Life on a Wave

Saturday Morning

The woman sat in the sailboat's cockpit, her legs stretched out in the sun, her eyes fixed on the thatched-roof cottages that rimmed the palm-lined shore less than a hundred yards away. The sun had been up for less than three hours but already the morning air was thick and warm, and despite the steady trade-wind blowing through her hair she was already uncomfortably warm. She swatted absently at an unseen bug, swiped at a couple beads of sweat that ran down her neck and into her t-shirt. A boat loaded with scuba divers roared by on its way to the pass that led from the lagoon out to sea. She watched them for a moment, envied their mobility, envied the fact that in a few days all those smiling faces would load back onto the ATR airliner on which they'd so recently come and hop back to Papeete in a half hour or so, and then on to places like Paris or New York. She, on the other hand, would be sailing south with her husband to Papeete, and it would take days.

She was tired, tired of living her husband's dream, tired of living in a forty foot sailboat, tired of living in other people's idea of paradise. She thought, sitting in the boat's shaded cockpit, about what her idea of paradise might be now, now -- after a year and a half at sea. First and foremost, Paradise would be air-conditioned and Paradise would not rock and roll with each passing wavelet. When she heard thunder and saw lightning she would not fear for her life and if the wind stopped blowing she'd not become consumed with visions of dying of thirst, her bloated tongue black and hard, her mouth so dry she couldn't swallow. Every time she walked across a room she'd not have to worry about being flung sideways into hard furniture, and if she never had to look at a GPS readout again that would be too soon. And if someone, anyone ever asked her to start a dead-reckoning plot again... well, she'd be more than happy to acquaint the poor fool with dead, alright.

But still, there were times...

Like last night. David had miraculously produced a bottle of ice-cold Riesling to go with the lobsters fishermen had plucked from the lagoon earlier that day. He'd rubbed chilled aloe on her sun-burned shoulders and the tops of her ears, then he'd kissed her so gently on the neck that chills had run up and down her spine -- and he'd been so gentle and caring with his lovemaking that night. And she'd felt once again how the dome of the night sky out here millions of miles away from 'civilization' could be so staggeringly overwhelming. The Milky Way looked like thick white steam rising against a backdrop of infinite black velvet, and lying in the cockpit awash in orgasmic afterglow she'd never felt so connected to ebb and flow of life, indeed, to the very universe above.

No, she'd never felt more alive in her life. The whole thing was... a paradox.

If she tried to catalogue all she and David seen and done over the past eighteen months she knew she'd need hundreds, if not thousands of pages to document it all: Seattle to San Francisco, fog and logs, seeing a Great White in the Farallons take a seal pup; south to Newport Beach, where they'd spent a few weeks provisioning and making minor repairs -- and that quick trip to Disneyland; then south again to San Diego and Ensenada and Cabo San Lucas -- which had seemed more like LA than the sleepy Mexican village she'd been looking forward to. Then their first real ordeal: a month at sea, twenty seven hundred miles from Cabo to the Marquesas, the doldrums, the brief though indescribably violent line storms that pushed through with little, or at night, no warning.

But the boat always did just fine, and so had David -- in fact, he seemed to thrive more with each passing adventure. Only as the third week wore on had she begun to feel completely out of place, so stripped bare of all she'd once held so dearly. Then she'd begun to feel trapped. Trapped, like she was caught in someone else's dream, like she was just a minor, peripheral element in a vast unfolding drama that, frankly, she didn't care about in the least -- because, after all, this wasn't her drama. As the boat drifted through the doldrums she found herself looking at David and wishing she'd never met him, never married him, never borne him his child. Wishing he was dead and gone and somehow someone or something would miraculously appear in the very next instant and take her away from this never-ending nightmare of rolling seas. She needed, she told herself, to change course.

Thereafter she'd grown skittish and cross, she stopped eating and began avoiding David, even as the doldrums fell away and the wind filled-in, even as they began cracking off hundred-seventy mile days. Then one day David caught a tuna and seared steaks for dinner, a couple of land birds flew over as the sun set that evening and voila! the next morning -- right where David said they would be -- the jagged spires of Nuku Hiva lined the horizon and she'd simply broken down. She'd cried for hours and David had simply let her be. He couldn't possibly understand!

She was sure he wouldn't understand, either, even if she told him. He was just too wrapped up in his dreams, she told herself, to care about anything or anyone beyond the limited horizon of those goddamn dreams.

+++++

"Let's see, you're sixty-three years? Can you describe your symptoms?" the physician said, her French accent so thick the man could almost understand something like every other word.

"A dull, diffuse pain, back here," he said as he pointed to the back of his pelvis. "And now it hurts like crazy to take a pee. Not in that thing," he said, pointing to his penis, "but deep inside."

The physician nodded. "When was your last PSA test?"

The man crossed his arms protectively over his chest. "Oh, hell, now I'd say almost two years ago."

The physician bunched her lips and frowned, then walked over to a cabinet and took out a big tube of lubricant and a couple of latex gloves. "You know what comes next, no?"

"I was afraid you'd say that," the man said. "And this is only our first date!" He stood and pulled down his swim trunks. "Where to, doc?"

"Just lean over the table, monsieur."

