Page 16 of The Breakaway

"You mean when you were sailing around the world?" Sunday asks breathlessly. She's hungry for more detail, and it's written all over her face. Molly glances at the other women, most of whom have forgotten their cake and champagne completely. She's loving this attention, though she's loathe to admit it.

"Sure. And at other times," Molly allows. "Should I pick up where we left off last week?"

"Yes!" Ruby says. She crosses her legs and leans back in her chair as she gets settled in for a story. "I'm dying to hear what happens next."

"Okay," Molly says. She swirls her Prosecco around in the glass and makes them all wait while she sips it. "I knew it was time to leave Japan after we buried Rodney. I loved his grandparents and they were unfailingly kind, but cyclone season starts in November in the South Pacific, and I wanted to be in Fiji as soon as I could, because remember: I wasn't an overly experienced sailor. Enough not to be terrified of the long days and nights alone or of the technical know-how needed to steer my own vessel, but not so much that I relished the thought of being tossed around like a toy on the vast, dark sea."

As Molly spoke, the late afternoon sun passed behind a cloud outside, casting a pall of darkness around the bookshop. Some of the women noticeably shivered.

"I set out from Nishinomiya port nearly two weeks after I'd arrived, and while I was leaving part of my husband behind, I was taking with me a newfound branch of my family and my heart. His grandparents had shown me nothing but kindness, and they sent me on my way with enough tea to last me my entire journey, a satin kimono so that I could feel like I was wrapped in someone's love and caring while I was alone on the water, and tons of canned food. I loved lychees, so they packed me a box of canned lychees, oranges, and peaches. They sent me away with this bread in a can called Pancan that you soak in hot water before opening it, and they packed grilled chicken skewers in a can and bags of rice. I felt like my own grandparents were at the dock, seeing me off and waving as I sailed away with a boat full of food to remind me of home."

"Oh, they sound wonderful," Ruby says.

"They were. And my time with them sustained me over the next month or so that it took to get to Fiji."

"Did you get there before cyclone season?" Tilly asks, holding up her glass as Ruby makes her way around the circle to top off everyone's Prosecco or wine. Because she's still only nineteen, Ruby gives her a wink and skips right over Tilly's glass. She'd gotten away with one glass, but that was all that Ruby would allow without express permission from Bev, Tilly's grandfather.

"Before cyclone season?" Molly waits while Ruby tops her off, then leans around her so that she can make eye contact with the young girl. "I got there just in the nick of time."

* * *

By the time land was in view again for Molly, she'd nearly lost her mind. A month alone on the water had been almost more than she could stand, and she'd had bouts of tears, homesickness, and a five-day battle with the flu that had nearly done her in.

Somewhere between Japan and Fiji Molly had grown feverish and ill, her stomach roiling like the waves, and for one day she'd drifted almost aimlessly as she lay on the deck of the boat, getting far too much sun because she couldn't bring herself to move. By the time the stars had come out she felt convinced that she could live another day, if only she could get herself to her bed and drink some water, which she did with considerable effort.

Unfortunately the day of drifting set her mildly off course and cost her some time, but it couldn't be helped. She'd woken the next day and thrown up the water in her stomach, her skin red and hot from both fever and too much sun, and then forced herself to go through the motions of purifying water, navigating to get back on course, and staying in the shade as much as possible. By day three of the flu, she'd nearly given up again, sobbing inconsolably as the sun fell behind the horizon.

"Why?" she'd screamed at the open water. "Why, why,why?" But the question wasn't just for the flu, and it wasn't for the endless expanse of sea that seemed never to change or relent. It also wasn't just for the loss of her husband and the fact that she was now on this journey alone--not just the sailing adventure, but the big, ultimate journey: life--it was for all of it. It was a big, existential "why" to the universe, shouted and wondered by nearly every human who had ever or would ever walk the face of the earth.

And there was no answer. None. The only answer Molly would ever find was the one that was buried deep within herself.

