“I don’t even like to swim all that much. Honest. That’s my husband’s world. Not mine.”
“True, but sailors can feel such things. I feel it too.” His eyes searched the water for Brando. He had gone under, and knowing him as well as I did, I knew he wouldn’t be up for a while. He could stay under for a hell of a long time. He had gills instead of lungs.
“He’s been trying to keep me from you. Your husband, I mean. He would only go for his swim after you had fallen asleep.” He gave me a sideways glance, throwing the tip of the cigar over the side. “Sit with me, Gem? If he sees, he’ll take your time. And I’d like to tell you about my experience with the man under the water.”
I agreed, and he gave me his arm as we moved inside the lower cabin, coming to stand in front of a tinted window that held views of the sea. We could see out, but I doubted Brando could see in. He’d check on me in a few, though, and then come looking when he noticed my absence. I hoped the captain’s story was short enough that there was time to listen.
The dark tint of the windows clouded Captain’s blue eyes, and I could’ve sworn storm clouds moved in their depths. “I know that look,” he said, almost to himself. His mind seemed to be pondering, perhaps peeling the leathered layers back, digging for a time hard remembered but not forgotten. “The way he looks at you. He watches you like the guardian watches the hapless victim being ravaged by the sea, determined to save her no matter the cost. I’ve seen it on him before. I’ve seen it again today, when he looks at you.”
Captain O’Malley took his hat off, revealing a crop of silver hair that melted in with the sun-bleached blonde strands. He tapped the cap against his palm. Just when I felt I couldn’t take another second of his silence, he cleared his throat. “Olive was her name.”
“Olive?” I said, my voice hoarse. His tension had touched me.
His tone didn’t change, but his voice lightened for a second. “She was only six.”
“Oh,” I said, my heart already thrumming.
“A buddy asked me to take his daughter and her family out as a favor. I obliged. Her husband wanted to fish, to try his hand at the catch. The little girl came with them. A dark-haired wee beauty with eyes like yours, skin so pale you could see the veins underneath her skin. I can still see and hear her—bravely walking up to me, asking me if I had met any pirates. Or if I was one.” He laughed at this, but it was rueful and made my blood run cold. He motioned to his shirt. “She had on a shirt with a ballet slipper on it. Said she wanted to be a ballerina when she grew up.” He turned to me. “That’s you, aye?”
“Yes,” I said. “I’m a dancer.”
“He told me as much.” He became still, except for the look in his eyes. He was reliving what he saw so clearly. “We got caught by a bad storm, came upon us like a thief in the night. A sailor knows when he’s been had, and we’d been had. Her mam hit her head, was knocked unconscious, and her da lost his mind to fear. He panicked. I took Olive with me, all the while trying to talk some sense into the man.
“But a man who doesn’t love the sea cannot fathom giving his life to her. I couldn’t fathom giving Olive to the sea. Or her mam, for that matter.” He lifted his hands, looking at them as if they had failed him. “The water was—” he growled deep in his throat “—a blood-thirsty woman out for revenge. We bobbled like playthings, nothing more. Then—” He looked to the warm blue sky of Fiji, but I knew he saw the frigid black sky of Alaska.
“Angels. They dropped down from the sky, no fear. They plunged in and then emerged, ready to fight to the end. ‘I am Rescue Diver Brando Fausti, sir, from the Coast Guard. Give her to me.’” His arms came to his chest in a cradling motion, and then he released them, holding out his shaking hands. “I gave her to him—I knew if anyone could save her, it was Rescue Diver Brando Fausti. Ravaged with the will of it, he was.
“The diver next to him attended to her mam and da, but I had no attention to spare.” He licked his lips, putting his cap to his heart. “Olive. She had taken in too much water, and the water was much too cold. Even though I’m a sailor, I’m not the strongest swimmer. Not compared to the roughness of the Bering. Olive died in your husband’s arms. He refused to give up, though. They had to stop him from—it was too late.” He sighed. “It was too late.”
My hand shot out and I squeezed Captain O’Malley’s arm to offer him support and to keep myself from toppling over. Brando lost that beautiful little girl and his son. He felt that he couldn’t save either of them.
I can’t forgive me,he had said.
“I sought him out after. Couldn’t get the man out of my mind. Thought that if I had a talk with him, he would go. I asked around, and it was well known that he was one of the best divers. Broke records at the academy, and if you ever saw him swim in those conditions, you’d understand why. Whether it’s from natural talent or determination, who’s to say? He’s gifted, no matter the reason.
“Your husband was kind of enough to meet with this old captain. We went fishing, and he was one of the luckiest men I’d ever met—soon as his line hit the water, the fish came rushing to bite. That’s when he told me of you. Said he had a girl in Paris, a professional ballerina. Said he was destined to marry you, and that he was leaving, going home to you. That’s when I told him that I owed him one. All he’d have to do is make the call.”
Putting the cap back on his head, he looked down at my hand on his arm and grinned, covering it with his own. “Never thought I’d hear from him again. I was damn surprised when the call came in. I own an island here, and he wanted to use it. Told him he could have it.” He laughed at that, some of the smoke from the cigar rattling in his lungs. “Told me no—too rich for his blood. He only wanted to take you there for a while. I dream about him, you know. I dream about that time. Still, after so many days. So I made my way down from the Caribbean, where I usually live, to see him again.”
“I—I had no idea.” I sniffed, not even bothering to wipe the tears from my cheeks.
He nodded. “Your man is struggling, trying to atone for something. He was back then too. I sensed it on him, his reason for joining the Coast Guard. I know when a man carries the curse from another. I’m a cursed man myself, you see. Whatever wrongs your husband has committed in his life, he thinks life has claimed her due.” He hesitated, but only for a second. “The thing about wrongdoing, Gem, is that when life comes to collect, she rarely hurts the wrongdoers in a direct way, aye? No, she takes from the ones we love the most—that is real cruel punishment. When a man is as helpless in life as he is in an uncontrollable storm.”
Brando popped up from the water then, taking a breath. He turned toward where Uncle Tito and Aunt Lola still slept, searching. He’d come for me in a minute.
The need to be close to him surpassed my fear of water. I left Captain O’Malley to compose himself and went out on the deck, to the ladder that descended into the South Pacific, and took it down.
The water was soft and warm, caressing, swishing back and forth with its gentle rock. I swam out, not too far from the boat, when Brando sighted me. After not finding me on deck, he had moved closer, making his way back.
I lifted my hand and then froze. The look on his face—
The funniest feeling came over me, a tingle on the back of my neck that alerted me that I should run. But how could I? My feet existed below a fathomless pit of weightlessness.
I was so panicked that I became paralyzed, looking forward, too afraid to look back toward the ladder. I should’ve known…the blood from the tuna Agwe had cleaned must’ve summoned it. Its sharp fin came up and then went down. The water seemed to swoosh underneath the surface with its powerful thrust.
When Aunt Lola’s shrill shriek ofsqualo!met my ears, it was no surprise.Shark!An awfulthunksounded, and Aunt Lola disappeared from sight.
What I wouldn’t give for the luxury of passing out against something solid! Retract. What I wouldn’t give just to pass out!