'Why did it have to be a female? And a cute one at that!' the man asked as he shuffled around with his trunks around his ankles, then he leaned over, rested his forearms on the paper-covered exam table and did his level best to ignore the cold jelly that fluttered like diarrhea down the crack between his cheeks. He felt on gloved hand peeling his cheeks apart, then the cold, hard apex of her finger as it slipped through the goo seeking entry.

"Take a deep breath, and hold it..." she said -- and in it went -- pop!

"Ungh-h-h," was about all the man managed to say, then he felt her finger deep inside his gut, fire everywhere... "Oh, Jesus Christ on a fucking motorbike! Shit goddamn that hurts!"

"Has it ever feel dees way before?" she asked, yet she kept her finger up there, moved it gently around something.

"Jesus, fuck, NO!" he screamed when she hit paydirt. "What did you stick up there? A goddamn truck?!"

"Try to relax, monsieur; you are squeezing so hard you are going to break my finger!"

He tried to ease-off but his legs started shaking, he felt cold sweat break-out on his forehead, then her finger sliding out.

"Well, coming out of chute number two, it's Gonzo, the floppy chicken!" the men said in his best rodeo announcer voice. He decided passing out would be the polite thing to do about now.

"Pardon-moi, monsieur?"

"Oh, nothing, nothing." He was panting now, but the pain wasn't subsiding.

"Are you alright?" the physician leaned next to him. She had her hand on his shoulder.

"Oh fuck, that's a bad sign," he said.

"Monsieur?"

"When the doc starts sounding sympathetic you know you're up Shit Creek."

"Ah. Oui, with the paddle. I understand this."

"Without. Without a paddle. And?"

"Oui, David. I think this is about where we are. Sit down, please. We must talk now."

+++++

He walked down a smooth, sandy lane, oblivious to the beauty around him for a while, then suddenly aware of nothing but. The tide was flooding in the pass, almost roaring as the sea forced its way back into the huge lagoon. All around him people were going about their lives with an easy rhythm that seemed almost in sync with the sea that surrounded them: fishermen were coming in and tying off at little piers, shopkeepers and fish-merchants were walking down to inspect the day's catch and little boys and girls were running down to look at the fish just for the fun of it all. Such a simple thing to do. Cancer was meaningless out here. This was life. Cancer... was anything but.

And Cancer had come calling.

So what to do?

Maybe he'd pick up another couple of lobsters, another bottle of wine. When the going gets tough the tough get... what? Drunk? Hide their head in the sand?

Give up?

And as always looking at the rows of fish was a bittersweet symphony. So explosively vibrant in the sea -- and for those first few moments out of it -- the myriad fish now seemed muted and dull... dead... as indeed they were. What an odd circle of life this was, this being human. Somehow we'd made it out of the food chain, he told himself; or had we? Here he was, standing on a little pier in the middle of an indecipherable ocean, looking at men and women and children sorting and laughing and living. And loving. But we weren't on anyone's meal plan anymore, not like all these fish, unless we just happened along the wrong place at the wrong time. But sooner or later we come to the end of the line. That shark is always out there, circling, waiting.

Rangiroa: even the name was laced with potent magic! He looked across the pale blue lagoon, could just make out the slender line of treetops miles away on the far side of the lagoon. Another dive boat full of tourists cast-off to photograph the Silver-tip sharks and eagle-rays that hung around just outside the entrance to the lagoon, waiting for their next meal to come shooting by. He looked at the smiling faces as they passed, at their happy certitude and at the sense of infinite adventure just ahead. All that and more that filled their eyes, and feelings of his own rushed-in like the tide. It wasn't envy he felt, or sorrow for all the adventures he'd never have, but oddly enough, a profound gratitude washed through him. "My God," he said softly, "what a miracle to have just been what I've been... to have done what I've done. To have just been... me."

He looked among the dozen or so sailboats that swung at anchor a scant hundred yards off the village of Tiputa, then he looked for her, for her coppery hair and that defiantly bright white skin. There she was, sitting in the cockpit fanning her face with her floppy straw hat. He looked at her for a very long time, looked back over their journey, and he knew that though he loved her more than mere words could ever say the roughest part of the journey lay just ahead, and he was going to have to put her through it. There was no way around it now...

"But isn't this what it's all about?" he said out loud.

A fisherman turned and looked up at him.

"This mortal coil?" the fisherman said.

"Beg pardon?"

"You contemplate life, and death."

"Indeed I do."

"They are the same, life and death. There is nothing to fear. Just live while you can."

The man rocked back under the force of the man's prescience; the world seemed to grow cool and dim for a moment, winds from unseen storms filled his sails, the shark circled patiently.

When he looked again the fisherman was gone.

"C'est la vie," he said.

+++++

She turned, saw him standing among fishermen and villagers; he seemed so small standing there yet he had always been so much larger than life. Now everything was different. Now she was at an end -- they were at an end. She couldn't do this anymore, couldn't put up with the beating to windward and the constant pounding motion, the relentless fear that stalked her day and night. No, this was it. She'd decided sometime in the night. It was time to act.

It wasn't fair to take his dreams away. No, she wouldn't do that to him. She would fly to Papeete and then on to Seattle. She would move in with their daughter for awhile, just until she could sort through her life and figure out what to do next. She'd leave David to chase his rainbows.

