“Yeah, and didn’t he lose all his toes to gangrene?”
“But he made it,” Keller says. “They all did—because that’s what it takes. It takes everyone.”
“What about us? Would it kill you to stay behind for once?”
“I’ll be fine,” he says, his arms around my shoulders again, his cheek against mine. “I’m impervious to ice, remember?”
I know he’s trying to make me smile, but I can’t. “It’s not just me you need to come back for.”
“I know that,” he says. “And there are still parents and children out there who need help. You know why I have to do this.”
I do, just as he knows I’d be out there, too, if I could. And I know he won’t leave without my blessing, and that not giving it to him would change everything that we are.
I turn around and let my forehead fall to his chest. I feel his hands in my hair, and I shift my head to the side. Through the fleece I can hear his heart beating, reminding me of the rhythm of Admiral Byrd’s heartbeat as he’d sprawled in my lap.
I look up at Keller. There’s so much I want to tell him—how helpless I’d felt, being unable to locate him; how lost, thinking he was gone—but my thoughts are nothing more than a mental mirror of the bay outside, a mix of brash, of hope and fear floating and cresting and crashing until they’ll either merge or melt away, and I don’t know which.
ALONE IN THE stateroom, I stare at the ceiling, unable to sleep, even to close my eyes. I turn my head and look around. Unlike our utilitarian crew’s quarters, this is like a hotel room, painted a warm, soothing green. Photographs of whales and albatross adorn the walls.
I sit up and swing my legs over the side of the bed. I test out my ankle, which hurts, but not as much as before. I stand up, feeling dizzy, and wait for it to pass. Once I feel steadier, I look around for my jacket. I don’t see my naturalist’s jacket—in fact, I’m not wearing any of my own clothes—but when I open the closet door I find a red cruise-issued parka, and I put it on. It’s big on me, a man’s size, and it makes me wonder whose room I’m in and why the guy isn’t wearing it himself.
As I make my way up to the main deck, I peek into the lounge. I recognize many of the Cormorant passengers who are now helping Susan care for the injured, or comforting the distraught, offering blankets and cups of coffee and tea. I glimpse Kate applying a bandage to a woman’s scraped and bleeding hand. I walk past to the port deck, where I can see the island and watch the crew unload Zodiacs down below. I know at this point they are doing more recovering than rescuing.
I see Keller in a Zodiac near the beach at Detaille—at least I think it’s him. I reach for my binoculars before realizing they’re gone—lost to the sea, probably. I can’t bear to think about how much detritus from the ship, from its passengers, is going to end up at the bottom of this ocean—and, worse, floating on its surface, and later in the bellies of penguins and seals and whales. The victims we’re seeing now are only the very first of what eventually will be too many to count.
I hobble my way up one more level to the crew deck, the one Keller and I sneak off to for moments free from tourists, questions, demands. It offers a better vantage point, and from here I continue to look for him. The Zodiac I’d thought he was in has disappeared.
I try to breathe slowly through the tangle of anxiety in my chest. When my ankle begins to throb I lean heavily on the rail with my forearms. My hands, in dry gloves, are still burning, and my face is unprotected from the cold and wind. I shouldn’t be outside in this condition, but I don’t know how else to be.
I’M STANDING AT the porthole in the stateroom when the nausea hits. I stumble to the cabin’s tiny bathroom just in time. Afterwards I sit there on the floor for a few moments to catch my breath.
I hear a knock on the cabin door. I get to my feet just as Kate enters.
“How’re you doing?” she asks. “I heard you broke your ankle.”
“Just a fracture.” I turn away from her and stumble toward the porthole, swallowing hard against another wave of nausea, my hands hovering around my middle. “I hate being stuck on board like this.”
“I know the feeling,” she says.
“Your husband does, too,” I say, turning around. “Did you hear? About how he found Keller and they found me?”
She nods, then wraps her arms around herself. “I’m glad. I mean, I know he screwed up the first time—”
“Don’t worry about that. We’re all grateful he snuck out again, as stupid as it was. I should thank him. Where is he?”
“Up in the lounge, I think,” she says. “I asked him not to come down here because you need to rest.”
“This is your cabin?”
“I wanted you to have a quiet place to recuperate. Richard and I aren’t going to get any sleep anyway.”
“You didn’t have to do that.”
She smiles. “And you’ll be happy to know he’s taken off that patch, finally.”