Page 13 of Until We Break

“I don’t want to die. I don’t want to drown,” he cried.

“Sir, we’re taking you to the chopper. You’ve got to stop. Your kids are up there watching you,” I told him.

He sobbed as Gabe pulled him against the side of his body.

“Go!” I told him. “I’ll get the mom.”

“I’ve got him,” Gabe responded. He took off, swimming with the tightest hold I’ve ever seen on a rescue. I turned back to the woman on the bow.

There was no telling what was going through her mind after her husband had jumped in front of her.

“Let’s go. I’ve got you. Come on, jump!”

Her eyes were wide. I didn’t know if it was the horror of the entire night. Watching her husband decide he should be rescued first. Seeing her children tugged away from her. But she froze. She didn’t move.

I was going to have to get closer than I wanted. I felt the pressure building around my legs. The force was getting stronger beneath the surface.

“Come on. I’ve got you. I promise. I’ll keep you safe. Just jump,” I hollered. I saw the fear in her eyes. The absolute terror of what I was asking her to do. “Please, I won’t let you go.”

She nodded. I saw her knees bend, prepared to jump overboard.

“That’s it,” I yelled. “You’ve got it. Jump away from the boat. As far as you can, ma’am. I’ll get you to your kids.”

The fear in her eyes turned to determination. My chest loosened with relief. She was going to do it. She was ready.

I didn’t know what happened first. She jumped, or the boat began to shift again. Before she was in my arms, the suction gripped my ankles as if tentacles had reached up from the bottom of the ocean.

I kicked as hard as I could to resist the force of the vortex. I couldn’t lose sight of the mom. She slipped below, succumbing to the funnel that had been created when the boat went under.

She disappeared beneath the water. Shit. I dove after her, racing against the ocean, against the current, against the turbulence the storm created. I swam hard and fast, knowing I might not find her, and I might now make it back up.

SEVEN

Margot

The next morning, I swatted at mosquitos and dodged a giant horsefly as I stepped off the screen porch. I avoided the puddles that had flooded the gravel parking spaces from last night’s storm. I was surprised the roof or the windows hadn’t leaked. The cottage had held through the violent storm.

There was a terrible pain in the upper muscles in my left shoulder. I needed to add ibuprofen to the shopping list. With every exhale I hoped the tightness in my chest and the pit in my stomach would ease up, but they didn’t. I carried a constant ache with me that started long before I ferried over to Marshoak Island.

There were two things I needed right now—coffee and breakfast. That was enough to motivate me to get out of the cottage and explore shopping options.

I spotted the same fisherman from yesterday. I recognized the tight bend in his hat. It was formed in the shape of a horseshoe. There was no way he could see in any direction but straight ahead. He was casting a line off the end of one of the piers. I thought I should warn him that the wood was rotted, and hecould fall through like I did, but there was something unfriendly about him. Besides, he probably knew the marina better than I did.

I hopped in my car and drove toward the center of the island, the place the locals called “town.” There was one general store and one grocery store. If I needed anything else, I’d have to take the ferry, and I didn’t think I had that kind of time. The cottage was short on essentials, and I was desperate for caffeine.

I imagined what Ethan would think about waking up in a house without coffee. It was as if I could predict every word he would say. I played out the argument we would have in the car as I drove.

“No coffee? Is this even civilization?” He would be staring at his phone and not at me.

“It’s quaint,” I would have argued.

“Quaint or backward?”

Ethan, a lifelong New Yorker, believed living anywhere else was less cultured, less educated, and of course less sophisticated. He would have hated Marshoak Island. I was kidding myself, thinking he would have traveled with me when I inherited the Blue Heron. Ethan would have turned around when he realized the ferry was the only way on or off this place.

I didn’t need a pile of girlfriends telling me he was horrible for me. I knew it. I’d known it for a long time. But when my dad died, I held on to Ethan. Harder than I should have. I clung to him as if he supplied my oxygen. Letting go of him felt like letting go of grieving for my dad and I wasn’t ready for it, even if he was a terrible boyfriend from the start.

I pulled in front of the red brick building. There was one other car in the parking lot. Reel Time didn’t only have the island’s biggest fishing supply inventory but also would have most things on my list. What wasn’t here I would find across the street at the grocery store.

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