Page 74 of Jesse

She is at home here with me on this yacht as anyone could be.

When we get close to the little islets I’m heading for she helps me lower the sails and we motor in towards a sandbar.

There’s other people sailing today, but no one close. It’s just us when I drop the anchor and look at her.

“What do we do here?” she asks. And not in a snide way, either. More of an eyebrow-waggle way that comes with innuendo. I realize that’s our thing now. We have a thing.

“Everything,” I say.

Here is a sandbar. Small. Maybe forty feet long and twenty feet wide. There’s is literally nothing to do here and yet my answer of ‘everything’ still rings true.

“Let’s dive first,” she says.

And then we take our time putting on the wet suits and gear. I listen attentively as she muses about her childhood. About all the things she did out here with her family. She actually knows where we’re at. Which shouldn’t surprise me, but does.

Everything about her is a surprise.

Then we’re falling backwards into the ocean and everything goes silent except for the sound of underwater breathing and bubbles.

I am home and she brought me here.

Even though above the water there is nothing to see but the ocean lit up with the afternoon sun, below is something else entirely.

There are a few scattered patch reefs nearby. Nothing big or extraordinary. But we see a small octopus, and a few rays, and the bright-colored coral wave in the wind of water.

And every time I look at her pigtails floating weightless around her face, I feel every moment I’ve missed since that weekend thirteen years ago.

What would my life have looked like with Emma in it from the beginning? Would we really be that couple by now? The ones who argue and hate with as much passion as they laugh and love?

I don’t know. There’s a part of me that wants that. Wants to know someone so well that the fights are mostly meaningless and no matter how ugly they get, you know it’s just temporary.

But there’s another part that says this is better. We lived lives that were our own. She got her chance to shine and succeed and I found a way to be a better man. And we did that separately so we could come back together today, ready for what comes next.

What does come next?

I can’t even begin to imagine. Because Emma Dumas is no ordinary woman and I am no ordinary man.

But somehow I think it could work.

I think we only get better together.

We don’t resurface until we’re out of air. We drop our masks and mouthpieces and laugh. I pull her along as I swim back towards the boat or she takes a turn pulling me.

Getting out of the water is always a bummer. You’re so free and weightless in the ocean and then your buoyancy disappears and you realize you’ve got fifty pounds of equipment strapped to your back and a whole world of problems up here above the surface.

We flop down on the tarp between the main and outer hull, breathless, tired, and happy. She gets up first, peeling off her gear until she’s down to her shorts and tank top. Then helps me, because I just lie there transfixed, watching her with a smile.

She sits down next to me, then lies down, propping herself up on one elbow. “Now what?”

I turn my head to look at her, pretty exhausted but not looking forward to the approaching sunset. Because I don’t ever want this day to end.

“Now,” I say, turning my face back up to the sky, “we be still.”

“Did you like the dive?”

“Fuckin’ loved it,” I say, smiling.

“Me too,” she says, turning over on her back. “I haven’t done it in a long time. Been too busy with my city life to think much about Key West.”