Float Plan - Trish Doller Page 0,72

“a trader ship was bringing a secret cargo of slaves to Martinique. The ship was improperly anchored in the harbor and crashed into Diamond Rock”—he points to a lone rock jutting out of the sea—“drowning forty slaves, shackled together and chained to the hold.”

There is a defeated stoop to the shoulders of the statues, their brows carved heavy with sadness and their mouths turned down. They stand in a grassy field above the vast blue of the ocean, frozen in mourning, their sorrow eternal, and tears fill my eyes.

“The statues were arranged to symbolize the triangular trade route from West Africa to the Caribbean to the American colonies,” Keane says. “And they point a hundred and ten degrees toward the Gulf of Guinea. Toward home.”

I’m crying in earnest now.

“We build memorials to honor the memory of those we’ve lost, and to remember the tragedy of humans treating other humans as property,” he says. “I’ve been considering what you said about not knowing how to stop thinking about Ben and—well, I’d never ask that. You’ve already built a place for him in your heart, but if you’ve got a bit of room to spare…”

My face is wet, tears clinging to my lips, when I kiss him and whisper, “There is so much room for you.”

Back at Les Anses d’Arlet, we spend the afternoon sitting at a plastic table under a party tent, drinking Lorraines and listening to reggae. The locals do not speak English and Keane’s attempts at high school–level French make them laugh, but we get by. Queenie allows a group of children to bury her in the sand. When they’ve finished, she gets up and shakes sand everywhere, making them laugh and scream.

“This boat needs a name,” I say when we’re back aboard the Alberg that evening. “What about … Braveheart?”

Keane crinkles his nose. “As in William Wallace? ‘They’ll never take our freedom’? That’s a bit … Scottish. Of course, it’s your boat. Far be it from me to tell you what to do.”

“Yeah, you’ve never done that before.”

He laughs. “Whatever you choose will be perfect.”

“As long as it’s not Braveheart?”

“Exactly.”

I shift, straddling his lap to face him, kissing his mouth as I telegraph the message with my hips that I want him. “Doesn’t need to have a name right now.”

“No.” This time his laugh has a sexy, wicked edge and his lips are against my neck when he says, “No, it does not.”

There are other boats in the harbor, but the boom tarp is low enough that we don’t bother going down into the cabin. Keane rolls on a condom and I take off my bikini bottoms. No foreplay. No sweet words. Just need against need, fast, hard, and gasping. And when it’s over, I press soft kisses all over his face and whisper with each one that I love him.

The difference between Keane and Ben, I am realizing, is Keane belongs to me in a way Ben never did. Ben loved me, but he always had an exit strategy. Keane is mine for as long as I want him. I can feel it in everything he says, everything he does.

tiny fissures (28)

Our time in Martinique feels endless as we spend days exploring every part of the island.

We pack the tent and drive up to Presqu’île Caravelle, a peninsula on the east side of the island with a wild coastline and an abundance of surfer beaches. We search for the dive shack where Keane met Felix and Agda, but find only the abandoned husk, reclaimed by nature, the rafters inhabited by swifts. We camp on the beach for the night and spend the next day learning—or relearning, in Keane’s case—how to surf.

Another day we drive to Saint-Pierre, a town destroyed in 1902 by the eruption of Mount Pelée. A portion of the ruins remain, foundations of buildings dragged into the sea. Sainte-Pierre is a much smaller town now, having never fully recovered, many of the buildings boarded shut and a Catholic cathedral standing empty. I am reminded of Montserrat. Of how inconsequential my problems are in comparison. I’m a visitor who gets the best of paradise instead of the worst.

We are into our twelfth day on the island before we bring up the subject of leaving.

“Let’s not,” Keane says over breakfast in the cockpit. “We can squat in the dive shack. Fix it up. Raise some chickens and goats and grow our own vegetables.”

I smear guava jelly on a slice of baguette. “Okay.”

“You’re an easier sell than I