He nods. “Take the rest of the day off. We don’t have another landing until tomorrow. You’ll probably feel better then.”
I nod back, then make my way to the sanctuary of my bunk. I lie down and lay my hands across my belly, which feels the same as always. I think again of icebergs, of how much is hidden away under the surface of the water. How appearances can be so deceiving. I can conceal this pregnancy for the duration of the voyage, but then what? My mind can’t move beyond this concept of ice, how everything you have to fear is what lies beneath, what’s unseen and unknown.
THREE MONTHS BEFORE SHIPWRECK
Eugene, Oregon
I cross the garden from my cottage to the main house, a light rain dampening my hair. As the austral summer begins in the Southern Hemisphere, October in Oregon is much the same: gray, rainy, a chill that sinks into your bones. A few strands of hair stick to my forehead, and I pause on the back porch, securing the bottle of wine I’ve brought between my knees as I release my ponytail and shake out my hair, slipping the band around my wrist.
I hear the sounds of raised voices and laughter, and before I reach the door, it bursts open. “Sorry!” a woman says. The guy beside her is laughing, his arm around her waist, and they stumble out into the garden.
As usual, I’m late to the party and a bit too sober.
For the last five years, I’ve rented the little cottage behind this restored Craftsman where my landlord-now-friend Nick Atwood lives with a fluffy white cat named Gatsby. Nick and I basically share custody of Gatsby—Nick’s an entomologist at the university, and his house is so often filled with colleagues and friends that Gatsby frequently comes to my place for some peace and quiet.
Nick’s kitchen is warm and smells of his famous Brazilian risotto cakes. I put the wine on the counter. Gatsby comes over, tail in the air, and lets me scratch him behind the ears. “What’re you still doing here?” I ask him. “I expected you at my place hours ago.” He flicks his tail and stalks into the laundry room.
I head toward the living room and immediately bump into Nick, who’s on his way to the kitchen. He gives me a big hug, and a kiss somewhere around my ear. “I was about to give up on you.”
“Sorry. Traffic was brutal.”
“Right.”
Nick draws me into a circle of colleagues and their plus-ones; he slips a brimming wineglass into my hand, makes introductions, and leaves me with the group. I wish for a few familiar faces, like my friend Jill, a fellow bio lecturer who’s away visiting her boyfriend in San Francisco. It’s much more fun when she and I can be each other’s date for the evening amid all the couples.
“So you’re Deb,” says a professor from Nick’s department.
I turn to look at her—a dark-haired woman named Sydney, sharp-featured but soft-eyed, her slender body standing very straight. “Have we met before?” I ask.
“No,” Sydney says. “But I’ve heard a lot about you.”
Before I can ask what she’s talking about, she introduces me to her boyfriend, a construction manager who draws us into a discussion about LEED-certified building and local politics. I listen, trying not to think about how I’m neglecting the lesson plans for my biology course. Eventually I ease my way out of the conversation and wander across the room.
The house is neat and clean, with Nick’s love of invertebrates on full display; the walls in the living room are covered with photographs and illustrations of bees and butterflies. As much as I dislike parties, I do like the white noise of them, and I always enjoy being in Nick’s house. I love seeing the way he’s merged science with art, and I like the semisocial aspect of being around people, even if not fully engaged with them.
Soon I feel the draft of Nick’s front door opening and closing, the noise level in the room fading slowly as the party winds down. As I turn the corner into the empty hallway, the ambient sounds of people talking and laughing and saying good night are almost like a lullaby.
The first time Nick invited me over, soon after I’d moved into the cottage, I demurred—as I did the second and third times. Finally, to be polite, I went, feeling the whole time as though I were in a dollhouse, as if I were back home, where my mother’s eagle eye would catch every fingerprint I left, every speck of dirt my shoes deposited on the floor. Then one of his friends toppled a glass of wine onto the couch, staining its beige cushion with a large, deep-crimson moon—and Nick simply poured her a fresh glass and tossed a pillow over the stain. Trust me, Gatsby’s done a lot worse to that couch, he said.