The Stranger in the Lifeboat

www.ajpdf.com
Sea
My watch reads 1:00 a.m. Our fifth night lost. The stars are so thick I can’t
tell where some start and others end, as if a barrel of glowing salt just
exploded in the heavens.
For now, I focus on a single star that sparkles so brilliantly, it’s like
someone is signaling us. We see you. Wave. Do something and we’ll come get
you. If only. We remain adrift with this magnificent panorama all around us.
It has always been a mystery to me, Annabelle, how beauty and anguish can
share the same moment.
I wish I were staring at these stars with you, from a beach someplace
safely on land. I find myself thinking of the night we met. Remember? The
Fourth of July? I was sweeping the floor of a pavilion in the municipal park.
You approached in an orange blouse and white pants, your hair tied back in a
ponytail, and asked where the fireworks were being launched.
“What fireworks?” I said. And at that instant the first of them boomed in
the air (a red-and-white starburst, I remember distinctly), and we both
laughed as if you had made them appear just by asking. There were two
chairs in the pavilion, and I set them beside one another, and we spent the
next hour watching those fireworks like an old couple on their porch. Only
when the explosions finished did we say our names.
I remember that hour as if I could walk inside it and touch its edges. The
curiosity of attraction, the stolen glances, the voice in my head saying Who is
this woman? What is she like? Why does she trust me this way? The
possibilities of another person! Is there any anticipation on this Earth quite
like that one? Is there anything lonelier than being without it?
You were educated and accomplished and tender and beautiful, and I
confess, from the moment I saw you, I felt unworthy of your affection. I
never finished high school. I had few career options. My clothes were dull
and worn out, and my bony frame and straggly hair were hardly attractive.