Message in a Bottle (34 page)

But, of course, they never made it to Europe.

It was one of his biggest regrets. When he looked back on his life with her, he knew it was the one thing he should have done. He could have given her that much, at least, and thinking back, he knew it would have been possible. After a couple of years of saving, they’d had the money to go and had toyed with travel plans, but in the end they’d used the money to buy the shop. When she realized the responsibility of the business would never leave them with enough time to go, her dream eventually began to fade. She began to bring home the magazines less frequently. After a while she seldom mentioned Europe at all.

The night they first took Happenstance out, however, he knew her dream was still alive. She stood on the bow, looking far into the distance, holding Garrett’s hand. “Will we ever go?” she asked him gently, and it was that vision of her he always remembered: her hair billowing in the wind, her expression radiant and hopeful, like that of an angel.

“Yes,” he promised her, “as soon as we have the time.”

Less than a year later, while pregnant with their child, Catherine died in the hospital with Garrett at her side.

Later, when the dreams began, he didn’t know what to do. For a while he tried to push his tormented feelings away. Then in a fit of desperation one morning, he tried to find relief by putting his feelings into words. He wrote quickly, without pausing, and the first letter was almost five pages long. He carried the finished letter with him when he went sailing later that day, and reading it again suddenly gave him an idea. Because the Gulf Stream, which flowed northward up the coast of the United States, eventually turned east once it reached the cooler waters of the Atlantic, with a little luck a bottle could drift to Europe and wash up on the foreign soil she had always wanted to visit. His decision made, he sealed the letter in a bottle and threw it overboard with the hopes of somehow keeping the promise he’d made. It became a pattern he would never break.

Since then he’d written sixteen more letters—seventeen, if you counted the one he had with him now. As he stood at the wheel, gliding the boat directly eastward, he absently touched the bottle nestled in his coat pocket. He had written it this morning, as soon as he had risen.

The sky was beginning to turn leaden, but Garrett steered onward, toward the horizon. Beside him, the radio crackled with warnings of the coming storm. After a moment’s hesitation, he turned it off and evaluated the sky. He still had time, he decided. The winds were strong and steady, but they weren’t yet unpredictable.

After writing this letter to Catherine, he had written a second one as well. That one, he’d already taken care of. Because of the second letter, though, he knew he had to send Catherine’s letter today. Storms were lined up across the Atlantic, moving slowly westward in a march toward the eastern seaboard. From the reports he’d seen on television, it didn’t look as if he’d be able to get out again for at least a week, and that was too long to wait. He’d already be gone by then.

The choppy seas continued to rise: the swells breaking higher, the troughs bottoming out a little lower. The sails were beginning to strain in the steady, heavy winds. Garrett evaluated his position. The water was deep here, though not quite deep enough. The Gulf Stream—a summer phenomenon—was gone, and the only way the bottle stood a chance of making it across the ocean was if it was far enough out to sea when it was dropped. The storm might otherwise wash it ashore within a few days—and of all the letters he’d written to her, he wanted this one to make it to Europe most of all. He had decided that it would be the last one he’d ever send.

On the horizon, the clouds looked ominous.

He pulled on his rain slicker and buttoned it up. When the rains came, he hoped it would protect him for at least a little while.

Happenstance began to bob as she moved farther out to sea. He held the wheel with both hands, keeping her as steady as he could. When the winds shifted and picked up—signaling the front of the storm—he began to tack, moving diagonally across the swells despite the hazards. Tacking was difficult in these conditions, slowing his progress, but he preferred to go against the wind now rather than attempt to tack on the way back if the storm caught up to him.

The effort was exhausting. Every time he shifted the sails, it took all the strength he had just to keep from losing control. Despite his gloves, his hands burned when the lines slid through his hands. Twice, when the wind gusted unexpectedly, he almost lost his balance, saved only because the gust died as quickly as it came.

