The Desolate Sea

Rain streamed from my hair as I hung my head over the ship's railing.

Salt clung to my cracked lips.

The storm had churned my stomach all night, and I had gotten barely any rest. What little of the ship's biscuit I managed to swallow now floated in the sea below. I was so weak. I didn’t want to move from this spot. Perhaps I could stay here, suspended over the sea, for the remainder of the voyage.

My first instinct was to call for William, but he would tell me others have endured far worse. That most ladies were faring way better than I.

The other women were not like me. They did not carry the burden I did. Not even William knew of my indiscretion. Each day I opened my mouth to tell him, and each day I bit back the words, stopped by what I had been forced to leave behind.

My sweet boy. John.

Another wave of nausea began to ripple, but there was nothing left within me.

“Dorothy, are you all right? Here let me help you,” Alice urged as she wrapped a shawl around my shoulders. Alice had become my one and only friend aboard the ship. She had been against this journey as much as I had. I guess in a way, we were both prisoners at sea.

“Alice, can you accompany me back to my bed, please? I don’t believe I can make it on my own,” I whispered.

“Of course. Come now.” She slipped an arm around my frail waist and took my hand in hers.

I took slow, faltering steps between shallow breaths until we reached the cramped quarters below deck. It smelled of mildew, damp wood, and sea water. We had to duck beneath the low beams to avoid striking our heads, for the ceiling rose barely five feet from the floor. There was scarcely enough room to draw a full breath without breathing the stale air of the person pressed against me. Straw bedding lay side by side, separated by little more than a sea chest or a folded blanket.

I often wondered whether my endless sickness had become a burden to everyone below deck. Heaven knew it had become one to me.

Alice eased me onto the makeshift mattress. The straw cracked beneath my weight.

“There now,” she whispered. “Please try and get some rest. You look dreadful.”

I curled onto my side and pressed the trembling hand to my stomach. If my suspicion was true, the child inside me had been conceived the night we departed from England. Nearly three months had passed, yet my sickness refused to loosen its grip. I thanked God there were no signs yet to betray my condition. They saw me as a woman who was undone by the harshness of the sea.

I prayed they never learned otherwise.

“I’ll be back to check in on you as soon as I can,” Alice soothed as she tucked the damp blanket around me.

“Thank you, Alice. I apologize for being a bother.”

“Tis’ no bother at all. Now rest.”

I closed my eyes, replaying my most delicate memories with John. I missed him fiercely, but was relieved he was not here. I remembered our walk to the creek where he returned with a pocket full of stones. I missed the way his tiny fingers would curl around my hair as I rocked him to sleep. How he always wanted his apple tart before he ate his supper. I caved on some occasions just to see him smile. I prayed wherever he was, he could run freely beneath an open sky. That he would not want for food or water. That he laid his head down on a clean pillow and slept peacefully through the night.

Maybe he would dream of me.

“Please don’t forget me, my sweet boy,” I whispered into the darkness.

A deafening crack echoed through the ship as another monstrous wave crashed against its side.

Before I could catch myself, the straw mattress slid from beneath me and my shoulder collided with a sea chest. Frightened voices erupted in the darkness.

“We are all going to die,” a lady shouted in agony.

“Shut it, wench,” a man replied in such a harsh tone, it made me flinch. This place had a way of bringing the worst out in everyone.

The crack that split the night was unlike anything I had ever heard. The timbers groaned and the whole ship went silent. We were nothing but terrified souls lingering in the darkness.

Then came the scream.

“The main beam!”

“She’s splitting in two.”

“God please save us.”

I waited for my terror to find me, but it never did. Maybe I was too exhausted to be afraid.

Lantern light glowed in the distance. It bounced around through the darkness until it finally made its way to me.

“Dorothy?”

William appeared with his hair drenched and a fear in his eyes I had never seen. His chest rose and fell with hurried breaths.

He was scared.

This was the last place I expected to find him. William was always where he believed he was most needed. Tonight, somehow, that place was with me.

“Yes, William. I am here.”

“Are you hurt?”

“No. I suppose I’m right for the most part.” I paused, taking in his wilted expression. “Is it bad?”

“The main beam has cracked.”

“Will we survive?”

“I don’t know.”

“What can we do?” I asked, although in my weakened state I was utterly useless.

“Nothing… we wait and pray that we’re still here when morning comes.”

The boat rocked viciously once more, throwing us into one another. After regaining our balance, William lowered the lantern down before easing onto the straw mattress. I sat beside him. I didn’t know what else to do.

For a long moment, neither of us spoke. We just sat there, listening to the cracks and the groans of the ship breaking around us, thinking each sound might be our last.

