Richard watched me approach and I couldn’t stop beaming. His expression was intent; his eyes looked nearly black. After we joined hands and the minister pronounced us man and wife, I saw his lips tremble with emotion before he leaned down to kiss me.
The photographer captured the enchantment of the evening: Richard slipping a ring onto my finger, our embrace at the end of the ceremony, and our slow dance to “It Had to Be You.” The album I ordered contains a shot of Maureen straightening Richard’s bow tie, Sam raising her glass of champagne, my mother walking barefoot on the beach at sunset, and Aunt Charlotte hugging me good-bye at the end of the evening.
My life had been so filled with uncertainty and turmoil—with my parents’ divorce, my mother’s struggles, my father’s death, and, of course, the reason I’d fled my hometown—but on that night, my future seemed as straight and seamless as the blue silk runner that had led me to Richard.
The next day we flew to Antigua. We reclined in first class, and Richard ordered us both mimosas before the wheels ever left the ground. The nightmares I’d experienced never came to fruition.
It wasn’t flying I needed to fear.
Our honeymoon wasn’t documented in an album, but when I think back, that’s how I remember it, too: as a series of snapshots.
Richard cracking open my lobster and grinning suggestively as I sucked the sweet meat out of a claw.
The two of us getting a couple’s massage as we lay side by side on the beach.
Richard standing behind me, his hands on mine, as I helped release the sail on a catamaran we’d rented for the day.
Each night, our private butler drew us a bath perfumed with rose petals and rimmed with lit candles around the curved edge. Once, we crept down in the moonlight to the beach and, hidden amid the billowing curtains designed to block out the sun, we made love in a cabana. We soaked in our private Jacuzzi, sipped rum-spiked drinks by the infinity pool, and napped in a double hammock.
On our last full day Richard signed us up for scuba diving. We weren’t certified, but the resort staff told us that if we took a private lesson in the pool, we could do a shallow dive with an instructor.
I didn’t enjoy swimming, but I was all right in the placid, chlorinated water. Other guests splashed nearby, sunlight illuminated the surface just a few feet above my head, and the edge of the pool was merely a few strokes away.
I took a deep breath as we climbed into the motorboat and tried to make my voice sound calm and carefree. “How long will we be down?” I asked the instructor, Eric, a young guy on summer break from UC Santa Barbara.
“Forty-five minutes. Your tank has more oxygen that that, so we can push it a little if you want.”
I gave him a thumbs-up, but as we sped away from land, toward a hidden coral reef, pressure built in my chest. The heavy oxygen tank was strapped to my back, and fins pinched my feet.
I looked at the plastic face mask atop Richard’s head, feeling an identical one tugging the sensitive hairs at my temples. Eric cut the motor, and the silence felt as vast and absolute as the water surrounding us.
Eric jumped off the edge of the boat, pushing his shaggy hair out of his face after he surfaced in the water. “The reef’s about twenty yards away. Follow my fins.”
“Ready, baby?” Richard seemed so excited to see the blue-and-yellow angelfish, the rainbow-colored parrot fish, and the harmless sand sharks. He pulled down his mask. I tried to smile as I did the same, feeling the rubber seal tightening the skin around my eyes.
I can come back up anytime, I told myself as I began to climb down the ladder, where the heavy equipment would help drag me beneath the surface. I won’t be trapped.
Moments after I sank into the cool, salty ocean, everything was blotted out.
All I could hear was breathing.
I couldn’t see; Eric had said that if fog formed on the inside of our masks, we should simply tilt them just enough to allow a stream of water to clear the condensation. “Hold up one hand if something’s wrong; that’ll be our emergency signal,” he’d said. But all I could do was kick and flail, trying to maneuver to the surface. The straps of my equipment compressed my body, binding my chest. I tried to suck in oxygen as my mask grew cloudier.
The noise was awful. Even now, I can hear jagged, tortured gasps filling my ears and feel the tightness in my chest.
I couldn’t spot Eric or Richard. I spun alone in the ocean, my limbs churning, a scream building in my lungs.
Then someone gripped my arm and I felt myself being pulled. I went limp.
I broke the surface and spit out my mouthpiece, then yanked off my mask, feeling a burst of pain as it ripped away a few strands of my hair.
Gasping and coughing, I tried to draw more air into my lungs.
“The boat’s right here,” Eric said. “I’ve got you. Just float.”
I reached out and grabbed a rung of the ladder. I was too weak to climb it, but Eric hauled himself up onto the boat, then leaned down for my hand. I collapsed on a bench, so dizzy I had to put my head between my legs.
I heard Richard’s voice from below. “You’re safe. Look at me.”
The pressure in my ears made him sound like a stranger.
I tried to do as he said, but he was still bobbing in the water. Seeing the blue ripples made me nauseous.
Eric knelt next to me, unhooking the straps from around my body. “You’ll be okay. You panicked, right? This happens sometimes. You’re not the only one.”
“I just couldn’t see,” I whispered.
Richard climbed up the ladder and hoisted himself over the side, his equipment clanging as he landed. “I’m here. Oh, sweetheart, you’re shaking. I’m so sorry, Nellie. I should have known.”
The mask had left a red imprint encircling his eyes.
“I’ve got her,” he said to Eric, who finished unstrapping my tank, then moved aside. “We’d better head in.”
Richard held me close as the speedboat skipped over the waves. We returned to the resort in silence. After Eric docked, he reached into a cooler and handed me a bottle of water. “How do you feel now?”
“Much better,” I lied. I was still trembling, and the bottle of water in my hand shook. “Richard, you can go back out. . . .”
He shook his head. “No way.”
“Let’s get you onto land,” Eric said. He jumped onto the dock and Richard followed him. Eric reached down for my hand again. “Here.” My legs were unsteady, but I managed to stretch out my arm for him to take.
But Richard said, “I’ve got her.” He gripped my upper left arm and pulled me out of the boat. I winced at the feel of his fingers pressing into my soft flesh as he held me tightly to stabilize me.
“I’m going to take her to the room,” Richard told Eric. “You’ll return our equipment?”
“No problem.” Eric looked worried, maybe because Richard’s voice was a little clipped. I knew Richard was only concerned about me, but perhaps Eric thought we’d make a complaint.
“Thanks for helping me,” I told him. “Sorry I freaked out.”
Richard wrapped a fresh towel around my shoulders, and we walked off the dock, through the soft sand, toward our room.
I felt better after I’d changed out of my wet bikini and wrapped myself in a fluffy white robe. When Richard suggested we return to the beach, I pleaded a headache, but insisted that he go.
“I’ll just rest for a little while,” I said.
My temples did throb mildly—a side effect of the dive, or maybe just residual tension. As soon as I heard the door close behind Richard, I walked into the bathroom. I reached for the Advil in my toiletries bag, then hesitated. Next to it was the orange plastic prescription bottle of Xanax I’d obtained in case of a long flight. I hesitated, thinking of my mother as I always did when I swallowed a pill, then shook out one of the oval white tablets and gulped it down with some of the bottled Fiji water the maid replenished twice a day. I closed the heavy drapes, blotting out the sun, then crawled into bed and waited for the drug to take effect.
Just as I was drifting off to sleep, I heard a knock on the door. Thinking it was the maid, I called, “Can you come back later?”