Or were they windmills?

She went below and began gathering the few things she'd need to make the journey: some clothes and her passport, a wad of traveler's checks and a little cash, and she jammed it all in a little nylon duffel. She looked at the two pair of shoes she still owned -- a pair of musty old Tevas and boat shoes that had seen better days about six months ago -- and all she had left to give were bitter tears.

"I'm abandoning ship," she said quietly as she looked around the teak cocoon she'd called home the past year and a half. She felt betrayal in the air everywhere she looked: David betraying her, ignoring her own hopes and dreams; yet she was betraying him, had been. Hadn't she always consented to this madness, and with open eyes and not even the smallest voice of dissent.

Wait! She'd even been excited about it all -- once upon a time.

Not now. Not now.

She heard an outboard and looked out a port-light, saw David circling around to tie off at the stern. She tossed the duffel back deep inside the quarter-berth and walked up to help him get aboard. He had her little net shopping bag in hand as he stood in the Zodiac and he passed up a couple of nice looking tuna filets wrapped in plastic and some fresh fruit -- and another bottle of wine. She smiled, felt his love for her anew and she felt a little ashamed of herself, then she felt all the conflict return, she grew full of resolve to go ashore and head for the airport.

Then she saw the pain in his eyes.

+++++

The sun had been down an hour yet the western horizon was still pulsing with shimmering bands of orange and purple. Venus hung above the lagoon like a lantern, and fish broke the smooth surface of the lagoon as if trying to take wing and voyage among the stars. To the south, looking past the far side of the lagoon, towering cumulonimbus stood like evenly spaced sentinels; lightning played inside one of the larger columns. To the north, just yards away, a couple of new arrivals swung from just-set anchors. There were always new acolytes in search of the dream, that endlessly captivating dream to leave it all behind and voyage among tropic isles forever -- and here they were! Oil lamps being lit and dinners prepared, couples in all these boats -- all these homes -- sat mesmerized or engaged, lost in beauty or lost in the mundane details of living in an ocean-cocoon far from home, all engaged with living and life, this shuttling mortal coil. Everyone everywhere was consumed with what tomorrow might bring, how to deal with it. How to love and laugh amidst all the chaos.

And then the man leaned against the woman, and she held him protectively, fiercely, as it she never, ever wanted to let him go. One arm around his chest, the fingers of her other hand ran through his hair. His head, nestled just under her own, the very shape of it ingrained in her fingertips over decades, the smell of his hair now as it was almost forty years ago. She could feel his heartbeat, his every breath through the flesh of her breast. Such simple music. How she longed to dance in the light of such rhythms for all time.

"Thanks, babe," she heard him say.

"Um-m." She added a hymn of her own to the evening sky. "My pleasure, sweet-cheeks."

"Sweet-cheeks?" he chuckled. "Oh-me-oh-my; I haven't heard that one in a long time!"

"You remember that cake?" That cake she'd taken to his office on his fortieth birthday. A big flesh colored derrière with 'Happy Birthday, Sweet Cheeks' emblazoned across the top and bottom. "Remember how embarrassed you were?"

"Boy, do I!" He reached up and gently stroked her arm as precious memories danced again. "Wasn't that the year we chartered that first sailboat, with Bill and Alice?"

"Yes," she said as she too fell into chance dancing memories. "Tortola."

"God, that was such a fun trip."

"When we fell in love with sailing," she said, "Dreamed of sailing away someday."

"I know you've been miserable, babe. You want to call it quits?"

She felt a tenseness creep into the space between them, an unwelcome, intrusive tremor.

"Dave, let's not talk about it now. We need to find out what we're up against."

"Alright."

She relaxed. She'd half expected him to say something like "We! What do you mean 'We'? Nobody said anything today about 'We' having cancer!"

But he hadn't said that, had he?

No.

Did he really feel that way? Was he really still so connected to her after forty years?

"Do you want to fly home from here? We could leave the boat..."

"No, no; let's get her to Tahiti, put her on the hard there if we have to. There's supposed to be a fine hospital there..."

"You don't want to go home?"

"I don't know. Maybe. The doc said there are a bunch of tests they need to run to figure out the best kind of treatment. Not all of them involve surgery, especially if it's advanced."

She felt a cold grip on her heart. Her father had died of prostate cancer when he was 67. His physician had missed it and missed it for years, discovered it only after the cancer had spread into his spine. She fought to push away memories of her father wasting away, morphine the only thing that kept the pain from annihilating his very soul. She struggled as an image of David stricken like that filled her mind and suddenly she felt like crying, like she was in mourning.

"Don't give up on me, babe."

'God, he said that like he's reading my mind...' The thought ricocheted around for a moment.

"I won't, Sweet-Cheeks. I promise."

Something bumped along the side of the hull -- hard enough to swing the mast.

"What the hell!" David said as he pushed himself up.

He leaned out of the cockpit, leaned to look down at the waterline, and she heard him take-in a sharp breath:

"June," he whispered excitedly, "come here. Be quiet about it, too."

She made her way to his side and leaned out, looked down on a Killer Whale calf not yet free of its umbilical cord. Its mother swam on her side not five feet away.

"Something's wrong," he said. "See the cord? It's wrapped around the pectoral fins, holding the little guy under. The placenta must still be attached inside the mother."

