Furious by Jeffrey Higgins (top 10 novels to read TXT) 📕

I climbed the stairs to the cockpit with ease, now accustomed to the rise and fall of the bow, the tilt of the deck, a world in constant motion. I had grown acclimated to miles of shimmering blue seas, the salty air, the relentless sun. We saw an occasional sailboat or tanker on the horizon, but we were otherwise alone. My aquaphobia had diminished to background static, like a television in the next room. The tremors returned if I dwelled on it, but I concentrated on other things and kept my fear in remission.

“Good you’re awake,” Brad said from behind the wheel.

“Still have your headache?” I asked.

“It’s worse.”

“Should I worry?”

He massaged his temples. “I’ve had a headache and fatigue since we left Bali. It’s jet lag.”

“For a full week?”

“I take longer to recover than I did when I was twenty. That’s all it is . . . jet lag.”

“What about your nausea?” I asked.

“Still there.”

“If you get sick, we’re in real trouble,” I said. “We should stop in port and have a doctor examine you.”

“I am a doctor. There’s no way I’m letting some island quack medicate me.”

“Still . . . I’m concerned.”

“Keep your eyes open for tankers while I get dinner,” Brad said and disappeared down the companionway.

We had slipped into a routine, two sailors bonded by a shared mission and a mutual interest in survival. He cooked breakfast and dinner and did most of the sailing, and I made lunch, washed our laundry, and took shifts at the helm while he slept. My sailing ability improved daily. I also kept a lookout for other vessels in the shipping lanes, which meant I spent my days laying on sunbathing matts and soaking in sun and fresh air. My contribution to the crew involved staring at sea in sullen silence, but it gave me time alone with my thoughts and the space I needed to think things through.

I had unraveled after I found Emma cold and still in her crib. I still could not describe my pain. My greatest fear, the most horrible thing I could have imagined, had happened. I had lost my child. She had died without warning, not after a lengthy illness, but suddenly, without time to prepare.

The worst part, the thing I tried not to remember, was when she died, I had not immediately known. The day it happened, I had woken up, brushed my teeth, and put on a bathrobe. I had done all of that while my daughter lay dead in the next room. She had passed away, and I had not felt it. A part of me had gone forever, and I had puttered around my bedroom, as if my world still existed. I had felt rested, happy Emma had not woken me during the night. I had enjoyed my sleep while my baby girl died.

I had been inconsolable for at least a month after her death. I did not remember most of it—the paramedics, the doctors, the police and their questions. The funeral. Tragedy had brought an unending flurry of activity, a waking nightmare. I could not concentrate or work and had taken a leave of absence from Boston Pediatric Surgical Center. The staff there had been great. Eric had been great. They showed incredible understanding, but there was nothing they could do to ease my pain.

The hospital had provided me with a psychiatrist, and I had attended weekly sessions sitting in a cushy leather chair listening to him drone on about the stages of grief: denial, guilt, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. I had started with shock, an inability to believe Emma had died, which I guess was denial, then I had gone numb and remained that way for six months. I had experienced depression, for sure, but anger too—anger at myself for not being able to keep my baby alive.

And guilt. So much guilt.

I knew children died from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome—SIDS. I also knew unexplained SIDS deaths happened about thirty-five times out of every one hundred thousand children. I had researched it. Now, doctors spoke about Sudden Unexpected Infant Death Syndrome—SUIDS. Who took time to think of better acronyms for the most devastating thing to happen to a mother?

Every day for six months, I had awakened and experienced a split second of blissful ignorance before I remembered, and the numbness returned. I fumbled my way through my days in a haze and when I thought about Emma, my denial turned to raw pain, as if my soul had been sliced open and bled through into my consciousness. I knew I had to accept Emma’s death and get back to work, get back to my marriage, get back to being a person again, but that seemed like a betrayal of her memory, because being happy would diminish my loss. I needed to feel the pain, to show Emma how much I loved her, how much I missed her.

I was not ready for happiness. Maybe I would never be ready.

Brad banged around in the galley, and the smell of baked chicken drifted on deck. Night fell over Southeast Asia and the sky turned deep black in the east and fiery red to port. Lights sparkled on shore in the distance, far off the bow. They glowed miles away, but I felt like I could reach out and touch them.

“That’s Singapore,” Brad said, coming on deck with our plates.

“It’s beautiful.”

“We’ll enter the strait soon, and it should only take four days to reach the Andaman Sea. After that, we won’t see land again until we reach the Maldives.”

“I’m still a little scared,” I said.

“Nothing bad will happen.”

I sat beside him, devouring a chicken breast and salad. The fresh vegetables would not last for the entire voyage, so we ate them twice a day and saved the frozen corn, peas, and carrots for the second half of the trip. The sea air, being outside all day, and the boredom had brought my appetite back for the first time