Erik Durst

The grease on the galley counter had gone tacky weeks ago. Erik did not wipe it. He sat across the oilcloth table with a mug of chicory that smelled like wet wool, watching the tea skin fold as the lantern shook. "You are looking at the hatch again," Erik said. "The seal leaks when the wind comes from the west," I said. My fingers stayed wrapped around my cup. The skin over my knuckles was still pink and tight where the salt had crusted it three months ago. "The seal is fine. You want to see if the rowboat is still tied off." "I can hear the painter slapping the hull." "Then stop looking." Erik pushed a tin plate across the grain with three salt biscuits and a smear of grey lard. "Eat." "I am not hungry." "You just prefer the ache." He reached for his pipe, tamping black shag into the bowl. "The police in Suva sent another letter. They want to know why you waited four days to crawl out of the drink, and why a man who spent ten years in marine insurance forgets how to check a bilge valve." "The valve was sheared off." "Convenient. For a man who knew the draft marks better than his own wife." Erik struck a match. "Eddy always was thorough. Life policies paid double outside territorial waters. Your mother signed the riders in June." "She didn't read the small print." "She read it. She thought it was protection." Erik drew twice on the pipe. "Just like she thought he liked having you around tracking mud." The wind outside caught the stays, humming that thin, high wire note that sounded too much like the rental yacht on the third night, right before the floorboards flooded. "They found the lifeboat near Tonga," Erik muttered. "Empty. Neatly bailed. People who jump ship in a panic do not wipe the thwarts." "Maybe he hit a reef." "There are no reefs there. Just three thousand fathoms of black water."