"Dave, should we do something?"

But he was already up. He jumped down the companionway and right back up; he put a Swiss Army knife in his mouth and without a word jumped overboard.

"Put the ladder down, would you?" she heard him say as soon as he broke surface. She leapt along the lifelines until she came to the boarding-gate, then unlatched the folding ladder and let it flop down into the water. With one hand on the ladder he grabbed the calf and hoisted its blowhole up onto his free shoulder. She thought it seemed very still, too still. Then she saw its fluke move once, heard it take a small breath, then David take his little knife in hand and open the blade; he cut the cord with one clean stroke and a little puff of black disappeared into the water, then he slowly unwrapped the cord from the little guy's body. The mother disappeared.

"It's not moving much," she said. "Maybe you should slap its ass!"

"Hm-m, not a bad idea. I need to tie the cord if she's not going to..." He rubbed the calf's body briskly, then slapped in gently a couple times. He saw the calf's eye then, saw it looking deeply into his own, and as suddenly it twisted free and disappeared beneath the purple surface of the water and was gone.

"Fuck!" he said.

"David! Be still!"

He froze, listened to water break smoothly just behind his head, heard a much bigger blowhole open, gentle air expelled and inhaled deeply. The head of a large male Orca slid from the surface right beside his own; the top of the whale's head was a good two and a half feet above the water, its towering dorsal fin easily five feet above that. He felt his heart hammering in his chest and for some reason he knew the whale by his side was listening to his heartbeat too. He felt like he was being examined, measured in some way, then as suddenly the huge male slid silently under and was gone.

He reached for the boarding ladder and pulled himself up onto deck; only then did he feel his heart slow down. Then he started shivering.

The woman jumped down and grabbed two towels, guided the man back into the safe confines of their little home, then she wrapped herself around the man and hugged him for a very long time.

+++++

Inside Tiputa Pass, Rangiroa Atoll, French Polynesia

Monday Morning

Timing was crucial, their navigation had to be perfect.

To exit the lagoon one had to time the move for precisely slack water; when the tide ebbed or flooded powerful currents wracked the pass, swirling eddies churned the water and breaking pyramid-shaped waves up to ten feet high rose and broke with incredible intensity. Small boats could be tossed around and pulled under inside this funneling vortex, and had been many times over the years. The simple fact that silver-tipped reef sharks, known man-eaters, cruised these waters made the passage all the more interesting. In order to get out unscathed one had about a twenty minute window between the ebb and the flood -- the brief period of so called slack water, when the pass grew still, when the currents subsided -- and during this uneasy truce boats completed the transit or risked getting caught in the maelstrom.

The man stood at the bow perched high on the pulpit, watched the swirling waters for signs of calming; two other sailboats and a dive boat waited behind them. The woman remained behind the wheel, ready to pour on the throttle and follow any steering commands that came from the man on the bow.

The man looked at his watch then down into the water.

"Alright, away ahead, right for that first buoy!" he called out. The woman pushed the throttle forward and the boat accelerated into the pass; the other sailboats waited a moment -- perhaps to see if they'd missed the timing -- then they too poured on the coals and darted into the pass. The dive boat, powered by huge twin outboards, roared by, leaving a fairly massive wake as it passed. The man perched on the bow pulpit grabbed hold of the headstay as the boat rolled under him, but he took the motion in stride while he scanned the water ahead for any unseen coral heads or floating debris that might get caught in the little ship's propeller. Fifteen minutes later they rounded the last mark and turned to the west to round the huge atoll before turning south towards Tahiti. The man walked back to the cockpit and stood beside the woman with an arm around her waist.

"Good job, darlin'," the man said as he kissed the top of her head.

"We do make a pretty good team, don't we!" The woman beamed.

"Always have, darlin'. Always have."

She looked down at the chartplotter and the moving nautical chart that displayed their position, then settled in on the next waypoint ahead and watched as the course lined-up on the compass.

"Ready for a sandwich, June?" the man said.

"I'm famished," she called out as he trundled down the companionway. "Two!"

Standing in the galley, he looked back at her and smiled, braced himself as a deep ocean roller passed under the boat. He opened the 'fridge and pulled out four already made sandwiches and handed them up, then poured some iced tea into plastic cups before heading up himself.

It was her watch so the next three hours he could rest. She'd steer, she'd navigate, if the sails needed trimming she'd ask David to do it or, if she wanted, do it herself. She steered by hand with the breaking reef of the atoll still so close to port, but as they moved farther away she'd more than likely set the Monitor windvane and let the boat steer itself. He opened a sandwich and handed it to her and she wolfed it down. He smiled.

"Ready for another?" David said wryly.

Another huge roller crossed under the keel and the boat wallowed and yawed as she compensated, then she held out her hand and snapped her fingers. "I can't believe how hungry I am! Cripes!"

"Neither can I," David said through a deep smile. "Kinda exciting, wasn't it?"

"I've never been so happy-scared in my life! And when that dive boat went by?! Crap!"

"Yeah, I puckered-up pretty good."

"Oh, so that was the popping sound I heard!" she said between bites. "Honey, I hate to say it, but I think I'm gonna need another one."

"How about a PBJ? Maybe a little sugar will tame the beast?"

