My wife and I had a row yesterday. It lasted three hours and a bit of a half. She was yelling at me because she wanted me to stop risking my life.

The last thing I remember before she stormed out of the house was her face. Standing at the door of our little cottage, her eyes outlined in red, matching the deep colors of the setting sun outside of our rear window. Tears were silently dripping, down all the way to her jaw, where they hung before dropping, like glittering diamonds. She lifted her sweatshirt cuff absentmindedly to wipe her nose. We stood silently for a couple minutes, I; the apparent calm complacent husband, her; the weeping, caring, loving wife. Finally, she broke the silence. “Quit the damn Coast Guard.”

“I can’t baby. . . I’m sorry.”

Her hand hovered on the handle for a second, and then twisted furiously.

Some nights, when I’m on my own, I lie down early and try to start dreaming. I dream about places from yesterday, things I would otherwise forget.

In the dream it is always summer. A cicada whirr drones in the background, and a mid-afternoon light casts its shadow deep in the east. The low thrum of the waves lapping over the sand echoes about the white-washed cottage. A warm honeysuckle breeze wisps across my skin, mixing with a strong sea scent. I’m sitting on a worn black barstool, one of a mismatched set. The bar itself is made of driftwood, large beams found in the salty surf, silvered and aged.  A bottle of 5150 Tequila sits empty, the bars of light coming through the widow hit the bottle and rainbows erupt and cast patterns at the other end of the bar.

At this point I’m sorting something out, thinking of something that needs fixing. Creaks echo from the rear of the cottage, and then a woman walks from the back of the cottage and out the front porch. She does not look at me: her eyes are staring out at the sea, strangely unfocused and slightly glazed over. I watch her carefully, uncompromisingly. She walks toward the great expanse before her. Her thin white dress is pulled hard by the wind, and eerily, she almost seems to float. Her hands lay rigid at her sides; splayed out, almost as if to invisibly support her. Beautiful long brown hair whips about her face, the strong breeze seems to grab it jealously. I feel my otherwise cool body start to sweat, anxiously I press my hand to my naked chest, my heart is beating as if for the last time.

I glance again at the woman. She has disappeared. However; this time I choose to pursue her. I push myself off the bar and race towards the surf. I quickly dive in, and I’m already climbing aboard my thirty-foot monohull, raising the sail in the next twenty seconds, and well underway in the next minute. The thought of failure crosses my mind, of the possibility that I should have just run along the beach to look for the woman. But my mind has also completely accepted the fact that she must have gone out to sea. I can almost hear her laughing ahead, spitefully forcing the impossibility of my situation further.

My arm grips the tiller so hard that my knuckles turn white, my cloth-less body is being continuously sprayed with salty, stinging water. The sky is brooding with clouds, and huge beams of light from between the clouds shoot past me, playing across the water like massive searchlights from the heavens. The prow is cutting through the water eagerly at twenty knots. I can feel her now, she is so close at hand, the next swell will undoubtedly roll away to reveal her. Somewhere ahead, at the faintest difference at the edge of my hearing, sounds; screaming maybe? Drowning? I pull at the main, close hauling as hard as I can, hiking my body out right off the port side. My eyes are fixed rigidly on the swells, searching, but somehow, inexorably, they are drawn to the water beneath me. Some movement out of the corner of my eye: the realization almost stops my heart; somehow I got it all wrong. The broken image below, my face reflected in it, grinning. . . Laughing.

My mouth opens and a noise erupts, filling the small bedroom. Sitting upright, suddenly, abruptly. My body is drenched in a cold sweat, my eyes open to reveal the slight slivers of the sun coming over the horizon. Harbor bells trill across the morning water to the rhythm of the breeze.  I’m trying to control my breathing, but thoughts from the nightmare tumble through my mind, forcing my heart to react. Finally my breathing slows to a easy pace, and I roll myself off the edge of my bed.

Holding my head in my hands, I feel the three days worth of growth underneath my palms. I stroke it thoughtfully, toying with the idea of leaving it to grow. Shaving it wins out, and I hoist myself gingerly off the white sheets, feeling the pain of the fourteen hour workday previous. My alarm then decides to go off, and I realize I have to be back at the docks within the hour.  A quick trip to the shower later, and I’m grabbing my coffee, forgoing any real sustenance and tripping out of the door.

A cold sea breeze greets me harshly. My breath expands out in front of me like my own personal cloud. Cloud nine I’ll call it, I think humorously enough to chuckle out loud. I push the idea back into my head, and focus on the day ahead; another fourteen hours of patrolling, and Angelica had left me a note telling me that me that she was still not comfortable with coming home.

My boots echoed about the deserted streets of the small coastal town. “William!” Boomed a half-giant from a storefront. “How’re ya doin today? Got some lunch with ya?”

“I haven’t Jeremy.” I had forgotten.

