Chapter Eight #8
I need another oar, maybe a sail. But I don’t even know how to sail, so constructing one would be pointless.
I’m hoping that we haven’t drifted far from the Faroes, maybe just a few miles, and we’ve simply been bobbing in circles for months.
If I could row my way a few miles to the west, toward the setting sun, the edge of the Faroes will appear just above the horizon.
I convince myself this is true.
Because it’s the closest I’ve come to being rescued.
For the rest of the day, Clay does his chores around the island, ignoring my attempts at finding another oar—or something that could substitute as one.
I search the barn, the tool shed, the drying shed, and the root cellar.
I find a flat board that could work, but it’s heavy and much too long.
When I ask Clay if I can use the handsaw to cut it smaller, he grunts and says that he needs the board. He can’t part with it.
Irritated, I drop the board at his feet, then spend an hour scanning every inch of the boat, looking for broken boards, holes that could sink me once I was out at sea, but aside from the small repair, the little rowboat is in good shape.
The rain picks up, and evening settles over the island.
I boil carrots and leeks, then fry several eggs for dinner.
A nervous energy buzzes through me. Anticipation that is marred by a twinge of fear.
If Clay is right, and we’re much too far from the mainland, I’ll die out there.
Starvation, thirst, ripped apart by deep-sea sharks just as the fog of delirium takes hold. What if the boat sinks and I drown?
What if I choose to leave the safety of the island, only to find a much worse death out there?
But what if I stay?
If time has slowed since arriving on the island, then years may have already passed on the mainland. The longer I stay, the more time is scudding away behind me. Unable to ever get it back. My life moving on without me. James… moving on without me.
I decide that if the weather holds up, I’ll leave tomorrow, with one oar.
And if I’m lucky, maybe the same fate that brought me the boat will reveal land only a short distance away, and I’ll be rowing up onto a beach by tomorrow afternoon.
Or rescued by a ship out searching for me.
I’ll be sipping a latte in a warm hotel room by tomorrow night, electric lights buzzing overhead, my cell phone ringing, Nana on the other end.
Booking a flight back to Seattle, James waiting to pick me up, where he’ll scoop me into his arms, kiss me, and I’ll tell him I want to get married right away. Why wait?
I’ll resume my life in earnest. No more fear, no more doubt.
I’ll do it better this time. I’ll live my life like I almost lost it—because I nearly did.
I can feel the hope expanding in my chest, my mind cycling over all the things I will do differently. All the ways I will be different.
The boat is my salvation—not just from this island, but from a thought pricking me like a needle. A temptation I may not be able to resist for much longer.
At the kitchen table, Clay and I eat in silence. He won’t even look at me.
I want to tell him I understand why he thinks this is a bad idea, but that I have to try. Yet, I don’t say a word. Because I know it won’t change his mind. And anything he says won’t change mine.
When dinner is finished, he pushes back from the table. “I’ll wash up.” He reaches for my empty plate, but I stop him…
I do it without thinking.
I touch his forearm, my fingers against his flesh… and he stalls, looking down at me.
“I’ll be okay,” I say up to him.
He is silent, blue eyes lidded, watery in the candlelight.
“We both know it’s time. I can’t stay any longer.”
His mouth parts like he’s going to speak, but no words fall out.
I remove my hand and he watches me a second longer, like he can’t pull himself away.
Maybe it’s the loneliness I see in his eyes, the part of him that doesn’t want to admit that he preferred having someone else on the island with him.
The part of him that doesn’t want me to go.
Even if these are thoughts he can’t admit, even to himself.
I almost say I’m sorry. For leaving.
Because he knows this feeling too well—being left behind. The only one. The last one.
But after a second, he forces his eyes away and walks to the sink.
My heart feels like it’s being dismantled. Maybe I’m seeing things that aren’t there, maybe it’s not loneliness in his eyes—it’s relief that he’ll finally be rid of me. Even if he thinks I’m a fool for risking the open ocean.
Maybe I’m imagining emotion in his eyes where there is none.
So I leave him alone in the kitchen, a single candle burning from the table, and I retreat to the bedroom—his bedroom—where I crawl beneath the blankets. Once I’m gone, his bed will be his again. Linen and silence and solitude. The island too.
I’ve been here over two months.
And last night, a boat washed ashore.