"Sure, yeah, great, whatever..."

He laughed while he made his way back to the galley.

"Where'd all these rollers come from?" she called out when another huge one rolled by.

"That storm the night before, the one to the south. It turned north last night and is chewing things up pretty good as it moves out."

"These suckers must be ten, twelve feet!"

"Feeling seasick?" he asked. Their first long passages that had been an issue.

"Nope! I love it!" He heard her "whoop!" as another big one rolled by; the bow fell into the trough and he heard a wall of water cascade down into the cockpit.

"Yee-e-e-haw-w-w!" they both yelled. "Are we having fun yet!?"

The both laughed. It was an old joke.

"Need a towel?" he called up.

"No! Feels great!" he looked up and saw her shaking the water from her short hair.

"I'm the luckiest man that ever lived," he said quietly as he watched her smile and wrestle the wheel around to take the next roller.

"What'd you say?!" she shouted.

"I said 'you're a nut!'"

"And aren't you glad I am?!"

"Never more than right this very moment!"

She looked at him, smiled, turned to meet the next wave, then she mouthed 'I love you' and threw a kiss his way.

"Ditto!"

She finished her third sandwich while he made his way through his second; soon she turned a little south and the rollers disappeared in the lee of the atoll. The sky was bluebirds, the sea smooth; he let out the big headsail and the boat surge ahead, the circular atoll still off their port beam, then he stretched out in the cockpit facing aft and watched his wife steer for a while. His eyes grew heavy, he suddenly felt very, very tired, so he closed his eyes and drifted off.

+++++

She shook him awake early in the afternoon; he looked pale, feverish, and she poured him a chilled Gatorade, put some fresh pineapple chunks in a bowl and handed it up. He sipped the juice and nibbled some pineapple, then curled up and went straight back to sleep.

He woke some time later, the sun was still up, but just barely. He needed to pee badly and he stood, walked back to the aft rail and let loose. The sea was smooth as glass, barely a breath of air stirred. He looked at the headsail -- June had already rolled it up, ditto the mainsail, and she'd tied off the boom to keep it from slatting around. He looked at the chartplotter: Makatea was on their port beam about ten miles off. It wasn't dark enough yet to see any navigational lights on the west coast.

"You awake up there?"

"Yeah, I think so. What day is it!"

"Ha-ha! You had me worried there for a while! You cracked off a good eight hours!"

"Slept through my watch?"

"You had a fever."

"Shit."

"You hungry yet?"

"Not really. Actually, I feel kinda queasy."

"What!? You? Old Iron Stomach?"

"Well, there you have it, ladies and germs. Film at eleven!"

"Here!" she called out; a cup with Gatorade appeared from down below, followed by a cup of chicken noodle soup.

He ate the soup and it tasted good, then he sipped Gatorade while he regarded the chartplotter for a while. He reached up and put the radar on standby. "What do the batteries look like?" he asked. With any luck the solar panels and wind generator would have topped off the primary bank this afternoon.

"Looks like ninety eight percent of full," he heard from below. With the fridge and chartplotter going all night he might have to fire up the engine to top-off the batteries during the night, depending on how often he used the radar.

"Okay. The bilge dry?"

"Ten-four." He heard her cycling through switches on the main panel, then: "Weatherfax is clear. That storm is about four hundred miles northeast. There's a low down below Tahiti."

"Right," he said, their routine both familiar and absolute. He'd not have to ask her to put all that stuff in the logbook; he knew everything would be there, all in her obsessively neat handwriting. He cycled on the radar now that it had 'warmed-up' and he set the range circles to sixteen miles. A handful of targets, probably all cruising sailboats, blossomed on the screen. "Go ahead and flip on the lights."

"Is there anything on Makatea?" he heard her ask while he stood and walked the deck.

"Not much. I think about a hundred folks. That movie with Harrison Ford was supposed to have taken place here."

That got her attention.

"Oh! Which one?"

"Oh, you know, he played some washed up old pilot; he and the blond-haired, blue-eyed beauty crash land on the deserted island in a thunderstorm..." he kept his hands on the lifelines as he made his way forward.

"Oh, you mean 'Indiana Jones goes to Gilligan's Island'!"

"The very one!" He heard her laughter down below and he smiled. He loved the sound of her laughter... always had. He checked the nav lights one by one then walked back to the cockpit. "Lights are good."

"Okay." Next he heard her rummaging around in the locker by the chart table, then metal banging on the galley stove; she crawled up from the cabin a moment later holding two safety harnesses. She hooked them up to the 'jack-lines' that ran from bow to stern; if either fell overboard they'd remain attached to the ship -- presumably long enough to yell and wake the other before drowning or being eaten by Godzilla. She pressed the 'battery-test' button on the attached strobes then handed one to David while she slipped hers on. The rule on-board was simple: the harness stayed on after dark -- no matter what, no excuses. It was a pain in the ass to go below while hooked-up, but it was better than drowning.

"You must be exhausted," he said. She sat beside him, snuggled under his arm.

"Um-hm-m." She looked up and gave him a gentle kiss. She was dozing within moments but jerked awake, shook herself.

"You okay?"

"Yeah... bad dream or something. Weird. Mind if I go below. I think I need some solid sleep."

He kissed her on the top of her head. "Go ahead, doll."

