A storm rages. It has been a nonstop barrage of storms for the past several days, each worse than the last. The fishermen, being superstitious, wonder if I am to blame. There is a story in the Bible like that. Jonah? Or Paul? A character who disobeyed God and fled, causing storms which threatened to sink the ship, and so the character threw himself overboard, or something like that. It is only a vague memory of a story I learned in Sunday school as a child.

After my pen disgorged those last, awful, incriminating memories, I wallowed in guilt and sorrow and anger and self-recrimination for days. Told myself I deserved what I’d gotten, that I didn’t deserve Ava, didn’t deserve life. I even stood at the railing early one morning while the storm raged, and thought about letting a wave take me over the side.

I was stopped by one of the crew. A large man, named Louis—pronounced the French way—with skin like the blackest ebony and a deep rumbling voice and broken English.

“You are much sad,” he said in his cavernous voice and broken English, pulling me away from the railing and down to the galley; he poured me a mug of coffee and sat, blocking my exit from the booth.

I nodded. “Yeah. I did a lot of bad things—I abandoned my wife.” The admission just pops out, unbidden. “I don’t deserve—”

“You speak shit.”

I stopped and stared at Louis. “What?”

He swallowed coffee, his huge hands dwarfing the mug. “We do not deserve, or not deserve. We do not take life, give life, end life. Only for God to do that.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t like God and I don’t think he knows what he’s doing.”

Louis grinned. “I know this feeling. I lose my daughter. Much fighting, bad tribe, good tribe, all kill. My daughter, she is killed. My wife, she is rape. Much bad. I have anger. I fight. I kill.”

“I would have too.”

“Then I am shooted.” He taps his chest. “Wife think I am die. She leave. No more fighting, no more gun, no more sad. She leave. I am alone. I think of my hands. I kill with gun, I kill with machete. Much bad. I much angry. Think I do not deserve to live. I try to shoot me.”

“You were only defending your people, avenging your daughter, your wife.”

Louis shakes his head. “No. No. A priest come, speak with me. I see that I am wrong. It is not for me to take life—my life, other life. It is only for God.”

I sigh. “Look, Louis, I see what you’re saying, but—”

Louis’s massive hand chops down, stopping me. “No. You hear.” He gets up, refills our coffee mugs, sits back down. “You are sad. I was angry. It is same.”

“God took my son from me. He was a baby, Louis. Not even two years old. He died, for no reason.”

“No reason, or reason you are not see? Same. You are sad. Maybe angry. But are you weak?”

“I don’t know. Maybe?”

“I see you. You think maybe the sea should take you. Jump over, or maybe only not fight for life, not hold on. You think it is better to be dead than to live so sad, with so much anger and guilt.”

I nod, slowly. “Yeah, sort of.”

“That is weak.” He holds my gaze. “I was there when you come out of ocean. I pull you up. I carry you to my bed. We all watch you. Try to keep you alive until hospital. You fight for be alive, then. You strong. You fight for woman. For Ava.”

I swallow hard. “I don’t feel strong anymore, Louis.”

“Strong is not feeling. Strong is doing.”

I think about what he’s saying, and it cuts through me. “Maybe you’re right.”

“I am right.” He nods. “When I am sad, from lose daughter, lose wife, when I am angry at men, when I am angry at me for killing those men, I think, it is no good for me to be alive anymore. I am no good.”

I nod. “That’s how I feel.”

“I cannot shoot myself. I try, and I cannot. The fighting, the sadness, the hate, it is too much. So, I run away. But always, it is there, because it is me—it is in me, so I cannot run away from it.”

I nod. “I sailed thousands of miles, and never got anywhere.”

“Yes, you see it. So then, I find this boat, these men. They do not speak me like I speak you, now. They make me work. Feed me. Give me drink. No questions. Only, never I am alone. Much time is passed, and one day, I know I am alive, and it is good.”

“Just like that?”

He shakes his head. “No. Not so easy. Many days of hate for me, for God, for life, for everything. But you cannot be alive and find it good if you are dead. You must wait through the hurting. You must wait through the anger.”

“I’ve been waiting.”

“You must forgive.”

“Why? How?”

“God forgive, so we forgive. Easy.”

“I don’t believe—”

Louis snorts dismissively. “You believe, you not believe, no matter. God is same. God believe. God forgive. You forgive. Strong is not feeling, strong is doing.”

“Letting myself die is weakness, then, you mean.”

“Yes. Weak is easy. Strong is hard. Hard is better.”

I sigh, rub my face with both hands. “You sound like Dr. James.”

This seems to please Louis greatly. “He good man. He fix me when I am shooted. He talk much to me. Listen much. Help much.”

“Same for me.”

Louis eyes me. “He do much hard work to fix you. Fix body, fix mind. You dead, you remember nothing, and Dr. James, he fix.” A significant pause. “You let yourself die, then all his work is for nothing.”

Guilt, then.

“And your woman, Ava?”

“I walked away from her. I abandoned her.”

“She love you?”

“She used to.”

“Baby die. She angry, she sad, she broken.” He shrugs. “Like you. You forgive, she forgive, this is better. Not easy. I say this already. Easy is weak, easy is no good. Run away is easy, and where you go when you run away? Nowhere. So you do what is hard, what is strong. You find her and you forgive. You live.” He taps my chest, my forehead. “You live. It is better.”

