A hundred yards from the dock, I haul at the line hand over hand until the sheet is furled, and then belay the line around the cleat. I pull up to the mooring the rest of the way using the motor, and Jonny is there on the dock to tie me off.

He’s my best friend, Jonny Núñez. The first friend I made on my first voyage out. He was the experienced, worldly, hard-as-nails, tough-talking first mate and I was the new kid from rural Illinois who didn’t know a clew from a cleat from a coxswain. I knew engines, but I knew nothing about sailing, and I suppose my eagerness to learn endeared me to Jonny, who’d learned sailing and deep-sea fishing from birth. He likes to joke that he was born with a bowline in one hand and a fishing line in the other, and that he hasn’t let go of them since. He could captain his own boat, but says he doesn’t want the responsibility, which I think is true enough. He signs on for a voyage or two or three with a captain, and then ends up staying wherever he feels like staying for as long as he feels like it. He might be in Jakarta for a few months, and then sail for a few months, and then end up in Grenada for a spell, and so on around the world. We exchanged emails on and off over the years when I was in school and then landlocked in Ft. Lauderdale with Ava; he kept me apprised of his voyages and described the people he met, and I in turn would tell him of the joys of pedestrian, home-bound, landlubber life. I don’t think I was fooling him any more than I was fooling myself.

Every single day that I was at university and then living in Ft. Lauderdale, I missed the sea. I loved Ava, obviously, but the sea was always calling me.

She’d hate that turn of phrase, though. Melodramatic, she would call it. But then, she doesn’t know the ocean the way I do, hasn’t lived upon the sea. She doesn’t know the caprice of the sea. That’s a common phrase in literature, to the point of ubiquity, if you study literature as we both did. But, like all clichés, it is deeply rooted in truth. The sea is a fickle beast, a harsh mistress—all that bullshit. It’s all true, though. Live on the sea, and you’ll find out.

These are things I’ve spent the last few weeks thinking about. Even more so since Ava quit corresponding with me.

I miss her emails, dammit; I miss her, dammit. But like she wrote, I’m also pissed off at her. So, so, so angry. At her, at life, at God, at everything.

It was torture, living so close to the ocean but never being able to venture out; Ava hates sailing. I took her once, during college. I rented a Sunfish and took her out, staying within sight of shore the whole time. She was a native Floridian who had somehow never gone sailing, which just seemed weird to me, and I thought I’d rectify it. She hated every second of it. She couldn’t remember to stay out of the way of the boom when we tacked, couldn’t remember which line to pull or when, even when I told her. It was just a mess. We spent an hour sailing, and then I finally relented and took her back to shore. We saw a movie and ate dinner and never discussed sailing again. She doesn’t mind boats, likes the water, loves swimming, enjoys fishing once in a while…but hates sailing.

Which is the one thing I love more than anything else. Except for Ava, I’d usually say.

But lately? I’m not so sure.

Which makes me a horrible person, I think. It may be just the events of the past few months, the renewed joy I feel at simply being out to sea again, after years stuck on land. I’m a nomad by nature, I think. I’m not made to stay in one spot, and I’m certainly not made to live on land. My heart and my soul come to life at sea.

Ava doesn’t understand that.

She calls it melodramatic horseshit, and tells me to go surf, like that’ll get it out of my system. Which is rank nonsense.

Surfing is to sailing as reading is to writing: surfing is a watersport, something you do on the ocean, and so is sailing, but they are not even remotely equal; reading uses words, and so does writing, but they are not the same, they are not equal; I cannot expunge my need to be on the sea by surfing.

“You gonna sit there stewing all day or are you gonna get out of the damn boat and say hello?” Jonny says, snapping me out of my train of thought.

I shake my head to clear it, and grin at him. “Yeah, yeah, I’m coming. Hold your horses, old man.”

He’s not old: at forty-two, he’s only ten years older than me, but I like to tease him about it, and he in turn acts like I’m still the teenager he first met way back when.

I step onto the dock and clasp forearms with Jonny, and then embrace him. “Been a while, amigo.” I don’t really speak Spanish, and I only call him amigo to annoy him.