She dropped below; he heard her unclip from the safety harness and walk forward to the vee-berth, then brushing teeth -- and finally the lights went out.

He dimmed the chartplotter to preserve his nightvision, watched as the wind gauge registered a puff, then another. Within a few minutes a gentle breeze filled in and he rolled out the headsail; there was just enough wind to fill it and soon the boat was slicing through the water at a gentle three knots. He cycled through nav screens to the radar, noted the positions of the boats in his mind, then switched back to the plotter. Makatea was sliding steadily astern; soon it disappeared into the darkness and he scanned the horizon. Not another vessel in sight. He dropped below and made a log entry, then climbed back into the cockpit.

And through it all, through all the chatter and the walking around, through dinner and while he watched instruments record their progress, the dull, grinding pain grew steadily, insistently more painful. He watched Orion slide down to the western horizon; first Rigel slipped from view, then the cotton-ball shaped nebula in the middle of his sword, and finally, Betelgeuse. More time drifted by, still the pain in his pelvis grated away within.

"I need a fucking Tylenol," he said to the stars; he was unable to concentrate anymore. He edged over to the companionway and unclipped his harness, slipped quietly down the steps and took two tablets from the small bottle inside the chart table, got a glass of water and took the pills. He leaned forward, gripped the edges of the table when a deep, piercing pain sliced through his gut. Cold sweat formed, began running down his neck and a shiver arced through him like an errant electric current. For a moment he couldn't remember where he was...

Ka-wooomph. The boat lurched, something thudded alongside.

He scurried up the companionway, flashlight in hand, leaned to port -- nothing -- then hopped to the starboard rail.

An Orca -- was it the same one? -- was there, its body vertical, its head jutting high from the water.

"What the heck are you doing here, buddy?"

The animal shook, water thrashed around it's pectorals. Agitated, he thought, the thing looks agitated. Not angry... more... scared than anything else...

The big male leaned its head away from the boat and he heard another animal thrashing not far away; he shined his old Mag-lite out into the inky blackness and saw the calf again, its mother trying to support it from below. It was wrapped in a pale blue gill-net, thrashing and -- obviously about to drown. Without thinking he darted below and grabbed his knife, then bolted up the steps and in one smooth motion dove overboard; he swam the few yards to the thrashing calf and began frantically slicing away the netting. He cut himself once, grateful the salt water didn't sting too badly, and hacked away the last strands of the net. The calf burst free and disappeared under the water; once again he felt the big male by his side and he turned, looked into its eye.

"Oh fuck," the man said. "Oh my God, no."

The boat was now several hundred yards away, the freshening breeze filled the headsail, her speed was picking up. He sat motionless in the water -- motionless -- as he saw the shape of the end of his life taking form in the air before his eyes. He turned, looked to see if the whale was still there, but it too had slipped away from him.

+++++

She got up in the middle of the night and stumbled into the head, heard the sails pulling, the bow-wave gurgling and hissing its way astern. She smiled and crawled back into the warm berth. She'd been dreaming of the time he'd first kissed her, and she hoped the dream would still be there, waiting.

+++++

She felt the sunlight on her face and looked up; the sun high overhead.

"David? Why'd you let me sleep so long?"

Silence.

"David?"

She felt a little annoyed. Obviously he'd fallen asleep at the wheel. She slipped out of bed and padded back to the galley... Nothing... the stove unused, everything as it had been last night...

"David?"

Then she saw his safety harness, unclipped.

Cold fear jabbed at her belly as she leapt into the cockpit. She turned, looked forward; a purple wall of thunderstorms lay ahead, lightning rippled through roiling clouds. The island of Tetiaroa was ahead and well to her right; even Tahiti was visible now through the low-scudding clouds. She jumped to the wheel and hit the man-overboard button and fired-up the engine, rolled in the headsail and engaged the autopilot, then grabbed the radio and flipped it to the emergency frequency:

"Mayday-mayday-mayday, this is sailing vessel Sirius calling mayday-mayday-mayday."

"Sailing vessel calling Tahiti Ocean Rescue, go ahead."

"Tahiti, my position is 16 degrees 51 minutes south, 149 degrees zero four minutes west, we've had a man-overboard during the night!"

"Sailing vessel Sirius, are you onboard, uh, alone?"

"Affirmative, Rescue. We were southbound from Rangiroa... standby one..." She jumped down and grabbed the logbook... looked at David's scrawled entry on the page and her heart filled with a mixture of pride and fear... then she jumped back up to the radio...

"Ah, rescue, his last log entry was at 2200 hours, at 16 21 27 south by 148 46 17 west."

"Ah, Sirius," came a strong voice rich with a clipped English accent, "this is sailing vessel Achilles, we copy and are ten point three miles behind you. We'll analyze that track and commence our search."

"Rescue, this is the sailing vessel Jumpin' Jack Flash, I have us about five miles east of Achilles. Can we help?"

"Tahiti Ocean Rescue to all search vessels, be advised a strong line of storms with high winds and lightning is passing the island at this time; all aircraft are grounded. We anticipate clearing in about two hours; dispatching cutter to assist at this time. Achilles, can you search north and west of your track?"

"Achilles, roger north and west."

"Ocean rescue to Jumpin' Jack Flash, can you search west then south?"

