

“More or less.” I don’t give her time for another question. “Why are you out here?”

“I left home very young. I read too many stories of young boys who went out to seek their fortunes on the sea and I thought, I could do that. I was a naive little girl. I did not realize how different our world is now than when those stories were written. I lied about my age and convinced a fishing boat to take me on as kitchen help. In time, they let me work on deck with the men. That was almost twenty years ago, and I have spent the years in between on fishing boats, on the antique tall ships, on anti-whaling expeditions, scientific research vessels scouring the Antarctic. Any ship I could find berth on, anywhere it was going. I have accumulated very little money, but a great many stories and a lot of wonderful friendships. A greater fortune than a bank vault full of Euros, I think.” She gives a very Gallic lift of a shoulder. “Now I go home, finally. For how long, I do not know. Until Papa is dead, perhaps.”

“Is he sick?”

“Not in any particular sense. He is just very old and has lived a very hard life. I was an accident, you see. My next oldest sibling is fourteen years my elder, and my parents began having children late. So even though I am only thirty, my father is eighty years old. I was…an afterthought.” She twirled the end of her braid between her fingers. “When he is gone, I think I will set out again, and this time, I will not return to Marseilles. It is not really my home. The sea, she is my home.”

I nod. “I think I understand.”

Marta gestured at the waves again. “The sea, is she your only home, too?”

I debate my answer for a little longer than I probably should. “For now, The Hemingway is home.”

“Why that name? I have wondered.”

“I enjoy writing. Ernest Hemingway is one of my favorite writers, and a wonderfully complex figure. A man of great courage, great talent, and many faults. A true man of the world.” I can’t help but let my mouth run away from me. “He was an alcoholic, and he committed suicide. But his life and his writings left behind an indelible mark on the world. I think I named her The Hemingway so that I would be reminded of…well, many things. The beauty in the written word, the importance of truly living in each moment and of having courage, and that alcohol alone will not exorcise one’s demons, or eradicate one’s ghosts. In committing suicide, Hemingway stole from the world a great many more works of fiction, and that, to me, is a great tragedy. Same with any suicide. It is theft, to steal one’s self from the world in that way.”

I can feel the speculation in her gaze, even though Marta’s eyes are hidden behind her sunglasses. “You have thought much on this.”

I let too much slip, I realize. “Not much to do but think, sometimes.”

“Suicide is not something one thinks upon for no reason,” Marta says.

I feel the wind shifting. “Prepare to come about,” I say, by way of evasion.

I don’t miss the smirk on Marta’s lips as she sets her magazine aside, and I’m careful to keep my eyes on the sheet flapping loosely for a moment as we come about for a new tack, and then on the waves, on the wheel, on anything but her as she moves about the boat, tightening and tying off lines with efficient grace. Once our new tack is established and the sail is taut, I busy myself with my e-reader, doing my best to look absorbed as Marta resumes her seat and her magazine page-flipping.

Minutes pass in silence, and then Marta’s ability to remain quiet slips. “My sister killed herself. When I was eleven. So many people acted shocked, but I was not. Marie, she was a very upset person…disturbed, you would say, I think. Much in her own mind, sad, or angry, and always alone. Why, I do not know. She was twenty-five when I was eleven, and I suppose there may have been things she experienced which I have no idea about. I was so young, after all. I just remember seeing her walking along the docks near our flat, and thinking that she was just so sad, so sad, always so sad. And then one day Papa was at work and I came home from school, and I found Marie. In the bath, her eyes open wide, but seeing nothing. The water was red, and there was a razor blade on the floor. I didn’t understand at first. Or, perhaps I didn’t want to. I left the flat, and went to find Papa. He worked on the docks, loading and unloading ships. I found him, and I told him, and he only nodded. Kept me with him, and called the authorities. That was it. When we returned home some hours later, she was gone. Someone had cleaned the bathtub, erased all of the evidence.”

“I’m sorry you went through that.” I can’t figure this girl out, why she would tell me that.

“No sadness is so great that to die is the only escape.” She sets her magazine down on her thighs and I can feel her stare hard and sharp on me once more. “This world, it is so wide, so vast, so complex and filled with so much beauty. To die before it is your time, you miss all the beauty. All the wonder. The happiness that is out there if you only have enough courage to go find it.”

“And sometimes, the world is so full of ugliness and pain that beauty has no meaning. Sadness, tragedy, it can consume you. Blind you. It obscures everything, Marta. Drags you down like an undertow.” I stare out, watch waves crest white to starboard. “Yes, the world is full of beauty, sometimes. Yes, there is happiness, if you look for it. But sometimes…just waking up is a struggle. Being alive, facing the world, facing life, facing yourself, it’s too much. Too hard. Sometimes, it’s impossible to see past things to the beauty and happiness there is out there. How are you supposed to find something if you don’t know what it looks like, what it feels like?”

Marta is silent, then. “You have known such pain?”

“Yes.”

“You do not wish to speak of it.” She states this flatly, but her head is tilted to one side, inquisitive, and she toys with her braid as if nervous.

“Not really, no.”

She doesn’t push any further, thankfully.

I pretend to read, and so does she, but I don’t think either of us is seeing the words.

The silence is broken by Jonny’s voice. “Look port side!”

