A False Dawn

EPILOGUE

They’d wrapped it in newspaper. I took it out of my Jeep, careful not to drop it on the parking lot. It had been a month since I was out of the hospital, but lifting the weight of the headstone, I could feel the beaded scar on my gut pull a little.

Max followed at my heels, sniffing the ground as we walked to the gravesite. The morning sun was edging above a tree line to the far right of the county cemetery. The grounds smelled of fresh cut grass, crushed acorns, and wet dirt.

The grave marker, county-issued, was a small white cross with a seven-digit number on it. I pulled it out of the ground. Then I unwrapped the newspaper and set the headstone on her grave. It read:

I stood there minute longer, said a silent prayer, and made the sign of the cross. Then I heard a bird start to sing. A cardinal, its feathers like that of a ripe strawberry, jumped between branches on the lone oak, singing. Its voice sounded like a flute warbling in the wind, its head and shoulders moving side to side with the swagger of a rock singer.

I smiled and said, “Sing on bird…sing on.”

I picked up the discarded grave marker, the newspapers, and turned to Max. “Let’s go, Max. We have some sailing to get to.”

I rented the 42 Beneteau from a bareboat charter company out of Key Largo. I’d brought enough groceries and ice to last for two weeks, that’s if I wanted to stay out that long. I thought about sailing over to Bimini, find a quiet cove, listen to good music, catch a lot of fish, and simply do a lot of nothing. Then, again, I might sail down beyond Key West to Fort Jefferson and spend some time where the waters of the Atlantic and Gulf became one sea.

But there was a place I wanted to visit first.

Once clear of the marina, I wanted to turn off the Perkins diesel, open the spinnaker, and hoist the mainsail, but I kept her under motor for a few miles. I punched the coordinates into the GPS and followed the satellite toward the place where I had said goodbye to Sherri. Max hopped from one seat to another in the cockpit, barking at the soaring pelicans, and enjoying the movement of the boat.

After a half hour, I went below and opened the refrigerator, taking out the long stem red rose I’d brought aboard. Back in the cockpit, I checked the coordinates. I was within one hundred feet of where I’d released Sherri’s ashes into the sea. I cut the diesel, stepped to the bowsprit and stood there for a moment.

“I miss you. Max misses you.” I tossed the rose into the ocean. It floated on the surface and began to drift away in the current. I watched it until the red bloom was a dot on the horizon.

Then I raised the sails. But there was a dead calm. No breeze. Not even the clouds seemed to move, and little Max was still. “Well, Max, what do you think? We were going to do some sailing down toward Fort Jefferson or over to Bimini. Thought I’d let the wind decide. Maybe it has. Maybe we ought to be back home, take Jupiter out and catch some fish if we can’t catch some wind.”

Suddenly, out of the west, a breeze started, picked up, and kicked with a strong gust. “Max, looks like we’re heading to Bimini!”

I made my way back to the cockpit. I stood behind the wheel, the wind steady, the sails expanding, leading the boat toward the east. I reset the GPS for Buccaneer Point on Bimini. In less than thirty seconds we were doing ten knots.

I reached down into the ice in the cooler and retrieved a Corona. I turned to Max. “All right, first mate, we’re heading across some blue water to an island I visited a few yeas ago. Enjoy!”

We had the sun to our backs, and the islands somewhere over the horizon. Max quickly became used to the movements of the boat. She made it all the way up to the bowsprit, adjusting her balance by spreading her front and hind legs a little farther apart. She watched the spray off the bow and sniffed the salty air.

I listened to the boat cut through the water, felt the wind on my face, sipped the beer, put a Jack Johnson CD in the player, sat down, and steered the wheel with my toes. It felt good to be sailing again. I’d forgotten how much I’d missed it.

Max started to walk back to the cockpit when something caught her eye. Two porpoises loped alongside the boat easily keeping up with us. Max barked and scurried around the boat keeping her eyes on the strange creatures. They swam less than twenty feet off the starboard side.

I remembered Sherri saying, “I love it when they join us. I believe it’s the same pair we saw yesterday.”

“How can you tell?”

“Their attitude. Maybe it’s those smiles. I don’t know. But they seem to want to travel with us.”

These two did travel with Max and me for another two miles and then left us. They left us with their attitude, their smiles, and their sense of adventure.

“Keep an eye out for pirates!” I yelled to Max. “That’s the mate’s job, growl at ‘em.”

She turned and looked at me, her face animated in a swashbuckling dachshund kind of way. I grinned, watching Max stand near the bowsprit, her ears flapping in the breeze, her wet nose sniffing the trade winds.

Maybe I didn’t need the GPS. I had my little watchdog to point the way.