“Too long, my friend, way too long.” He wraps an arm around my shoulders and guides me toward downtown Puerto la Cruz, Venezuela. “I wish I could say it was good to see you. It is, but I wish it was under different circumstances.”

I shrug. “It is what it is.”

Jonny rears away and stares at me. “That don’t sound like you.”

I pull away. “Maybe I’ve changed.”

Jonny doesn’t follow me. “You’re livin’, you’re changin’. That’s just how things are. But what you been through? You don’t just shrug it off and say it is what it is. That’s stupid, and I ain’t stupid, Chris. Now for real this time. What gives?”

I slow my steps, and Jonny catches up. I walk beside him in silence a while, and he lets the silence stand. He nudges me around a corner and across a street, and then into a dingy dive bar, where he orders us drinks in Spanish. We sit at a table outside under an awning, and we sip local cerveza, and I finally find words.

“Sorry, Jonny. You deserve better from me than that answer. It’s just hard for me to talk about.”

Jonny is sitting close to me, close enough that my American sense of personal space leaves me feeling uncomfortable, but it’s just how Jonny is, and it’s comforting in an odd way, being uncomfortably close to him, like old times.

He shrugs, and then pats my forearm. “You been through a lot. You’re allowed to feel what you feel, right? But you gotta talk it out. I know you, man, and know you wanna bury it and pretend it ain’t there. Can’t do that, Christian. Won’t work. Not somethin’ like this.”

I sigh and nod. “I know.”

Jonny stares at me, expectant. “So? Talk.”

I shake my head. “Not yet, okay? Give me time.”

“Why? So you can bury it deeper?” He takes a long drink, eying me sidelong. “You been out there on that sexy new boat of yours alone for what, over a month? Stewing, thinking, brooding. You’ve had time. Now you gotta open up.”

I glance at him, taking stock of my friend: he looks much the same as he always has, except there are new streaks of silver creeping in at the temples, encroaching on his jet-black hair, which is, as always, a little too long and combed straight back. His features are weathered and craggy, his eyes set in a permanent squint. The lines in his face are etched more deeply than the last time I saw him, and he has a new scar on his jawline, slicing through the permanent ten-day scruff. But despite all this, the guy is seriously handsome—even as a straight guy, I can admit that much about him. That, along with the fact that he tends to be a man of few words, makes the ladies go crazy for him; the whole tall-dark-and-handsome, strong-and-silent type and all that, I suppose. Jonny fits all that and then some.

“What do you want me to say?”

“What happened? Why are you way down here, alone?” He picks at the label of his bottle. “I thought you and your old lady were tight, thought you two had that real-deal kinda love goin’ on. Now suddenly you’re on a fancy new boat by yourself. So…what happened?”

“A lot happened. I thought we had that too, but…I guess I was wrong. I don’t know.” I try to put things into words, but it’s too big, it’s too much. “Jesus, man, where do I even start? So much happened. Like, between Ava and I, and then Henry, and…” I shake my head, trailing off. “It’s too much, Jonny.”

“Start small. You and Ava.”

I laugh. “That’s starting small?”

He raises his eyebrows at me. “You’d rather talk about your boy, then?”

“Fuck no.”

“Right, so start small. You and Ava.” He lifts a hand, and then points at our nearly empty bottles, and a server nods, brings us fresh ones.

“I guess I feel like things just…changed. Snuck up on us, sort of. She got pregnant, and I was happy, you know? I mean, I really was. I loved her, and I felt like we were ready. We were in a good spot financially, we both worked from home, and it just seemed like the best next step for us. We weren’t trying, but we also weren’t trying not to. The pregnancy itself was…I mean, it was a pregnancy. You know how that it is.”

Jonny laughs and shakes his head. “No, I don’t, man. Had a few girls try to tie me down, but it don’t stick. Don’t know what a pregnancy is like.”