By day five of her illness she felt delirious, alternately crying and muttering aloud about the fruitlessness of her mission and the ridiculousness of being a human.Wouldn't it have been easier to be a dog, always cheerful, happy just to chew on a shoe? Molly had been subsisting on bites of Pancan bread to fill her stomach with easy carbs, and sipping purified water to stave off dehydration, but she felt weak, battered, depleted.

When land finally appeared before her, she immediately convinced herself that it was nothing but a mirage brought on by malnutrition and fever, but she steered towards it anyway, unable to avoid the innate human desire to be on dry land and to be around other people.

Molly reached for her radio and located the frequency for Port Control, requesting permission to enter the space. Once it was granted, she steered on, her whole body keening forward as if the green land before her were a magnet pulling her close.

The island of Rotuma had a small port and Molly docked easily, her knees quaking with the anticipation of being off the boat. It had been a full month of loneliness, and she was ready to end that, but anxious at the same time. She was finding that being alone and hearing nothing but her own voice and the wind and waves did something to her hearing and her sense of self that was akin to depressurization. Her head felt strange when she first encountered other humans and it took a minute for her to realize that her mouth could make shapes and her voice could make sounds that would help others understand her. It was like being born all over again.

"Hello. Welcome to Rotuma." A woman in a thin, sarong-like dress and sandals so thin that they were barely a piece of leather beneath her feet grinned at Molly. As she looked her over, her smile faded. "Are you alright, honey?" the woman asked in English, her accent mild yet unfamiliar. "Are you sick?"

Molly dropped her rucksack at her feet and reached for the dark wooden counter in the tiny open-air port office. Above her head, three giant fans spun slowly, moving the air around. With only the energy to dock her boat and none left over to check her appearance in her small mirror, Molly had stumbled from the boat and gotten herself to the counter, but she had no clue what she looked like. If she were a betting woman she'd guesshorrible, but she felt far too weak to care.

"Oh, this is not good." The woman rushed around the counter. She knelt beside Molly, who had sunk to her knees next to her faded canvas rucksack, which had already seen too many days in the sun and been doused by gallons of saltwater. The woman stood again and snapped her fingers in the air. "We need a doctor," she said to someone, though Molly could not be bothered to focus on anything but the loud hissing sound in her own ears.

A doctor arrived after some amount of time--Molly could not say how much--and soon she was ensconced in a hospital bed in a small building. It was one-story and looked out onto thick green grass and low green shrubs that surrounded the building. Molly's room had windows that opened onto the November afternoon, and a ceiling fan much like the one at the port that stirred the air the way a wooden spoon might slowly drag around in a pot of thick soup.

"You are okay, madam," a doctor in a white lab coat said, standing at the foot of Molly's bed. "You are a lucky young lady. You have come to Rotuma, and we will make you feel better."

This self-assured proclamation would normally have elicited at least a small smile from Molly, but she was too tired. Instead, she gave the smallest nod and looked out the window at the late afternoon sky and at a single palm tree that stood outside the rural hospital.

"You have need for many fluids, which we are depositing in you now," he said, pointing at the IV and bag attached to a pole next to the bed. "You have traveled many miles alone, and you were very, very sick. My wife will come in shortly with food," the doctor said, nodding his head at her once and backing out the door. He closed it softly behind him before Molly could ask any questions.

His wife? she thought, wondering why a doctor's wife might be coming with food for her. But she didn't have to wonder long, as a woman in a flowered dress appeared holding a tray not five minutes later.

"Hello, Miss Molly," she said, coming in and setting the wooden tray on the table next to the bed. "I am Ema, Dr. Reddy's wife. I have dinner for you."

"Do you work here?" Molly asked. The smell of spices and meat and vegetables filled the room and Molly glanced at the tray next to her bed. It had been a month since she'd eaten more than canned food or crackers, and while the dinner smelled delicious, her stomach clenched slightly at the memory of her bout with the flu.

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