16. Dane Gallagher
Dane Gallagher
Charlotte falls asleep before I do. Within minutes of lying down, her breathing evens out.
That’s been happening more lately. As soon as the sun goes down, her body just… switches off.
She’s out cold, and I realize I didn’t make today’s mark on the tree.
Shit.
I keep track of the days on the tree at the edge of camp. Ryan started it—one cut for each day, a line through every week. Something to hold onto when everything else blurred together.
His marks were quick. Uneven. Just enough to count.
Mine aren’t.
Same height. Same depth. Clean. Somewhere along the way, it stopped being about tracking time and started being about doing it right.
It was one of the things I took over when he died—one of a hundred small responsibilities that slowly became mine. And I missed today.
It shouldn’t matter as much as it does. But once something settles into my routine, once my brain decides it’s important, it’s hard to ignore when it’s off. Hard not to feel the imbalance of it sitting there.
I ease out from under Charlotte carefully, trying not to wake her. She shifts beside me, making a soft sound under her breath before settling again.
I pause for a second, looking down at her.
She looks different like this. Relaxed. The tension she carries during the day is gone completely. I wait just long enough to be sure she stays asleep.
Then I get up.
The axe is by the door where it always is. I grab it and step outside.
The air is cooler outside the shelter. The heat disappears fast after sunset, replaced by wind, salt, and something sharper that clears my head the second it hits my skin.
The ocean moves steadily in the background. Constant enough now that I barely register it anymore.
I walk to the tree and stop in front of it.
The marks catch faintly in the moonlight—years of them carved into the bark. The wood’s worn smooth where my hand can reach, layer after layer cut into it over time. Everything we’ve survived pressed into something that’ll probably outlast us both.
Ryan’s marks are still there if you know where to look. Rougher than mine. Uneven.
Mine start after that. Cleaner. More controlled.
I know the exact place where the change happens.
I raise the axe and make the cut. One strike. Clean and exactly where it’s supposed to be.
Then I step back and look at it.
This is control. Not the obvious kind—not the shelter or the fire or the food. Those things can fail. Storms come through. Supplies run low. Something always shifts.
This doesn’t. This stays exact. Countable. Certain.
I know what day it is. I haven’t lost track.
We’re still here. And I’m still holding everything together.
The tree doesn’t actually fix anything. I know that. But the act of doing it matters anyway. The routine. The certainty of it.
By the marks, Christmas is about three weeks away. Out here, that’s probably as close to exact as anyone could get.
You don’t feel it in the temperature. It shows up in other ways. The light shifts first—the angle, the way it hits the water. Then the air follows, subtle but consistent, carrying something different in off the ocean.
I’ve learned to read it because I had to.
Time works differently here. Not dates. Not calendars. Just patterns—light, position, change. You either learn them, or you lose track completely.
Three weeks.
I think about the pearls.
They’re stored in one of the containers on the yacht, tucked in with everything else we keep dry. Nothing special about where they are. No reason for Charlotte to notice them.
And she hasn’t.
I’ve been collecting them all year.
It wasn’t intentional at first. The first pearl came from an oyster I pulled up near the northern reef. I remember opening it, seeing its shine in my palm, then slipping it into my pocket instead of tossing it aside.
After that, I started looking for them.
Most of them aren’t usable. Wrong shape. Too small. Cracked. Dull. I kept those anyway.
But there are forty-two worth keeping.
Same size. Same pale shine. Smooth enough that they look like they belong together.
I’m going to give them to her for Christmas. And when we get back to Australia, I’ll have them turned into something real. Maybe a necklace. Something she can wear that still carries a piece of this place.
I stand there another second, looking at the marks carved into the tree.
Maybe next year.
Then I head back inside.
I settle beside Charlotte the same way I left—slow and careful, so I don’t wake her. She shifts as I slide in beside her, and I wrap an arm around her waist. Instantly, she fits herself against me again without opening her eyes.
For a second, everything feels normal.
Then she winces.
It’s small. Quick enough most people probably wouldn’t notice it. But I feel it immediately.
Her hand moves to her stomach, pressing there lightly like she’s trying to soothe something without fully waking up.
I go still.
Something’s wrong.
Her breathing sounds off now. Slightly uneven. Too quick, like she’s controlling it instead of letting it happen naturally.
I wait a second, expecting it to pass.
It doesn’t.
She doesn’t relax again. Doesn’t drift back under.
“What’s wrong?”
She doesn’t answer right away.
“Nothing. Go to sleep.”
Her voice comes out flat and controlled in a way I know too well. The tone she uses when something hurts and she doesn’t want me paying attention to it.
“Charlotte.”
“I’m fine, Dane.”
I shift just enough to see her face. She’s turned away from me, but not completely. Her eyes are open.
“Look at me.”
She stays still for a second before finally turning toward me. Slow. Like she already knows pretending this is nothing isn’t going to work.
Her eyes meet mine. Not crying yet. But close.
I know that look. I’ve only ever seen it when something’s genuinely wrong.
“Tell me.”
She holds my gaze another second.
Then something in her gives a little. Not all at once. No dramatic break. Just a hitch in her breathing before her eyes start filling anyway. The tears come silently after that, slipping down slowly while she still tries to keep herself composed. Somehow that makes it worse to watch.
“Hey.” I pull her toward me immediately.
She folds into me without resisting, pressing her face against my chest. I can feel how tightly she’s holding herself together, like she’s trying not to let this turn into something bigger once it starts.
So I don’t push. Don’t rush her.
I just hold her.
After a minute or two, the tension slowly starts easing out of her body. Her breathing steadies until she finally leans back enough to look up at me.
“Tell me,” I say again, softer this time.