"Yeah man, that's cool, south then west."

"Ocean Rescue to Sirus, advise you reverse course at this time and search east of track, repeat east of your earlier track, due to east setting currents overnight."

The woman listened to the chatter, scrawled notes in pencil on the logbook beneath her husband's last entry. "Sirius, received, my course is zero four four magnetic..."

+++++

He lay on his back for a while, kept his lungs full of air to keep his body as buoyant as possible, his legs tucked up to preserve what warmth was still left in his body. The waves had been, so far, mercifully small; now he could see dark storm clouds swallowing jagged Tahitian mountains, spitting lightning out like angry, fractured bones -- and he knew, just knew this storm would be his undoing. He held the flashlight in his right hand, the Swiss Army knife in his left. He was getting thirsty and his gut burned.

He felt a rolling swell move through the water, felt his body lift on a wave; he raised his head and looked around at the crest then lay flat again as he fell into the passing trough. Nothing. No one. He felt his hair flowing in the current, felt water sloshing against his ear-drums; every now and then a wave found him dozing and stinging brine burned his eyes.

"Don't give up!" he heard her saying.

"I won't."

Time passed. Slowly. The sun overhead began to burn the flesh on his face. And he was thirsty. Alone in a limitless ocean of water... and he was thirsty.

+++++

"Ocean Rescue to all search vessels, be advised we have an aircraft en route. Sirius, we advise you begin a zig-zag course at this time."

"Sirius received."

"Ah, Achilles here, reporting a large pod of Killer Whales in this vicinity, appear to be south bound."

"Rescue received and understood."

'Now what the fuck does that mean?' the woman said to herself. 'What? Do they think the goddamn whales are going to eat David?' She brought the binoculars that hung from her neck up to her eyes and scanned the horizon for dorsal fins.

Lightning cracked overhead and she winced. She resisted the urge to disconnect the GPS and radio -- to spare them in a strike -- but she knew she'd have to chance it, knew that without them she'd be hopelessly disconnected from the world. Another blistering crack rent the air, the shattering noise seemingly right on top of her head, her hair standing on end now, the air full of ozone but still no rain, still no wind. Sirius rose on a wave and she she saw something, she turned towards whatever it was -- then saw it was a whitecap forming as the wind moved in. Her hair flew in the first ragged gusts, wind howled in the rigging and she watched as the wind gauge leapt to thirty five, then forty knots. Sirius heeled ponderously as a heavy gust slammed into her, the wind gauge leapt yet again, this time to seventy knots and the woman struggled to right the little ship, to keep her on course. Blinding rain fell in horizontal sheets, visibility dropped to a few yards.

Moments later the wind fell to almost zero, the seas -- rather than building as she'd feared -- had apparently been blown flat by the squall; now fat raindrops fell on an almost mirror-smooth sea. Lightning cracked again -- but it seemed to have moved away. She looked down at the compass, saw her course was almost due west and she cursed, turned the wheel to correct, looked at the chartplotter and compared her present track to their earlier one...

"Good," she said, "still tracking a little east."

She wiped rain -- or was it sweat? -- from her eyes and brought the binoculars up to her eyes and swept the now-flat sea. Nothing.

"Don't worry, honey, I'm coming... I'm coming... I promise... Don't give up!"

She didn't even know she was crying.

+++++

He'd worried about the little cut on his hand for a while, worried the blood -- even as little as it was -- might draw in sharks, and he'd tried to keep the hand out of the water as much as possible; now he knew that hadn't been enough. He'd seen the silver-tipped fin slice through the water and his heart had lurched in his chest; now all would be reduced to a contest of wills. Of course it had to be a silver-tip, he said to himself, and not some pussy nurse shark. Why not a man-eater? Why the fuck not?!

"Bring it on, mother-fucker!"

He'd watched it turn his way and ducked his head under water, made eye contact with the bastard and watched as it moved in slowly, cautiously. When it got close enough he brought the Mag-Lite down on the shark's broad snout; it was, all things considered, a thunderous blow -- a real grand-slam homer. The shark thrashed and moved off for a moment, then began circling slowly, waiting, he knew, biding its time.

+++++

She heard the turbo-props singing long before she made out the plane; it roared overhead just yards, she thought, from the top of the mast.

"Sirius, this is Rescue One on station; we're heading up your previous track."

"Sirius received."

She didn't know quite what to say to these men, but she wanted to thank them.

"Hang on, David. We're coming!"

+++++

The shark came in again, faster this time, but it ignored the flashlight; the man pushed himself away from the side of its head and kicked off from the shark's side. He backstroked through the water, kept his eyes on the shark, watched as it's back arched, then as it rolled sharply back and sprinted in for the kill. He had his Swiss Army knife in his hand now, thought he'd try for the eyes. He assumed a crouched street-fighter posture and held the knife out, ready; the shark veered away and circled warily, not sure what to make of this adversary.

Then the man heard the sweet roar of turboprops and he lifted his head from the sea...

+++++

"Rescue One, we have a man in the water, repeat man in the water! Dropping canister -- now!"

"Ocean rescue to all searching vessels, stand by to copy coordinates..."

"Rescue One, Rescue One, there's a shark! The man is fighting a ... Holy Mother of God!... Rescue One -- stand by one..."