I nod, but I’m thinking. I glance at him. “You’re the one who pulled me out of the water?”

He nods. “Bad storm. I am on the deck. Big wave, much rain, much wind, I think we sink.” He pauses, swirls coffee in his mug, and then looks at me. “God make my eyes see you. It is impossible. To see you in the water, with so bad storm, big waves, very dark? I never see you. But God, he say turn my head—look there. I turn my head, and I look. I see you. I throw you lifesaver, and you take it. You fight for be alive. I pull you in. You are hurt, you are die. You say this name: Ava. Ava. Ava. This all you say, even asleep, so much pain, almost die, but still you say this name—Ava, Ava, Ava, like so, much and much and much.”

“You saved my life.”

He shakes his head. “No. God save. I only help.”

“Still…thank you.”

His eyes are fierce, and knowing. “You make thanks to me? You live.”

Something inside me catches fire, a flame that had gone out, guttered into darkness long since. His words spark, and the flame catches, burns inside me, warms me.

It is the fire of life.

I should have died.

In a way, I did die: I died when Henry died, I died when I walked away from Ava, and I died when I went overboard all those months ago.

Louis saved me, Dr. James saved me. Ava saved me.

How could I be so thankless and weak as to make a mockery of what they all did for me by letting myself die? How could I do that?

It is weakness.

I groan, hold my head in my hands. “Thank you, Louis.” I look up at him. “You’re right. You’re absolutely right.”

He nods. “Now you live.”

I reach out, and we clasp hands. “Now I live.”

---

---

For two more days the storm continues to batter the boat, and it requires every man working double and triple shifts to keep us afloat. Exhaustion begins to take its toll. Men stumble down to the galley and suck down coffee and wolf down food, and stumble back up, eyes glazed, limbs weak and dragging.

There is no time to think, no time to feel. There is only time to react as best we can.

I am on deck, scrambling to keep nets from being ripped free, crates from coming loose, the crane from snapping. I am delirious with exhaustion, at the stage of sleep deprivation where I see moving shadows out of the corners of my eyes, and I hear things.

I have a loose cable in my hands, and I suddenly see a shadow to my left—a man, stumbling across the deck? Surely not, it must just be another hallucination.

I hear something, whispers bubbling just under the surface of awareness—look, look, look; look in the water, look in the water, look in the water.

It’s not words, I don’t hear words. It’s…more of an idea. A knowing. A prompting.

The deck tilts wildly, and I slide downward, toward the railing and the sea beneath it. I slam against the railing, the wind knocked out of me. I gasp, groan, and then clutch at the railing as the deck tilts the other way and we twist and tilt downward again.

Look—look—look—

My eyes search the waves; for what, I don’t know. A hallucination? A shadow?

But no, I definitely see something.

A dot of yellow in the crushing turbulence of the mountainous waves. A head. Arms flailing. I act on instinct, stumbling down the railing to where the life ring is, and I throw it, and I miss. I haul it back in, keeping my eyes on the head bobbing in the waves, remembering all too well how it felt to be lost in the sea just like that.

My next act is involuntary. I don’t think, I just do—I hook the ring over my shoulder and leap into the icy, churning sea. I swim to the surface and haul at the water, eyes fixed on the bobbing glimpses of yellow slicker. A wave throws me head over feet, and I splash down, and the ring pulls me up and I gasp, coughing salt water, and then I feel something nudge my arm. I see the yellow slicker and black skin and wide scared eyes—it is Louis.

I wrap my arm under his armpit and around his chest, and kick toward the boat. I am able to loop the life ring over his head and under his arms, and I grab him with one hand and the rope with the other, and pull. Someone is on deck, I see glimpses of movement, of faces, hands, and I feel the line go taut as they haul on it for all they are worth, battling the rocking ship and the unrelenting walls of water.

“Breathe, Louis,” I shout, gasping for breath myself.

He spits water, coughs, clinging desperately to the ring, and I cling to him and the rope.

The sea rises up under us, and the boat is suddenly beneath us and it’s tilting and twisting, spinning. It crests a wave and I catch a glimpse of the screw and then the boat is slamming down the wave and Louis is jerked away from me, flying. My hands burn as the rope sears through my grip, and then I see Louis crash into the sea and then many pairs of hands are pulling him aboard.

I’m dunked underwater again, spinning, the storm and the water chew me up and spit me out. Sky and sea, salt and air. I feel something hard and plastic smack against me and I grab at it blindly—the life ring. I wriggle into it, and cling to it desperately. I hear voices shouting. I fumble for the line, and then feel it go taut as they haul me toward the boat.

Another giant wave rises up and becomes a mountain of angry brine, and I’m lifted with it like a child’s toy. I glimpse the boat, and the rope, but I can see that the rope is pulled taut, and it is vibrating with tension.

I feel it, first—a release of tension. And then the wave shifts and changes course, colliding with another wave, and I lose sight of the boat, and the rope is trailing through the water. I have the ring, but it has snapped free from the boat.

Another wave curls over my head, and I’m dunked under and then all that exists is the fight to reach air, to keep my head above water, to pray and swim and hope for the impossible yet again.

I should pray to God, but only one name echoes inside me:

Ava.

Ava.

Ava.