For almost an hour he continued tacking, all the while watching the storm up ahead. It seemed to have stalled, but he knew it was an illusion. It would hit land in a few hours. As soon as it hit shallower water, the storm would accelerate and the ocean would become unnavigable. Now, it was simply gathering steam like a slowly burning fuse, getting ready to explode.

Garrett had been caught in major storms before and knew better than to underestimate the power of this one. With one careless move, the ocean would take him, and he was determined not to let that happen. He was stubborn, but not foolish. The moment he sensed real danger, he’d turn the boat around and race back to port.

Overhead, the clouds continued to thicken, rolling and twisting into new shapes. Light rain began to fall. Garrett looked upward, knowing it was just beginning. “Just a few more minutes,” he muttered under his breath. He needed just a few more minutes—

Lightning flashed across the sky, and Garrett counted off the seconds before he heard the thunder. Two and a half minutes later it finally sounded, booming over the open expanse of the ocean. The center of the storm was roughly twenty-five miles away. With the current wind speed, he calculated, he had over an hour before it hit in full force. He planned to be long gone by then.

The rain continued to fall.

Darkness began to settle in as he forged ahead. As the sun dropped lower, impenetrable clouds above blotted out the remaining sunlight, quickly lowering the air temperature. Ten minutes later the rain began to fall harder and colder.

Damn! He was running out of time, but he still wasn’t there.

The swells seemed to rise, the ocean churning, as Happenstance cut forward. To keep his balance, he spread his legs farther apart. The wheel was steady, but the swells were beginning to come diagonally now, rocking the boat like an unsteady cradle. Resolutely he pressed on.

Minutes later lightning flickered again . . . pause . . . thunder. Twenty miles now. He checked his watch. If the storm progressed at this rate, he’d be cutting it close. He could still make it back to port in time, as long as the winds continued blowing in the same direction.

But if the winds shifted . . .

His mind clicked through the scenario. He was two and a half hours out to sea—going with the wind, he would need an hour and a half to get back at the most, if everything went as planned. The storm would hit land about the same time he did.

“Damn,” he said, this time out loud. He had to drop the bottle now, even though he wasn’t as far out as he wanted to be. But he couldn’t risk going out any farther.

He grasped the now shuddering wheel with one hand as he reached into his jacket and removed the bottle. He pressed on the cork to make sure it was wedged in tightly, then held up the bottle in the waning light. He could see the letter inside, rolled tightly.

Staring at it, he felt a sense of completion, as if a long journey had finally come to an end.

“Thank you,” he whispered, his voice barely audible above the crashing of the waves.

He threw the bottle as far as he could and watched it fly, losing it only when it hit the water. It was done.

Now, to turn the boat around.

At that moment, two bolts of lightning split the sky simultaneously. Fifteen miles away now. He hesitated, concerned.

It couldn’t be coming that fast, he suddenly thought. But the storm seemed to be gaining speed and strength, expanding like a balloon, coming directly toward him.

He used the loops to steady the wheel while he returned to the stern. Losing precious minutes, he fought furiously to maintain control of the boom. The lines burned in his hands, ripping through his gloves. He finally succeeded in shifting the sails, and the boat leaned hard as it caught the wind. As he made his way back, another gust blew a cold blast from a different direction.

Warm air rushes to cold.

He switched on the radio just in time to hear a small-craft advisory being issued. Quickly he turned up the volume, listening closely as the broadcast described the rapidly changing weather patterns. “Repeat . . . small-craft advisory . . . dangerous winds forming . . . heavy rain expected.”

The storm was gathering steam.

With the temperature dropping quickly, the winds had picked up dangerously. In the last three minutes they had increased to a steady gale of twenty-five knots.

He leaned into the wheel with a growing sense of urgency.

Nothing happened.

He realized suddenly that the rising swells were lifting the stern out of the water, not allowing the rudder to respond. The boat seemed frozen in the wrong direction, teetering precariously. He rode another swell and the hull slapped hard against the water, the bow of the boat nearly going under.

“Come on . . . catch,” he whispered, the first tendrils of panic unfurling in his gut. This was taking too long. The sky was growing blacker by the minute, and the rain began to blow sideways in dense, impenetrable sheets.

