for an hour, noticing that we have a lot in common, and the man she married, he’s entirely different from the one I know. He’s captured in candid moments with her, his smile sincere and beautiful.
I scroll back up to her last photo posted and thankful her profile is still marked public. I stare at the photo and her flawless golden skin shining against the sand. How is it that someone like her died and someone as boring as me lived? Why? Why does it work like that? Why is one life altered, and another isn’t?
There’s a comment from a Wilma Wingert. Can’t wait to meet my grandson. And that comment leads me to her profile. You know how it goes when you social media stalk. Before you know it, you find yourself on a distant cousin’s page wondering why they constantly post their cat licking its asshole. True story. Unfortunate for all involved. Especially the cat. I bet he wishes he could take down those compromising photos.
But that’s not what I find here. What I find on Wilma’s page is… devastating when I go back six years ago. My stomach knots and rolls. I can’t possibly comprehend what I’m reading or make sense of it. My pulse quickens, my hands start shaking. I blink. A few times trying to focus through the tears that surface.
Athena Nicole Hardy, daughter of Wilma and Bender Wingert, died on November 3, 2012. Do you remember that date?
It’s the same day I received a heart.
Permit - A license to fish for a particular species in a particular area, emplying a certain harbest method. For some regional fisheries permits are very limited, and thus can be expensive. A Bristol Bay drift gillnet permit can cost upwards of $300,000.
Sixty miles off the coast of British Colombia in the Gulf of Alaska, my boat is taking a beating. As a fisherman, I have no control over the sea, the weather, what I catch, my boat, and sadly, our mortality.
Swells rise up forty-five feet, rogue waves sneaking up at around sixty. I’ve been through worse. And though I have to push the throttles to keep the boat straight in the oncoming waves, we ride through troughs, only to have the next one rise.
Bear sits next to me in the wheelhouse, rain hammering and blowing against the deck like we’ve pissed on mother nature and told her to suck our dicks. The sea at night is ugly. The sky presses down on the water, black on black, and it strangely creates a morbid feeling of never making it out alive.
I lose my balance with the next wave that crashes into us, the sound like thunder clapping in the sky. Sometimes the hardest part of rough weather is keeping your balance and preparing for the roll of the boat through the troughs. I collide with Bear into the port side bulkhead ten feet away. Nivio lets out a harsh groan, having done the same, lying on top of us. Din, he’s missing a tooth, blood pouring from his mouth, but still, he smiles. “Rough ride,” he mumbles, sweeping his hand over his jaw.
The weather report came in from the National Weather Service, and at the time, I felt like we could make it up to Dutch Harbor. That is until the storm found us Monday night.
I have the lead of a thousand lures pumping through my veins. It hardens. Makes me believe there’s nothing I can’t endure. But the sea, she has a different agenda. You have to want to survive more than the sea wants you to die.
My brother, Rhett, he died in a situation similar, not far from here.
And I can tell by Bear’s somber face, he’s thinking the same thing I am. Chasing tuna up the coast had been our plan, and then a stop in Alaska to obtain our permits for the crab season.
Bear’s wide eyes land on mine. “I wanna fish through anything, but this is fucking crazy.”
Crab fishing in the Bering Sea, you see this shit all the time. But tuna fishing, in a boat much smaller, it’s not ideal. Especially not in the middle of a hurricane-strength storm.
With a nervous laugh, Din has a look of shock on his face as he stares down at his feet. We’re taking in water, about an inch in the wheelhouse from the waves crashing over the bow.
Most waves, you’ll rise with it. Others, they take you out. With heavy breaths, I stare straight ahead, trying to