I have to try.
The morning light is gray through the window, and I hear the wind before I’ve even opened my eyes. Rain gusts against the house as I walk out onto the front porch, sweater pulled tight across my chest. The ocean is churning and tossing against the shoreline.
Fuck.
I won’t be going anywhere today.
Two more days pass like this. Three and then four. The rain unending, the temperature dropping, and I worry we’re slipping into colder months, or we’ve drifted farther north, near Iceland or Greenland.
“You could leave the island,” I say over a breakfast of bread and apple jam. “You could come with me.”
We’ve barely spoken since the boat arrived. Like we both know there’s no point—I’ll be leaving soon, might as well pretend that I’ve already left.
He pushes up from his chair, walks to the stove, where the cast-iron kettle has begun to boil. He carries it to the counter, but stops, staring out the back window, and I know what he’s looking at: the gravestone at the edge of the island. He shakes his head. “This place is all I have left.”
He won’t leave his buried wife and children. And what kind of life could he really manage on the mainland, now that he has become a fable? Now that the world has changed beyond anything he could imagine?
He pours the steaming water into two mugs. Our morning tea.
He leaves one for me, before he heads out the back door.
I know it shouldn’t matter, but a twinge of hurt rips through me. I hate the distance between us. I hate the quiet, the side glances when he refuses to look at me.
Some unknown part of me misses the weight of his eyes, the tenderness of them when he talks about Scotland, about his life before, about the sea. A thing he seems to love, but also fears.
Nine days have passed since the boat arrived, and I start to settle back into the rhythm of each day. Watching the sky for a break in the storm, but knowing it could be weeks until it comes.
He seems to relax too. A slow softening, like the heavy layer of clouds and constant rain has eased his worry. The storm that has prevented me from leaving has calmed his nerves.
We wash dishes side by side, him scrubbing with a linen cloth, then handing each plate and cup my way, where I dry them with a rag before placing them back in the cupboard. We find our old, easy pace again, not just with the work, but with our conversation.
After dinner, we sit on the front porch in the two wooden chairs, a blanket wrapped over my shoulders, mugs of chamomile tea in our cupped hands.
“This place where ye live, Seattle, you like it there?”
I smile at the question. “Yeah, it’s okay for now.
” I tell him about my years at college, how I enjoyed the pattern of classes, the reading late into the night, even the exams. I liked having something to focus on, to hold my attention.
I don’t tell him that I think I liked it because it was a distraction; it didn’t allow me to obsess over the past, my memories.
The island. I even tell him about my life since graduation, the years I’ve spent counseling young kids.
But I admit that it’s felt dull somehow, lacking meaning, even though I know the work I do is important.
Strangely, I’ve felt unanchored by anything truly purposeful—a thought I never really allowed myself to examine, to consider, until now.
“Sounds like ye have a good life,” he answers, bringing the mug to his lips.
“It is good,” I agree. “I just wonder… I don’t know. Maybe it’s not the right life. Maybe when I get back, I’ll find something that makes me happier. Something other than what I was doing.” Unconsciously, I spin the diamond ring around my finger.
Clay catches the motion. “What about James?”
My eyes lower to the ring. “He’s…” I pause, shaking my head. I don’t want to think about him—I don’t know why, but it’s a thorn in the back of my throat. I lift my gaze, the sun now a wavy orb against the sea. “Life isn’t nearly as simple on the mainland as it is out here.”
Clay nods. “Simple, aye, but dangerous too.”
I try to imagine all the things he’s seen and endured. “Are you ever afraid?” I ask. “Of what’s out there, at the other end of the ocean?”
He lifts a shoulder. “Nae. Rifle should suffice, if I ever have need of it,” he says matter-of-factly. But we both know there are things out there that the rifle—tucked away, unused, at the back of the hall closet—won’t be able to stop. More complicated things. Like the tide, the weather. And time.
He turns back to the ocean, the opal of his eyes like a whole world reflected back. His beard has grown out, and his hair could use a trim. If I’m leaving soon, I should offer to give him a proper shave and a haircut before I go. Maybe in the morning, after breakfast.
Or maybe not.
I think of last time, my hands against his face. The closeness. He is a man who makes me feel something perilous in the cavity of my rib cage.
“Tell me a story,” I prompt. “About the island.”