Lily noses me in the calf as if to ask if this is really necessary. I look down at her in that way that I do when I ask for her trust—when we get in the car and we’re not going to the vet and I want her to know we’re about to have fun; when we try a new walk and she balks at the unfamiliar route; when I place her in a cool bath on the hottest of summer days, knowing this will end her discomfort. The way I did when I told her we were going on this awfully big adventure.
“You can’t kill me! You’ll never kill me!” The octopus starts to rock and the net begins to swing. The boat sways and the jib creaks and moans. Then the octopus crashes into the side of Fishful Thinking and the rope holding the net jumps off the pulley. The net plummets into the ocean and rope rapidly unspools off the crank. At the last second, Lily grabs the rope with her teeth and hunkers down with everything she’s got. She’s barely able to keep the rope from disappearing as her claws plow deeply into the deck.
“Hold on!” I sprint for the deckhouse, straighten the wheel, and give the engine full throttle. The boat lurches forward. I dive toward Lily and grab the rope. The octopus gives such a tug at the other end that it splinters painfully in my fingers. Together, Lily and I are able to maintain our tight grip as the boat gains speed, the rope sliding around to the stern. I know with his arms pinned back flush against his gills he can no longer breathe underwater, and with his beak exposed we only have to plow forward and force enough water down his throat to drown him.
If we can just hold on.
The more the octopus fights, the more we dig in our heels. I don’t care if I lose all my fingers to splinters. I brace my feet against the bulwark as Fishful Thinking rams full speed ahead. I can feel the octopus flailing.
“If we can just grasp on for ten more seconds!” Lily nods and bites down harder.
I count backward from ten.
“Ten. Nine. Eight.”
I loop the rope tightly around my left hand and pull.
“Seven. Six. Five.”
There is a great final tug from beneath the surface of the water and I can hear one of my fingers break with a deafening snap.
I scream in agony.
Lily steels herself and takes up my count, gargled, though, with her mouth full of rope.
FOUR! THREE! TWO!
I look over at Lily and we lock eyes. Together we say, “ONE!”
It’s only after the count hits zero and I keep a stranglehold on the rope for even another good thirty seconds that I realize the octopus stopped fighting when our count reached three.
I look to Lily. “It’s done.” My shoulders droop with relief and I loosen my grip on the rope. “He won’t bother us again.”
Lily lets go with her teeth and tackles me back onto the deck. She climbs my torso and stands with her feet on either side of my sternum and starts madly licking my face. It may take ten tickles to make an octopus laugh, but it only takes a few licks from a dog to get me going. We shower each other with kisses, laughing until we can’t breathe.
Happiness.
When we regain our composure, I look down at my broken finger and the rope still clutched in my hand.
Solemnly we reattach the rope to the winch and I set my broken finger with some electrical tape. I turn Fishful Thinking again so that for the first time in weeks we are heading toward home, in the direction the sun rises. In the direction of new beginnings. Lily and I take our berths in the deckhouse, silently looking east, toward California, as we tow the dead octopus in our wake.
Infinity (∞)
8 A.M.
The night is restless and it’s hours before we fall asleep, and when we finally do I wake again with a start to find the bed completely soiled and Lily’s breathing labored, and I know almost immediately that this is our last day. I look down at Lily and the octopus is back and he looks even bigger than I remember and his stranglehold seems more menacing than ever, poised to asphyxiate us both. The room spins, or my head spins; something is spinning in a way that makes everything unclear. Nowhere in the room do I see bags in any state of unpacking, nowhere on my face do I feel the scraggle of a beard, nowhere on my skin do I see color or evidence of weeks spent under the harsh sun aboard Fishful Thinking, nowhere on my hands do I bear the calluses and scars and broken bones of a hard-fought battle at sea. It’s so real to me, so rich in detail—my heart is still soaring from the triumph of our victory over the octopus, the violence of his death, the quiet sweetness of our journey home, the two of us in command of a vessel on the open waters of the Pacific. And yet, there is the octopus.