I’m sitting at the stern of the boat in a sporty bikini from Target while Steven, tall and sure of himself, stands at the helm. It sounds glamorous. It isn’t. This is not my beautiful boat. This is not my beautiful man.
Steven’s wife doesn’t like sailing. According to Steven, she doesn’t like him either. He’s been promising to leave her for years. Before Labor Day. After New Year’s. When things calm down.
Things never calm down.
I don’t know why I’m here. Maybe floating feels better when there’s an actual boat involved. Maybe I’ve confused motion with progress. I scroll through other people’s lives…they seem to know exactly what they want. Begin again. Start fresh. I am tired of beginning again. I don’t want a new chapter. I want a plot.
I sip my Prosecco and watch the waves trail behind us. Each one feels like a memory. Hot fudge sundaes with mom. Long Passover dinners. My sister’s cancer. The silence around it. The way grief moved in and never left.
The sea hypnotizes me. What would it be like to be a wave? No destination, just motion. I close my eyes.
Then everything tilts.
Steven shouts. The boat heels, but I don’t feel healed. Instead, a sharp cold slams into me, and the world flips.
I’m in the water!
One second I’m watching waves, the next I am one. The boat drifts away. The sun bright, the ocean wide. Steven will turn around. He has to.
Focus, Carol. I know how to swim.
Something slices past me, and I gasp, certain it’s a shark. A pelican bursts upward with a fish, flaps off, and glances back at me, amused.
The boat keeps shrinking. Steven is not turning around.
Anger heats me. I swim toward land. One stroke, two stroke. I am furious at him. I am more furious at myself. Thirty-two and still choosing unavailable men with a mean streak. When will I learn? Now. I learn now.
My arms ache. I flip onto my back and float, staring at the clouds. One looks like a gorilla. I think about Koko and how she loved that kitten. Love can be sweet and simple like Koko and the kitten.
I roll over and swim again.
I make a promise to whatever is listening. If I live, I will stop waiting for someone else to choose me. I will choose myself.
My limbs grow heavy. The water darkens. I sink.
Peace spreads through me. It would be easy to let go.
Then a hard tug yanks at my bikini strap, and I’m pulled upward in a rush of wings. The pelican again! She lifts me above the water. The ocean shrinks below us.
She carries me to shore and sets me down on the sand.
Shivering. Standing. Alive.
The pelican studies me, then takes off.
I watch the empty horizon where the boat once was.
For the first time in years, I feel something solid under my feet.
Me.
INSTANT NOODLES 