But I already said I wasn’t going to talk about that.
Sometimes you’re fighting the current so hard & still barely moving. Other times you don’t feel a thing, you just slip out to sea, like a leaf.
* * *
—
Yes, I remember reading on Salar. The welcome surrender of reading a book. Why had I ever punished myself by stopping?
At my feet, Georgie was developing fine-motor skills by picking up hermit crabs from the tidal pool. His big head hung heavily over his torso.
We look alike, Georgie and I. He got my dusky skin tone, which looks jaundiced in northeastern winters but is immediately flattered by the sun, and my cedar-brown hair, which, thanks to the trade winds, was developing a permanent uprightness. Even after a bath, as soon as it would dry, his hair would start to stand, tilting leeward.
’Rab, he said, holding up a specimen. ’Ood ’rab.
Is it a good crab? I said, trying once again not to worry about his scant vocabulary. Is it your crab?
Doo ’rab, he agreed, and plonked it in his bucket.
Then I noticed that I had lost track of Michael. That I couldn’t remember when I had seen him last. I could see Sybil, snorkeling close to shore. But I didn’t see Michael anywhere in the cove.
Sybil stood up, water dripping off her hair and her swimmy shirt. She lifted her mask, spilling out several cups of seawater.
Are you having fun, my little beauty? I called out.
What?
Are you having fun?
I was talking to the fish, she said.
What were you saying?
I was saying, Don’t be scared! They look scared.
Do you know why they gather around you?
No.
Because you protect them. You are bigger than their predators. They figure no one will bother them when you’re around. You’re like the fish protection program.
Well, she said, fitting her mask down tight. Better get back to work.
Hey. Where’s your daddy?
He went out.
Out? What do you mean? Where?
I don’t know.
There are so many wrecks all over Guna Yala you can almost navigate by them. In some places the masts literally stick up out of the water. There’s this kind of trench humor about it among cruisers.
* * *
—
I couldn’t see him anywhere. Nowhere.
Sybie, I said. Come up here, please.
She slumped. Why, Mommy?
Because I said so.
Do we have to leave? We just came over.
Sybil. Don’t exaggerate. We’ve been here since breakfast.
Is it lunch?
Sybil. Come up here right now.
But my fishes—
Do not give me crap right now, Sybil, I said. We’ve got to find Daddy.
Daddy went out.
Where?
He’s at the reef. There’s a wreck.
You didn’t tell me that, Sybil. How far out? Which way?
She shrugged bodily. I cursed Michael under my breath. It was very unlike him, though. He was so by-the-book. Oiling this and pumping that and checking this. But not telling me he’d gone out, out to the breakers? I picked up Georgie, who, in the middle of tending to his crabs, looked outraged, then began to cry.
Sybil Partlow. You come up onto this beach right now.
She marched out in her flippers, trying to look defiant.
You sit right here and don’t move.
I charged into the trees, then doubled back.
Here. I ripped open a granola bar and gave it to her. Don’t budge.
There’s nowhere to budge, she muttered. I’m on an island.
I carried a whining Georgie through the trees to the opposite side of the island. When we stepped through the palms to the shore, we were hit with roaring wind, the same wind that barely shifted the leaves at the cove. The wind stopped Georgie’s crying immediately.