“It’s when your wife turns into an alien creature. She eats weird shit, eats all the time, pees all the time, and goes through more mood changes than you can possibly believe. There’s puking in the morning, and there’s when she suddenly wants to drink Squirt all the damn time when she never liked it before, and hates salmon, which used to be her favorite thing. She alternates between hating you for knocking her up and putting her in this position, and loving you more than ever for creating a life inside her. Then she starts to get big and her back hurts and her feet hurt, but the baby kicks and it starts to really feel real when you can feel that little foot pressing against the inside of her belly.” I sink into remembering. “She could barely walk by the end. He was such a big baby, and he kicked her all the time. Right in the spleen, she said. Bam, bam, bam, bam—like he had some kind of vendetta against her poor spleen. And she peed literally every twenty minutes, and seriously ate her weight in cucumbers, rice cakes, and Laughing Cow cheese wedges.”

Jonny stares at me. “Sounds awful. Why would anyone go through that on purpose?”

I laugh. “Because when it’s time, you go through this weird space of like two or three days where there is no time, there’s only the hospital and the contraction monitor and the heart monitor and all that, and she’s in labor and you eat hospital food and drink shitty coffee, and don’t really sleep.”

“Still not seeing why you’d go through that on purpose.”

“Because you watch a human being come out of her, Jonny. For nine months it was just your wife’s belly getting bigger, and ultrasound pictures, and the occasional weird flutter against your hand when you touch her belly. But then…a person, someone who didn’t exist before, a person you and your wife created together…comes out of her. It’s incredible. We were two, and then three.” I push back against the darkness I feel encroaching on me. “Makes it all worth it.”

Jonny laughs again. “Maybe for you. You didn’t have the person come out of you.”

I nod, and shrug, and laugh. “That’s true. But even Ava said it was all worth it, the second she saw him.”

Jonny’s gaze is sharp. “So, how’d that lead you here?”

“I don’t know. We became parents. Our lives suddenly revolved around this tiny helpless little person. We ate, slept, breathed, and existed for him. He was literally everything. All the time.”

“Yeah, man, you’re not making a great case for parenthood, here.”

I groan, and slug back some beer. “That’s not what I’m trying to explain. If that was what I was trying to do, I’d be telling you about what it’s like to hold that helpless little bundle on your chest and feel him breathing, feel his little hand clutching your finger, and knowing you’d do literally anything for him.” I have to pound back more beer, because the darkness is too strong, now.

Jonny doesn’t miss it. “You don’t gotta filter yourself around me, Chris. You know that.”

“I’d have done anything.” I blink hard. “But there wasn’t anything.”

“That’s rough.”

“You have no idea.” I finish the second beer, and wave off a third before the desire to drown myself in liquor takes over. “We were two, and then we were three…and then suddenly we were two. And now I’m just one.”

“Not anymore.”

I clap him on the shoulder. “I know, Jonny. And that means more than you can know.”

“Ain’t the same, though, I’m guessing.”

I shake my head. “No. Not at all.” I fight the urge to run, or drink, or start a fight—anything to lessen the pressure inside my skull. “Being a parent to a newborn takes everything you have, both of you. You don’t have time for yourself, or each other. That was part of it. Parents go through that all the time, and they find ways to reconnect. And in some ways, the utter focus on that child brings you closer, because you’re united in that common cause. But for Ava and I, we didn’t get the break once he got old enough to sleep through the night and didn’t need to eat every two hours. He started getting sick. Just crying all the time. He wasn’t hungry, didn’t need a diaper, was too young to be teething, didn’t have gas, he was just…he just cried all the damn time. We never got a chance to just…find each other, and ourselves, in that new space of being parents. It was all about Henry, all the time. That was a wedge, I think. Plus, even if he did quiet down for a while, Ava felt like shit. About herself, I mean. Physically, mentally, emotionally, she was just…wrecked. Didn’t feel like she was beautiful anymore, like how could I want her. I did want her, but she couldn’t feel it, and even after she got the all-clear, she just couldn’t…she didn’t want that.”

“What do you mean, the all-clear?” Jonny asks.

“After giving birth, a woman typically needs about six weeks to heal before having sex.”

Jonny stares. “Six weeks? Jesus Cristo. How did you live through that, man?”