Without a word, he slipped his arm around my shoulder. I stiffened at first, stunned by this unfamiliar tenderness. William was not an affectionate man. His comfort came in preparing broken things around the house, putting an extra log on the fire when I was cold, taking John outside when I was feeling overwhelmed.

Yet, tonight, as the sea threatened to swallow us whole, he drew me closely against him. I rested my head on his shoulder. I wondered if he could feel how frail I’d become.

This sudden shift in him almost made me feel regretful for not telling him about the baby. For one panicked moment, I almost told him. The words climbed my throat and stopped, never escaping. If morning never came, I suppose my secret would sink with me beneath the sea.

I could no longer hold my eyes open. Exhaustion took hold, even amongst all the chaos. My body had fought for too long. At last, it surrendered. I quickly drifted under. If the sea decided to take me in my sleep, so be it.

***

I awoke to a steady silence.

I barely had time to breathe before another wave of nausea struck. I rolled onto my side just in time, but there was only the bitter burn of bile in my throat. The straw mattress beside me was empty.

William was gone.

Everyone was gone.

Had we all perished after all and I was left to live out eternity on this ship?

What a cruel afterlife indeed.

I stumbled to my feet. Every movement hurt as I braced myself on the beams. I struggled to breathe as I climbed the stairs.

One step.

Two steps.

Three.

Then sunlight warmed my face, and fresh air filled my lungs. And for the first time in months… stillness. The sea stretched out so calm we could have been floating on glass.

I had perished.

An indistinct cheering filled the air. I was not alone after all.

Men shouted praises to God. Women were weeping openly. The children were actually laughing, a sound I had not heard in nearly three months.

“Land!” a man shouted in the distance.

I understood now. We were not dead, we had found land. We had reached the end of the journey we had started so many days ago. But the journey had only just begun.

What do we do now?

Land meant solid ground. Nothing more. Maybe fresh water.

I saw William approaching me from the front of the ship. I attempted to walk to him, but I stumbled. He caught me just in time. His hands steadied my elbows.

“Dorothy, we’ve anchored!”

I looked out over the water.

Trees.

A shoreline.

Birds wheeling overhead.

“That’s wonderful news, dear,” I said between labored breaths.

“A small party is going ashore to survey the land,” William said.

“You’re leaving me?”

“I must. It’s my duty.” He paused. “Alice has agreed to look after you while I’m away. I shall not be long.”

William reached for my hand and gave it a gentle squeeze.

No kiss.

No embrace.

No gentle touch as the night before. Only the brief pressure of his hand against mine until duty carried him away.

I started at him, silently pleading with my eyes. Please, no.

“I’ll return soon enough.” Then with only a slight nod, he was gone.

William disappeared among the men climbing into the life boat. I watched helplessly as the boat shrank toward the shore and vanished from sight.

All my strength left my knees. I sank onto the deck as the rough planks scraped against my palms. The celebration carried on around me. No one noticed me on the ground.

Suddenly, it became hard to breathe. I drew in a long breath. Then another. Neither seemed to satisfy my aching lungs. My chest tightened as if invisible hands wrapped around my ribs.

I was suffocating.

I gulped desperately at the air. Pins and needles spread through my fingertips before reaching my lips. My hands curled into themselves.

Breathe.

I tried. I begged.

I wanted to scream as another wave of nausea threatened to hit.

Have you not taken enough from me? Will it ever end?

I had survived the sea only to arrive at another misery.

Slowly, I lifted my head. The water was impossibly calm. It stretched out forever. I longed to feel the peacefulness that the sea possessed at this moment.

I climbed to my feet.

One trembling hand wrapped around the railing. A soft wind blew a piece of my hair that had somehow escaped matting.

I closed my eyes.

John's small face came to me as clearly as if he was standing right next to me.

“Mama, can you read me a story,” he asked as he climbed into my lap.

“Yes, love. What would you like to hear?” I began to rock in the chair as his tiny hand twirled a strand of my hair between his fingers.

“Jonah? Where he’s swallowed by a big fish?”

“Aye, yes. I love that one.” I caressed the top of his head. “Long ago, there lived a man named Jonah who sailed upon the great sea.”

A tear slipped down my face. I climbed up onto the railing the best I could with my drawn up hands.

“I’m so sorry my sweet boy.”

I imagined John waiting for me with outstretched arms. Running to me after so many months apart.

He remembered me. I knew he would.

Behind me, I heard a scream.

“Dorothy!”

Alice. Her footsteps thundered across the deck.

“Dorothy, No! Stop!”

I looked once toward the shoreline. To the new world we were promised. To the hope everyone on this ship was searching for.

But there was no hope for me.

I stepped forward.