She studies my face for a second, something flickering through her expression. Relief maybe. But there’s something else underneath it too.
“I think I have cancer.”
The words settle between us heavily.
I hear them. Understand them. But they don’t fully land at first.
“What makes you think that?”
She swallows hard. “I can feel something. Inside. Lower down.” A pause. “It’s been there for a while. I kept thinking maybe it would go away.”
My chest tightens. “How long?”
“A few months.”
I absorb that quietly. A few months. And she never said anything.
“Describe it.”
She hesitates before answering. “It feels firm. Not soft.” Her hand presses lightly against her stomach. “When I touch it, it doesn’t move the way everything else does.” She stops for a second, trying again. “It just feels… wrong. Like it shouldn’t be there.”
“Show me.”
She takes my hand and guides it down, placing it low against her abdomen just above her hip. Her fingers adjust mine slightly until they’re exactly where she wants them.
Then I press.
I feel it immediately.
For one second, I want my hand to be wrong. Want there to be nothing there at all.
But there is.
Firm beneath the surface. Distinct. It doesn’t shift when I press against it. Doesn’t soften or move under my fingers.
It just stays there.
I force my expression to stay calm even as something cold settles low in my stomach.
“Do you know how big it is?”
“It’s growing,” she says, showing me the size with her fingers. “It was smaller before.”
I adjust my hand against her stomach, tracing it carefully beneath my fingertips. There’s shape to it. Size. Something solid enough that it can’t be ignored.
My mind reaches for the easiest explanation first. Pregnancy. It’s the only possibility that doesn’t mean—
I stop the thought before it fully forms.
“Has your cycle changed at all?”
“A little.” She shifts slightly against the pillow. “It’s still happening, just not normally anymore.”
“How so?”
“It’s irregular now.” She hesitates. “Sometimes lighter. Sometimes worse. And the cramps have been bad.”
“Any nausea? Appetite changes?”
She nods once. “Yeah. But not in the way people usually describe pregnancy.”
It’s obvious she already considered that possibility herself and ruled it out long before tonight.
I look at her again. The tears are gone now. Whatever cracked open earlier has already been pulled back under control. She’s studying my face instead, watching for reactions I’m trying hard not to show.
“Can I check again?”
She nods.
I place my hand back against her lower abdomen, moving slower this time. I press carefully around the edges, trying to understand what I’m feeling beneath the surface.
It’s there. Firm. Defined. Unmoving beneath my hand.
Real.
I pull my hand away again, forcing my expression to stay steady.
She doesn’t look away from me.
“There’s something growing in there, Dane.”
Not a question.
“I feel it.” The words taste wrong in my mouth.
A memory flashes through my head before I can stop it. One of my cousins finding a lump years ago. Adults whispering about scans and surgery and chemo while pretending the kids couldn’t hear them. She survived because they caught it early. Because there were doctors, equipment, and options.
I’m sitting in a shelter on an island with Charlotte in my arms.
And I have none of those things.
No way to see inside her. No way to know what this is. No way to stop it if it keeps growing.
And what I felt beneath my hand—
That was real.
I’ve kept her alive for years. That isn’t ego or some story I tell myself to feel important. It’s just true.
Food. Shelter. Fire. The constant physical work of survival. The decisions that had to be made quickly and correctly.
We’re still here because those things held.
Because I made sure they did.
We’ve survived this place together—always—but the responsibility for keeping everything running, keeping us fed and protected and alive, became mine a long time ago. I took it on because someone had to. Because protecting Charlotte is the one thing I’ve never had to think twice about.
And sitting here now, I realize I don’t know how to protect her from this.
I keep my emotions under control, but underneath them something cold is spreading through me.
This isn’t a storm I can prepare for or an injury I can stitch closed. I can’t build my way around it. Can’t force it into submission through routine or planning or sheer effort.
I can’t cut it out. I can’t stop it. I can’t even see it.
Everything I know how to rely on becomes useless the second it touches this.
I’ve handled everything the island has thrown at us. Hunger. Infection. Injury. Death.
This feels different.
Because for the first time in years, I have absolutely no idea what to do.
And all at once, I understand what it really means to have no control at all.
I pull her into me. She comes easily, like she always does, fitting against my chest without hesitation. I wrap my arms around her and hold her a little tighter than usual.
She stays quiet, waiting.
“You’re going to be okay,” I say.
My voice doesn’t shake. It’s the same tone I’ve used every time something went wrong out here—the one that leaves no room for panic or uncertainty. The one that states things like facts until they become easier to believe.
I know how to make certainty sound real.
“Dane—”
“We’ll figure it out.” I press my mouth briefly against her hair. “I’m getting you off this island. And when I do, someone’s going to fix this.”
She’s quiet for a second before speaking again. Softer this time against my chest. “You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do.”
The answer comes instantly. No hesitation at all.
She doesn’t argue with me after that. Instead, her arms tighten around me, and I feel the trust in it. Not blind trust. Charlotte’s never been blind about anything.
I keep holding her until her breathing finally starts to slow. Until the tension eases from her shoulders. Until she settles as much as she’s capable of settling tonight.
Only then do I let myself feel the rest of it.
It hits hard, all at once, heavier than anything I’ve allowed myself to sit with in years. Worse than anything the island has thrown at us before, because every other disaster came with something to do. Something physical. Something I could fight or build or solve.
This doesn’t.
There’s nothing to repair. Nothing to outwork. Nothing to force into place through planning or effort.
Just this thing growing inside her while I sit here completely useless against it.
I’ve kept her alive through everything else.
This is the first time I genuinely don’t know how.
My arms tighten around her again.
I’m getting her off this island.
Nothing else matters anymore.