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As much as I had always been a fisherman before I took to slinging hash, Jennifer had been an artist. Several of her pencil and charcoal sketches were neatly framed and hung in the short hallway between her bedroom and living room. Their simple, black wooden frames with gray matting directed your attention perfectly to the drawings on the off-white paper.
One sketch of an old fishing boat caught my attention the minute I laid eyes on it. It looked like something that had been built in the late thirties. She had drawn the boat from a perspective off the port quarter. The stern and rails running up to the bow blending into the fog were crowded with anglers standing shoulder to shoulder. A couple of the anglers were holding bent or tangled rods. One was leaning between the rails dipping a gunny sac; another angler was pulling what looked like a small calico over the rail. The captain was watching out of his wheelhouse window.
A deckhand was standing on the bait tank, a torn net by his side; another was reaching out for the calico. The wooden planking along the hull was buckling and worn. Obviously, her days were numbered, but not today. Not for this group. They were fully engaged, and she stood proud. The water around the boat was flat calm. She was anchored up just outside a kelp line, which was barely visible in the foreground.
The sketch stirred something deep within me. For the first time since my dad had been lost at sea, standing there, looking at her drawing, I felt a yearning to be back on the water.
“Whatcha thinking?” she asked, sensing something.
“How long it’s been.”
“Since, what?” she said, putting her arms around me, “since we made love?” Her gentle kisses melted me, melted away the past … repressed fears and pain alike.
“When I was younger, I used to fish with my dad,” I began to explain. “A long time ago. Your picture made me remember how much I used to like being on the water.”
“I actually drew that from memory off an old photograph I saw at a place called The Crab Cooker in Newport Beach.”
“It’s an amazing drawing.”
“Thanks,” she uttered humbly. “Do you miss being out there?”
“Haven’t until now.”
For the first time since we’d been together, I felt her withdraw—ever so slightly, but we’d become so in tune with each other, I noticed it immediately.
“What?” I asked.
Exposing her fears, unashamed and with her eyes open and honest, she hesitated before confessing, “I don’t want to be without you. Not even for a moment.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, confused. “I love you. I’m not going anywhere.”
“But you just said you missed being on the water, missed fishing with your dad.”
I took her in my arms. “Oh honey, he’s dead, and there’s no way I’m doing anything without you.”
“I’m so sorry. What happened?”
“We got caught in a storm off Saint Matthew Island. The boat rolled over. Everyone got out except him. I haven’t been back out on the water since that night.”
“I’m so sorry,”she repeated.
“It was a long time ago.”
“But that’s horrible. Seeing your dad die. I can’t even imagine.”
“I was just a kid, and I really didn’t see him die. Everything was insane with the wind, the waves, everyone yelling. As soon as we rolled, the main died and a minute later, the generator quit so we lost all our lights. Everything went black. I was asleep in the wheelhouse, in my dad’s bunk. He was on watch. All I remember is him grabbing me out of the bunk, jamming my arms through a life jacket and pulling the straps so tight I could hardly breathe. I was completely disorientated because the boat was lying on her side. I was standing on one of the side windows looking down when suddenly it imploded. The wheelhouse instantly filled with freezing cold water. I remember my dad kicking open a door on the ceiling, which I later realized was the opposite side door of the wheelhouse, and pushing me up and out. Luckily, one of the deckhands was running up that side. He grabbed me, and in one motion, flung me over the side. I landed right next to the life raft that he’d been pulling up the side of the boat. Everyone else had made it into the raft. They pulled me in right as the boat turtled. The guy who had tossed me over the side kept diving down, again and again, trying to get to my dad, but we never saw my dad again.
Jennifer remained silent. Moments passed as the memories of that horrible, freezing cold night faded. “If we hadn’t been fishing with one of our code boats right next to us, we would have all died of hypothermia.”
Deeply in love, we were content spending our days flipping burgers and serving hash. Nights we’d go to a movie, build a fire, either in her river rock fireplace, or on the beach, or we’d just stay home, watching TV or reading. Sometimes we’d take a ride, and tonight we found ourselves driving along Harbor Boulevard, heading toward the tuna docks around G Street when the fog started to roll in. We drove under the Coronado Bay Bridge, past the Naval base along Cummings Road all the way down to Terminal Avenue. We were pretty much at the end of the road. We parked, got out and made our way over to the boardwalk. It was a seedy part of town, a place we’d never been before, so Jennifer was holding onto my arm a little tighter than usual as we headed into the abyss. Even Sierra was staying close, instead of her normal lead distance ahead of us. The thick eerie fog continued to roll in off the harbor. It was getting so thick we could barely make out the sparse weeds scratching a living out of the cracked concrete beneath our feet as we cautiously made our way along the ancient waterfront. Had we been walking in familiar surroundings, the thick silent mist engulfing us would have been romantic. But we were nowhere close to anything familiar.
Even though we were out of our element, it was still exciting exploring new territory, especially because we couldn’t see more than twenty feet in front of us. We made a game out of trying to figure out what the next shadow was lurking in the distance as we got closer and closer to it. All sounds around us were deadened. It was a little spooky as each new image emerged from the fog, taking on proportions larger than life. There was no one else around. The last people we’d passed were a half mile behind us.
We were right along the edge of the harbor, and a slight tidal surge was pushing along the crumbling seawall. Other than that, everything was virtually still. We were parallel with National Avenue, which was a few blocks inland but may as well have been a continent away. With the exception of the distant foghorn sounding off the lighthouse on Point Loma, you couldn’t hear a thing. The world by the water’s edge, past the naval shipyards heading towards National City, was deserted. All along that stretch were long piers designed for huge ships—nothing like the crowded docks around the marinas. Down here between the fingers were vast areas of open water.
“Let’s turn around and head home,” Jennifer said.
As she spoke, something caught my eye just ahead. “Mind if we check this out first?” I asked, pointing ahead.
“Okay,” she slowly agreed, “but after that, let’s go home. I’m getting scared.”
“We can turn around right now,” I said, stopping. “No problem.”
She hesitated, sensing something. She gazed into the dense fog ahead. “What are you thinking?” she asked.
I shrugged my shoulders. “Nothing. It’s no big deal. Let’s go home and make some popcorn.”
“Wait a minute,” she said. “I can tell something’s got your attention. What is it?”
“Nothing, really. I don’t know. Just a feeling. Curiosity is all,” I said, dismissing the feeling and starting to turn around. “I just wanted to see what was next.”
“Then