I laugh. “There wasn’t time to even think about it, at first. Too tired, too delirious from not sleeping.” I fidget, restless and uncomfortable. “You think six weeks is bad, though? I’m not sure I want to admit how long it’s been, in that case.”

Jonny glances into the mouth of his bottle, as if assessing it. “Then I think maybe we need something a little stronger.”

I shake my head. “Not sure that’s a good idea, bud.”

He frowns at me. “Why not? We used to get shitty together all the time. You become an alkie when I wasn’t lookin’?”

I tip my head side to side. “Yes and no.”

Jonny’s snort is derisive. “Alcoholism don’t work like that, man. Either you are, or you ain’t.”

“Yeah, no shit, Jonny. My old man was a boozer, remember?”

“Right, so why you talkin’ about yes and no like it’s a guessing game, then?”

“I guess I’m scared of becoming my dad. When Henry…um—after all that…” I twist the bottle in place, staring at the grain of the wood table under my hands, seagulls cawing overhead. “I started drinking all the time. Like, all day. Morning, noon, and night. A bottle of whisky a day sort of thing, if not more.”

“But you quit.”

I nod, lift the bottle. “Yeah, this is the first drink I’ve had in weeks.”

“Your old man, his drinking—was it because of a tragedy, or was it just because?”

I shrug. “He was a miserable bastard. Hated life. I don’t know. If it started because of something specific, I never knew what it was. My mom took care of him, cleaned up after him, stayed loyal to him no matter how much he knocked her or me around. Which I’ve never understood, honestly. Point is, if he had some reason for being such a miserable, drunken, abusive bastard, I couldn’t tell you what it was.”

“But point is, he just never bothered to quit,” Jonny responds. “You did. I ain’t encouraging you to be a drunk, Chris, but I like to think I know you pretty damn well and, sure, maybe you could put away the booze with the best of us, but you also knew when to call it quits. You drank to unwind, and when it was time to work, you were sober and you worked. You went through something most people can’t even imagine, amigo, and that shit leaves deep hurt. And you know, sometimes I think the only way we can get through the worst of the pain is to numb ourselves to it until we can figure that shit out.” Jonny slid his half-finished second beer away. “You tell me you ain’t drinking no more, then I’ll quit drinking too while we sail together. But I don’t think that’s what it was for you. Just my input, man.”

I shake my head at him. “You’re crazy. But you’re a good friend, Jonny. Don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“How about this.” Jonny takes his beer back, lifts a hand for a server, and requests something in Spanish—hard liquor, most likely; after a few minutes, the server returns with four shot glasses full of tequila. “If you look like you’re startin’ to have a problem, I’ll kick your ass. And unless that’s what it takes, you’re gonna drink some tequila with an old friend, and then we’re gonna prep that fancy-ass boat of yours and we’re gonna sail to motherfuckin’ Africa together. You and me and the Atlantic, bro.”

I take a shot glass, lift it, and clink it against Jonny’s. We toss it back, lift the second shot, clink, and slam the glasses onto the table. “It’s been fourteen months,” I say, and then chase the tequila with a swallow of beer. “No, wait…fifteen. Almost sixteen.”

“Since what?” Jonny says. And then his face twists into a horrified expression. “Since you had sex? Fuck no. No. That ain’t possible. No way.”

“Way.” I shrug a shoulder. “Since just before Henry was born. After he was born and she got the all-clear, she just couldn’t—or wouldn’t, I’m not sure. Like I told you, she didn’t feel sexy, didn’t feel beautiful. Which, I mean, I get it, as much as a guy can. She had a baby. She put on some weight and…other stuff. Then he got sick, and I was under deadline to finish a book, and then he got diagnosed with cancer and that was the last thing on either of our minds, and then he…he died, and we were both just…fucked-up, as you hopefully cannot even begin to imagine. And then suddenly I’m out here on the boat realizing I haven’t had sex in almost two years.”

Jonny seems at a loss for words. “Jesus Cristo, amigo. Sixteen months celibate? What are you gonna do?”

I shrug. “Hell if I know. Ava and I—things are a mess. It’s not like I can just pop back up to Ft. Lauderdale and be like hey babe, let’s bang.” I finish the beer, a little too fast. “I don’t even know if I’ll ever see her again. It’s a mess, Jonny.”

