141
B I G WA T E R
We both see the name
Asia
stitched along the hem at the
same time. He drops it on the rock. The pillowcase smacks the
stone, sticks where it lands.
There is something about this evidence of the wreck that
makes everything seem suddenly more terrible and more real.
Since we buried the others, I have been caught in a strange
and foggy reverie. But now…Now there’s no escaping what
happened to us or to the others on the ship
.
Not far from where we’re standing I see something else
on the shore. It looks like a life preserver, the cottony kapok
insides hanging out of a tear in the fabric like stuffing from
an old doll. The object I thought was a body is nearly close
enough to reach. It’s bigger than it looked, and there’s a flicker
of something red.
“Paint,” I say, my voice quiet.
“It’s part of a boat,” Daniel says.
It’s definitely wood, slightly curved. Maybe part of the hull
of a dinghy or that canoe I saw on the
Asia
’s deck. It thumps
against the shore, breaking into splinters as the seagull floats
overhead, circling back to watch us. The wood is useless.
There’s no point trying to retrieve it. We make our way up
and over the high point back to our own boat.
It’s going to be another bright, cool fall day. The wind is
picking up. I can see little whitecaps building on the open
water. Another time, I might feel soothed by this breeze,
by the morning light with its warm honey glow. But the
wreckage casts a pall over everything. If last night’s kiss made
me imagine some other story about all this, some other less
horrible ending, it’s obvious now that I was deluded. The only
thing that matters in this moment, on this rock, is survival.