+++++

With one eye he watched the life-raft canister fall from the loading platform in the rear of the C-130; he watched to silver-tip circle, then sprint in again, with his other. Again he slashed at the shark's face, this time with the little knife; again he pushed off and kicked away. The shark, the man said to himself, seemed to be getting a little pissed off. He shook as exhaustion and cold rippled through his body.

"Where's the fucking canister?" He looked up, saw the Hercules in a steep banking turn, then got his head underwater in time to see the shark... it had him now, and he knew it. He was too tired, running out of steam, and he could see the shark was waiting for just the right moment.

And it had decided now was that moment...

The shark turns, its black eye never leaving the man; it sprints forward with impossible speed, its mouth opening... its protective lower lids shutting to protect the eyes...

The man readies as best he can, he holds the flashlight and the knife out ready for one more go at it. The shark closes the gap rapidly, remorselessly, no pity, no feeling in its black eyes.

"Fuck you!" the man screams underwater.

Then all is shadow, dark and fast, an explosion of spray and bubbles; the man lifts his head from the water, the shark's body is hurtling upward through the air, somersaulting, its fractured guts spilling from a huge gaping wound that has opened its belly. He turns in time to see the huge male Orca crashing back into the water; he is too stunned to understand what has just happened. He feels something move past his legs, feels hot skin on his and slides his head back into the sea. The calf is there, swimming easily now, and so is its mother. When he lifts his head the Orca is by his side, the creature's deep black eye looking steadily into his own.

The whale drifts closer, rolls as if offering its dorsal fin; the man grabs the leading edge and the whale swims slowly toward a drifting cloud of bright, lime-green smoke. The life-raft floats under the smoke, its bright orange canopy visible for miles. The whale descends momentarily as it closes on the raft and while the man it tempted to let go and float up to the raft -- he doesn't... he can't... he wants to stay here forever...

The whale makes a long looping turn then rises vertically, surfaces next to the raft; the man reaches out, grabs shiny orange webbing that hangs from the side of the raft down into the sea. The whale watches as the man climbs in the raft, then slips beneath the surface of the sea and is as suddenly gone.

+++++

Papeete, Tahiti

Two weeks later

The man and the woman are sitting under an umbrella outside a sidewalk café beside a crowded street. Another couple sits with them, and a younger woman, perhaps in her twenties. They are eating lunch in shade, oblivious to the sun above.

"So, what's the verdict, man?" says Jack Hawkins, the skipper of Achilles. His little ship had been the first to reach the man in the raft; over the past two weeks the two men have bonded. But so has Susan Hawkins, his wife. Call it a strong maternal instinct. Call them friends, if you must call them anything.

"Not a cure, that's what the doc said, but it'll buy me some time. Maybe five years, maybe more."

"I still can't believe how tiny the incisions are, Dad," the younger woman says.

"I say old man, let's have a look."

The man looks at the woman; she shakes her head and grins. "You're such a show-off!"

He stands and pulls his pants down, revealing just his lower abdomen and the crack of his ass; there are three incisions on the smooth, white skin, each a half inch long. Everyone in the restaurant is looking at the man; most know who he is by now. For a week or so he was a minor news celebrity, a sailing sensation... the man rescued by Killer Whales! And they know his story, too. Everyone does. He is theirs, they reason.

"So, what did they do? They implanted radioactive pellets in the tumor itself?"

"Yep. And that's tumors, mate. Plural. Supposed to keep 'em in check. And some new drug, Dendreon; that may knock 'em back some as well."

"So what are you going to do now?" Susan Hawkins said, looking maybe a little longingly at the man.

"I don't know," David says, "I'm just the First Mate. You'd better ask the skipper."

Everyone laughs a little, the man takes a long pull from his beer.

"Well? Mom? Dad? Are you going to sell the boat?"

"Heavens no, Lucy!" June says. "Your father's not dead, and neither am I!"

"Here, here," Hawkins proclaims to one and all while he pounds the table. "Too bloody right!"

"We set out to see New Zeeland. And we'll do just that, too. And there's a lot to see and do between here and tomorrow. The day after tomorrow? I don't know; we'll see which way the wind blows."

"Sometimes I worry, Mom, that's all."

The sailors look away, look out to sea.

They know. They understand.

Even if the young woman never will.

+++++

A week later and two boats sail out of the Papeete's main harbor and turn to port, to the west; both are making the short hop across the narrow strait to Cook's Bay on the north side of Moorea. Achilles in the lead, the other boat follows, the woman steering, the man on the bow pulpit enjoying the feel of the wind and the spray as it flies through his silver hair. If you were to examine this second boat more closely you'd find the boat's name has recently been changed, from Sirius to Orca. Odd choice, you might say to yourself.

The man walks back to the woman, his wife, his life, and sits beside her while she watches the sails and adjusts her course a little. He turns and looks back at Papeete as it falls away, then down, at the smooth wake the Orca makes as she slips through cobalt waters.

The shark still circles, he knows; it is still out there, waiting. But that's life, this foolish mortal coil that holds us for but a brief time.

He takes a deep breath, the cool sea air bathes his soul. He looks at the woman by his side, watches as she alters her course a little -- again -- adjusting to the ever changing wind. There is a smile in her eyes, too.