Once I had my gear on, I threw open the door to our berth. Michael lay pressed against the portside lockers, his head in his hands.
Do I let both sheets go?
God, no, he said, very calmly. Mainsheet.
I left his door to swing open. Knowing it would bang against the frame throughout the storm. Let him get up and at least fix that. Then I struggled up the companionway. I turned forward in the whipping wind.
There is something simply terrifying about the deck of a heeling boat. Michael wanted me to get the boat even so that I could work efficiently on deck, but I wanted to get the boat even in order to avoid the sight of her with her rails in the water, looking about to tip over. I fumbled for the mainsheet and threw it off the winch. A gust blew then, as hard as I’d ever felt on deck. Instinctively I raised both hands against the wind, as if I could block it. The boom swung out hard and the gust beat at the mainsail.
Stay calm, I told the boat. Hold tight.
I could see the storm cloud tumbling toward us, a mass of gray like a mountain of ashes. I clung to the helm with the mainsail muttering its way through the gust. The idea that I would ever go forward, that I would go forward to reef the mainsail, was ridiculous. I felt so outmatched that I barely noticed the boat was no longer at a terrifying heel. She now tilted leeward at a lesser angle.
That’s good, I said aloud. That’s great!
I waited for my mind to clear. The flywheel spun madly on top of the mast. It occurred to me that I had no idea how to reef a sail.
Christ, I said.
I went below.
Michael shook his head slowly, as if he’d been expecting me.
I don’t know what I’m doing, I said.
Jib first, he said. Can’t reef unless you furl the jib. It would flog the whole time. Don’t let it flog. It will tear.
I crouched down in the narrow space beside his body. Why can’t you help me? I begged.
Because I’m dying, he groaned.
Oh, come on, I said. You just feel like you are.
He looked at me with confusion. His eyes swam with tears.
Once, in Ashtabula…he said.
What?
Ashtabula, he repeated, as if that word was what I had misunderstood.
I stood, threw open the door, and climbed back up the companionway. I gazed at the depowered mainsail. Couldn’t I just leave her that way until the storm passed? But then what? What if there was more weather behind this? As if to answer me, the boom swung hard. I turned the boat into the wind and the boom came center. I started the engine, and we slowly began to motor upwind, toward the sky mountains, which were nearly upon us, as if we were two sides charging toward each other in a war. The jib began to luff nervously.
Be quiet! I told it. Wait your turn.
Two winches on either side of the cockpit. Things I’d only done with Michael. Easy enough with two people, but now what? My hands glowed pale in that strange storm light. I watched them as they looped the furling line around the lazy winch. Blinking hard against the wind, I took a couple wraps of jib sheet off the drum, and then let twenty feet of rope slip through my hands.
No! I cried, as the jib flogged in the wind.
I pulled hard on the furling line. The jib still thrashed over the water, making huge, cannon-like sounds as it flogged that could surely be heard below, that could have been heard for miles if there was a soul to hear it. I pulled madly at the loose line, an incompetent magician. The heat was crushing. My rain slicker trapped my body heat, but I could not stop to take it off, as it was under my life vest. My fear was hot. My fear of the nearness of