“How were things when you left?”

I snort. “She spent the better part of two months essentially catatonic. In bed, not eating, just sleeping and crying. Unresponsive to me completely. And then when she came out of that, she pretended I didn’t exist. She drank wine and watched TV all day. And then she started visiting his…the cemetery. Didn’t talk to me. She’s spoken…maybe a hundred words to me since Henry was first admitted to the hospital.”

Jonny eyes me. “And so you left?”

“I wasn’t sleeping, wasn’t writing, couldn’t eat, couldn’t function. I couldn’t grieve because Ava was…I was so worried about her. I brought her food, tried to talk to her, to comfort her, to distract her, and all she would do was snap at me. She actually hit me once. I was going crazy.”

“And so you…left?” His voice sounds…skeptical. Judgmental even.

“You don’t understand.”

“I’m trying to.”

I stand up. “I don’t need this. I didn’t want to talk about this.”

Jonny stays where he is. “Siddown, Christian.” His voice is hard, sharp; I clench my fists, release them, but resume my seat. When he speaks again, he unloads with both barrels. “I’m just tryin’ to understand things, is all. Sounds to me like you left your wife when she needed you most. And that just ain’t the Christian I know.”

I wince, and hiss. “It was fucking hell, Jonny. I was totally alone. My son had just died. My wife was starving herself in front of me. I was trying to keep it together, trying to be strong. But I just couldn’t. I couldn’t. I was going crazy. I hated myself, hated the drunken bastard I was becoming. Waking up on the beach, drunk, puking into the sand, and then going back inside to drink more, just so I could forget how bad it hurt for another few minutes? Watching my wife lay in bed for days on end, only getting up to use the bathroom and drink some water. Watching her waste away, watching her cry. She looked at me like—like she hated me. It wasn’t my fault, but she hated me for it. I couldn’t cry. I couldn’t…I couldn’t breathe.” I meet his eyes. “So yeah, I left. Yeah, she probably still needed me. Maybe if I’d been stronger, I’d still be there, and we’d still be together.”

“Chris—”

“Maybe if I’d gotten him to the right doctor sooner, they’d have caught the tumor when it was still operable, and he’d still be alive. Maybe we should have had him go through the treatment. I mean, they said it would only extend his life by a few months at best, and those months would be worse than torture. But maybe it would have—maybe there would have been a miracle. He might be alive, still. Maybe…Maybe there was something I should have done or said that would have helped Ava cope.” I stare at him, and he’s the first to look away, now. “I’ve gone over all this a million times. It’s all I think about. What if, what if, what if—maybe, maybe, maybe.”

“Chris, listen—”

“No, you listen.” I lean forward and stare him down once more. “I was going insane. I mean that very literally. If I didn’t leave, I would have…” I force the words out, an admission I haven’t even really made to myself, much less anyone else. “I was starting to think about suicide. How being dead would be better than what I was feeling. Alcohol wasn’t numbing me enough. I couldn’t do a goddamn thing to fix anything. I couldn’t fucking sleep, I would be awake for days at a time, until I started to hallucinate. And I started to think, like, anything is better than this. Anything is better than watching my wife just…sink into this—this shell, this morass of despair that I wasn’t capable of pulling her out of. What the fuck was I supposed to do? She would have found me swinging from the ceiling fan if I hadn’t left, Jonny. And not even she knows that.”

Jonny leans back, flags down the server, mutters something, and waits. Within a minute or two, the server returns with a dusty old bottle of tequila and two rock glasses. He pours us each a generous measure. Returns my gaze steadily. “Since you were eighteen I know you, Christian. I taught you to sail, I taught you how to charm the ladies like a Latino. I taught you to fish, taught you to drink, and I taught you to tell shit like it is.” He slides me one of the glasses, raises his. “So here’s what it is. You need to dig deep and figure yourself out. You love that lady like I think you do, you owe it to yourself and to her to get past whatever this is that’s got you running. And until you do, brother, I’ll be running with you.”

I’ll drink to that.