the sea grass, because birds and turtles nest in the protected patch of land. It’s hard to believe that there can be a place this empty, this private, in Florida the way it is today, so overdeveloped, condo buildings rising fast on the horizon as if they sprang fully formed from the earth. The locals joke that the building crane is the state bird. I cherish this quiet and emptiness about where we live, wondering how long it can last. At the tip of the island, exhausted and breathless, I turn back. I slow a bit, thinking I should pace myself to make the distance back to the house.
The Gulf is a relatively calm body of water, the warm, anemic waves a disappointment to anyone accustomed to the roaring of the Atlantic coastline. But today the waves come in high and strong, the water an eerie, churning gunmetal. The sky is ever darker, and I realize that I might not beat the storm home. It’s not wise to be the only thing on the beach when lightning threatens here. It’s far too early and too cool for this type of weather, I think. I pick up my pace again, though my body protests.
As the wind begins to assert itself, I see something lying on the beach that I don’t think was there on my way up. It’s far ahead of me still, a kind of large, formless black lump lying half in and half out of the water. A garbage bag, maybe. A mass of seaweed. A dead tarpon or grouper, both large gray fish. Something tells me to slow down, to stay away from it. But there’s no other route home, and I can hear the thunder louder now, see the clouds flashing. I press on.
The grass and sea oats have started to dance and whisper in the wind. The form ahead of me—I’ve just seen it shift. Could be the wind, but I don’t know. In spite of the encroaching storm, I slow my pace.
I move over to the side to give the thing a wide berth as I pass. I won’t stop to investigate as Victory would. She insists on throwing every stranded thing back into the sea or weeps inconsolably in my arms for those she cannot save. I don’t have that kind of heart anymore. We’re all washed ashore, thrashing, looking for our way home. “Every man for himself” is more my motto these days.
My heart lurches as I draw close enough to see that the form is a man, his back to me. His black clothes are soaked; he is draped in sea grass from shoulders to knees. I can see one of his hands, mottled with sand, dead white. I stop, look up and down the beach. Not a soul. The sky is nearly black now, the thunder closer. I should keep running; I know this. Move fast, get to a phone, call for help. But I slow to a walk, approach the man. I remember that I thought I saw him move in the distance. But that could have been the wind billowing his clothes. Still, I find myself thinking, Maybe he’s alive. Maybe I can save him.
“Hello,” I say loudly to the man who is most likely a corpse, washed in from sea. I don’t feel the fear that I should, just this ferocious curiosity. “Are you all right?”
That’s when I hear him groan, low and terrible. A slender, white bolt of lightning slices the sky some miles away. I move in quickly without thinking and put my hand on his cold, wet shoulder, turn him on his back. I see his face then, the face I always see, white and terrible, a deep gouge in his cheek, his mouth gaping, his eyes fixed and staring.
From deep inside his chest, he growls, “You belong to me.”
I wake up then on the couch, an afternoon storm raging outside, the rain coming down in slicing sheets. My chest is heaving, and I’m sweating.
“Mrs. Annie!” Esperanza’s knocking on the door. I get up and open it for her. She steps back and looks down at her feet when I do, as though she’s embarrassed. She’s a youngish-looking forty-something with a wide, pretty face, café au lait skin, and the kind of deep brown eyes that men drown in. She looks up at me with concern; she’s been witness to my waking from these types of dreams before. I’m the one who should be embarrassed.