Marta and I both move to the port railing. At first I don’t see anything but the rippling blue-green of the Atlantic. And then a curve of something mammoth slices the surface of the sea, a dark shadow breaching up from the depths. Another. And another. And then a whale’s tail spears out of the water and slaps down, sending a white gout of water pluming into the sky.

Marta and Jonny have already reefed the sheet, and we coast to a rolling stop in the middle of the pod. I count at least a dozen, probably more, as it is hard to keep track as they surface and dive again, a few tail sailing—leaving its tail above the surface to catch the wind, its body under the water.

Marta has vanished below deck, and returns with an armload of wetsuits. “Have you ever swum with them before?” she asks, handing me my suit.

I shake my head as I begin donning the rubber suit. “Seen them, sailed with them, but never swam with them.”

She gestures at the pod, individuals breaching and tail slapping, tail sailing, sliding past just beneath our boat, huge eyes visible for a moment. “They are curious creatures. To be this close to so many is a rare treat.”

Within a few minutes I’m suited up, my tank on and mouthpiece in, tumbling backward into the water, and my worldview shifts.

Beneath the surface is a wonderland of life, titans of the sea twisting and squealing, tails drifting lazily, fins flicking. I kick away from the boat, and within a few strokes of my fins I’m parallel with a gargantuan creature. It is breathtaking and terrifying all at once, my stomach dropping away and my heart slamming in my chest. It sees me. It rolls onto one side and tilts away, bringing an eye to bear on me, watching me. I cannot breathe. The surface, the boat, Ava, all of it fades. It’s just me and this whale, a wild, gentle, curious beast fifty feet long and something like fifty or sixty tons. It drifts, and I kick my feet, extending my hand carefully; the whale watches, and drifts. Its fin lifts, floats toward me. Breathless, I touch the fin with a fingertip only, at first. And then run my palm along the rubbery surface. Its eye follows me as I inch closer, brush a hand along her side.

I cast a glance around me, and realize I am surrounded. A mother and her calf sidle closer, curious. The calf remains tucked near its mother’s fin, against her side. The whale closest to me gives a gentle flick of its tail and drifts away with slow easy grace, breaching the surface. I follow her up and watch as she spouts, her blowhole whuffling and sputtering and then inhaling a whistling lungful of air before sinking back down. The mother and her calf are a few feet closer, drifting cautiously toward me; I tread water to stay in place as they approach, my fins flicking now and again to keep me from sinking downward. Mother and calf, a wonder of new life. They’re less than twenty feet away now, and I have to remind myself to keep drawing oxygen off my tank, keep breathing. The calf wiggles its fins, and then flicks its tail, leaving its mother’s side finally; the mother watches, alert as her baby approaches me, circling around to keep an eye fixed on me. I see intelligence in that calf, the curiosity, the wonder. This creature has a personality, a soul. It is a life. Not just another creature in the sea, but an individual being moving through life, thinking thoughts I cannot fathom, but thoughts nonetheless.

After a few circles around me, I hear the mother make a sound, a low rolling, rumbling murmur shuddering through the water, and the calf darts back, ducking underneath mama’s fin once more. Mama angles away, and the calf follows, and then pauses, as if glancing back at me one last time.

It makes me think of a human mother and her child I saw once. My first trip to Africa, we put in at Bata, a port town in Equatorial Guinea. We only spent half a day there, but I remember prowling around a market, wide-eyed, still green, just a kid who’d never been east of Illinois. A woman was at a fruit stall, bartering for mangos and coconuts. Her child, a tiny, frail-looking little girl with wide eyes and a hundred thin braids in her hair, crouched clutching her mother’s colorful skirt.

The girl watched me, curious, as I paused at a fish seller’s stall a few feet away. I bought a fish, took the paper-wrapped package, and then turned to the little girl, squatting, smiling. The girl tugged on her mother’s skirt, and the two exchanged words, and then the little girl had skittered cautiously closer to me, stopping just outside of arm’s reach. I extended the package to her, and the girl took it, eyeing me warily. I only smiled, and waved at her. She inched closer, clutching the fish to her chest with one hand, and ran her finger along my forearm, marveling at the white skin. Touched my hair, and then hers. And then she waved at me and scrambled back to her mother, hiding behind that bright yellow and red and black skirt again, and the mother took her fruit and moved away, her free arm herding the daughter along with her.

And, like the whale calf just now, the little girl had paused, stopping to look back at me, a moment of awareness between us, eye contact between two souls. The mother paused, meeting my gaze steadily, and then she called for her daughter. I obviously had not known the language, but the context had been clear—come, child; let’s go. Gentle, loving tones. Mother and child had gone their way, and I’d gone mine. A momentary interlude, a brief interaction, remarkable in the moment and easily forgotten amid a million such moments over the years, but remembered now for the similarity.

A whale and her calf; a mother and her child—moments of beauty. An interaction that touches the soul, reminding me that I am not alone in the world. If that mother was to lose her calf to some tragedy, she would grieve. Prowl the waters, clicking and mourning and howling her grief, and perhaps other mothers would drift beside her for a while, comforting her.

I return to the boat, and Jonny and Marta take their turns in the water, and eventually the pod breaches, blows, sucks in great drafts of air, and then dives down and we lose sight of them.

We resume our eastward tack, and I sit behind the wheel with my wetsuit around my waist, remembering the whale mother and her curious calf.

My thoughts are myriad, and tangled.