“Thought as much, so I gotcha something. Here ya are.”

He thrust a large brown bag towards me.

“Jer, you are a lifesaver.”

“Naw bud, you’re the one. Can’t ever thank you enough.”

“I told you not to mention it. It’s my job.”

Just last year I had pulled him from the freezing winter waters of the Atlantic. It was my job, but ever since that day, he had insisted on continually showering “The Coast Guard” with random foodstuffs from his beautiful seaside pub. It was outside the same pub that I had proposed to my Angelica. I waved a sorrowful goodbye to Jeremy, and trudged the rest of the way to work.

Already waiting at the docks was the rest of my five-man crew. The small cutter we used for patrol was bobbing dockside. My best friend and right hand man, Batista, jogged up the dock quickly. “Sup man, umm, Angel back?”

I answered with a slow shake of the head.

“You two love each other bro, your going to be ok, ok?”

He quickly put his arm around my shoulders and gave a squeeze before I shrugged him off. Staring towards the horizon, the morning sun was rising, filling the sea with blood.  As we pulled on our gear, it was hard to tell where my wetsuit was in the long morning shadows.

“Lets go boys!”

The cutter’s motor revved to life, and we set off on a southern tack, going our usual route.

And here I am, on one of the most amazing, tranquil days I have recently seen, but my mind was incredibly far from being tranquil. I wondered, with some sick cynicism, if I might die today on a rescue. At one point during our row, I had yelled something too regrettable to Angelica.

“You don’t care if I die! If I do, YOU’LL GET YOUR WISH.” She ran away bawling, hoping I would come after her.

Stupidly, I didn’t.

The small boat we’re in takes the waves roughly, especially with the ten to fifteen foot swells today. A tropical storm is making it’s way up the east coast, and like dropping a stone in a still pool, the ripples are making their way towards the upper coastal states. Our boat alternately coasts down the inner part of the swell, calmly, quickly, and when it crests, there is a small second where it was suddenly peaceful. And then, WHAM. Over the hump, and back down the other side. Over and over and over.

I look towards the other four. Batista is at the helm, fighting with the controls. I can hardly make him out through the windswept glass, his face undoubtedly contorted into a painful expression. As the Captain, I am charged with all contact to dispatch. The radio on my suit crackles to life. “CGB forty niner niner do you copy?”

“I have a solid copy Overwater, go ahead.”

“We gotta sit CGB. One fishery going down within two miles of your current.”

“Send up the coordinates Overwater.”

“Yo!” I yell over the din of crashing waves and engine roar.

“We gotta fishing vessel going down near our position! You have coordinates uploading now Batista! Go!”

My men instantly rush to various positions about the boat. Everyone is suiting up for the worst, there was no indication about how submerged the vessel was at this point. And when the Coast Guard doesn’t tell you, it’s probably not good.

Having just plotted the coordinates, Batista revved the engine in a new direction. I feel myself pull on my wetsuit in the cabin, but my numb body is somehow unaware. The others are doing the same near me.

“Ready Cap’n?” Asks Vinnie.

“Hunh? Oh, yeah bud.”  I absentmindedly addressed him incorrectly, not by his name or his rank, but I was pretty confident he wasn’t going to write me up.

Someone took a deep breath, and then exhaled slowly. Maybe it was me. We exited the cabin just as Batista came over the loudspeaker. “We’re here.”

The light from outside blinded me as we walked the stairs. My eyes still unaccustomed, I gripped the rail firmly while waiting for the familiar blue and white to return.

The loudspeaker whistles loudly in my ear, and Batista slowly enunciates; “There is nothing here.”

I feel myself coming to, awhile before I completely awake. The funny thing is, I want to be awake, but I can’t seem to escape from my dream. My ever-present dream, all encompassing my every thought throughout the day, leading me to desperation.

Light caresses my window, slowing moving across my floor, and to the base of my bed. It touches the very tips of my toes, comes up my ankles and to my calves, warming me. I smile, for what seems like a millisecond. Even in my nightmares, I still wish for her to return, no matter what she or I have said, no matter what. The heat from the sun tricks me, lies to me, tells my brain that it’s her, she is the one that is touching my legs. That she is the one gently waking me up. That it really isn’t something ninety-two million miles away. Well, I hate my brain.

When I finally do awaken, I do so violently. My chest heaves, my hands gripping a knob of bed sheet on either side of me. My teeth clench, as I try ferociously to hold back hot tears. I cannot, it seems. I feel sick. It’s been three days since she’s been gone, and I can’t handle it. And the worst part is, the worst part is, that I can’t see her anymore. I try to conjure up her image in my mind; and. . . Nothing. I ball my hand up into a fist, and punch the side of my head. “Damn it Will! WHY CAN’T YOU SEE HER!?” I continue to whack myself again and again, maybe a dozen more times, before jumping off the bed and running toward my jeans lying in the corner.