A minute later the rudder finally caught and the boat began to turn . . .

Slowly . . . slowly . . . the boat still leaning too far to its side . . .

With growing horror he watched the ocean rise around him to form a roaring, giant swell that was headed straight for him.

He wasn’t going to make it.

He braced himself as water crashed over the exposed hull, sending up white plumes. Happenstance leaned even farther and Garrett’s legs buckled, but his grip on the wheel was solid. He scrambled to his feet again just as another swell hit the boat.

Water flooded onto the deck.

The boat struggled to stay upright in the blasting winds, actively taking on water now. For almost a minute it poured onto the deck with the force of a raging river. Then the winds suddenly abated for a moment, and miraculously Happenstance began to right itself, the mast rising slightly into the ebony sky. The rudder caught again and Garrett turned the wheel hard, knowing he had to rotate the boat quickly.

Lightning again. Seven miles away now.

The radio crackled. “Repeat . . . small-craft advisory . . . winds expected to reach forty knots . . . repeat . . . winds at forty knots, gusting to fifty . . .”

Garrett knew he was in danger. There was no way he could control Happenstance in winds that strong.

The boat continued to make its turn, battling the extra weight and the savage ocean swells. The water at his feet was almost six inches deep now. Almost there . . .

A gale-force wind suddenly began to blow from the opposite direction, stopping his progress cold and rocking Happenstance like a toy. Just when the boat was most vulnerable, a large swell crashed against the hull. The mast sank lower, pointing toward the ocean.

This time the gust never stopped.

Freezing rain blew sideways, blinding him. Happenstance, instead of correcting, began to tilt even more, the sails heavy with rainwater. Garrett lost his balance again, the angle of the boat defying his efforts to get up. If another swell hit again . . .

Garrett never saw it coming.

Like an executioner’s swing, the wave smashed against the boat with terrible finality, forcing Happenstance onto her side, the mast and sails crashing into the water. She was lost. Garrett clung to the wheel, knowing if he let go, he’d be swept out to sea.

Happenstance began taking on water rapidly, heaving like a great drowning beast.

He had to get to the emergency kit, which included a raft—it was his only chance. Garrett inched his way toward the cabin door, holding on to anything he could, fighting the blinding rain, fighting for his life.

Lightning and thunder again, almost simultaneously.

He finally reached the hatch and gripped the handle. It wouldn’t budge. Desperate, he placed his feet into position for greater leverage and pulled again. When it cracked open, water began to flood inside, and he suddenly realized he’d made a terrible mistake.

The ocean rushed in, quickly obscuring the interior of the cabin. Garrett immediately saw that the kit, normally secured in a bin on the wall, was already underwater. There was nothing, he realized finally, to prevent the boat from being swallowed up by the ocean.

Panicked, he fought to shut the cabin door, but the rush of water and his lack of leverage made it impossible. Happenstance began to sink quickly. In seconds half the hull was submerged. His mind suddenly clicked again.

Life jackets . . .

They were located under the seats near the stern.

He looked. They were still above water.

Struggling furiously, he reached for the side railings, the only handholds still above water. By the time he grabbed hold, the water was up to his chest and his legs were kicking in the ocean. He cursed himself, knowing he should have put on the life jacket before.

Three-fourths of the boat was underwater now, and it was still going down.

Fighting toward the seats, he placed hand over hand, straining against the weight of the waves and his own leaden muscles. Halfway there, the ocean reached his neck and the futility of the situation finally hit him.

He wasn’t going to make it.

The water was up to his chin when he finally stopped trying. Looking upward, his body exhausted, he still refused to believe that it would end this way.

He let go of the side rail and began to swim away from the boat. His coat and shoes dragged heavily in the water. He treaded water, rising with the swells as he watched Happenstance finally slip beneath the ocean. Then, with cold and exhaustion beginning to numb his senses, he turned and began the slow, impossible swim to shore.