“C’mon C’mon!”

The jeans are unhelpful, containing their secret well. I’m fiddling with them so rashly that the pockets seem to hold themselves closed as if of their own accord. “Finally!” I grab the little black square, and my heart slows a bit.

“There you are.”

The words suddenly grow a deeper meaning, and I completely lose it right there, on my cold hardwood floor.

I try to manage a word, a sentence maybe, to calm myself down a bit. Something like; “Everything’s going to be ok.” or, “Don’t worry, she’ll come back.”

The stupid words feel hollow inside of my head, as if they were thought by someone else. Maybe because they were. My thoughts thicken inside my head, from hopeful, to desolate. I have lost all of my hope that I had. It has never been like this before, and I have a feeling that I’ll never be able to witness her running out of the front door ever again.

I wonder, lying there on the cold floor, a stricken soul, if after saving all of these people, why can’t someone come and save me?

“There is nothing here.” Batista said slowly.

I stared out at the endless beyond, the huge rolling hills of salty liquid, and felt not the cold, nor the wind, but waves of inexorable grief closing in on me.

The scent of gasoline pierced the air. I sniffed, pulling in the fumes heavily. Sudden memories of my first vehicle, a truck, flooded my mind. My parents had gotten it for me, and one bright morning they had dragged me out of my bed and walked me outside into the frigid January cold. As I stood in my driveway in my boxers with my Dad, my Mom went and picked the truck up and drove it up to me.   My bare feet were going numb, among other things, and my arms were clenched tightly across my chest, trying desperately to hold some warmth. My Mom pulled up, laying on the horn, and stopped within inches of me. As she slammed on the brakes, the air rolled forward and I breathed in the unmistakable scent of burnt gasoline. At sixteen, obviously I had smelled gas before, but this time changed everything. It was now associated with my truck: my very own piece of freedom. I from then on; loved the scent of gasoline, and usually could be found sniffing the air at the local petrol station.

But this, this was different. Ominous, fleetingly horrifying. An eardrum popping loud noise erupts from the rear port side. My head turns quickly towards the noise, trying to match it with an image. A ship, huge and massively tall, bursts into view violently. Flames curl up out of windows, and blacken the height of the schooner. Seeming to be moving at an impossible speed, quickly overtakes us, and within a few feet of our prow, explodes.

The world seems to slow to a crawl. seconds roll by like minutes. I think, and before I have even assessed the situation completely, I run towards the prow. My feet are heavy with all of my diving gear weighing me down, but I trudge on stubbornly. I turn around the cabin, and find the prow filling my vision. My body is jarring with nearby impacts of shrapnel, my arms appear to be vibrating, my heart is doing double time, I feel my face contort to embrace the coming leap. Left foot is making the last step, right is touching the prow. I’m airborne. My arms are coming forward to enter the water smoothly, my legs extend gracefully backward. I see fire coming from oil on the surface of the water, just before I squeeze my eyes shut. Explosions, running, fire, chaos.

And now, silence. I look upwards at the surface for a second. The fire on the surface of the water is being put out by my team. Always have my back when I do something stupid. I kick a couple times, as my air is going out. Trying to pop out onto the surface, to take that single ragged breath. . . I’m kicking, struggling, the surface of the water seems to draw away from me, rather than near. My hand reaches up towards the heavens, begging someone to please help.

The last vestiges of air start escaping from my lips. I have to get out now. I perform a furious last effort, kicking and pulling with all of my strength.

Then out of the corner of my eye, I see something. A explosion of bubbles obscures whatever it is, but when they start pulling away; it’s her. Her face is partially obscured, but I can see that it is almost expressionless. Her black eyes bore deep into my soul.

And I wake up.

We are in our pale blue mustang convertible. Driving down the freeway, just to drive. On our right, a huge stand of trees blurs into browns and greens. On the left, the beautiful ocean doesn’t seem to blur at all, just moving, sparkling. “Majestic.”

“Hmm?” I say, surprised at the sudden conversation.

“I said: it is Majestic.”

“Oh! Yeah. . . Right you are.”

I look at her for a second. Her face has once again turned forward, the small hints of a smile at her lips. Her eyes echo the gesture, which sends my heart aflutter. I feel a burst of love towards this woman, my sweet wife, who can woo me with a simple smile.

I turn forward again, glancing down at the symbol at the center of my steering wheel, and looking up, see the beautiful ocean expanding away from me once again. Smiling happily, my hand gripping the steering wheel carelessly.  I feel no weight of clothing, or of anything. I find myself lulling, as if about to fall asleep, my eyelids heavy. I struggle to keep awake, but I am fighting a losing battle.

But just before I completely go, I feel that small familiar hand enter mine, the fingers intertwining, the smoothness of the skin.

I relax, and finally, finally. . .