Reflections on the WaterIn situations like these it turns out that Maybaleen’s two secrets weapons (naps and masturbating) were useless in calming herself. Next step would be to reach up into her highest cabinet in her kitchen and pull down the whisky once Harrison was either with his grandpaw or put to bed. (If she’s honest with herself, there were a few nights where she sat at the pine dining table and watched Harrison eat Spaghetti O’s while she consumed enough drink that she couldn’t carry her son back to his bed, much to his displeasure.)
She exited her room as if she hasn’t missed a thing. Which she did, like the resurrection of their sick hombre whose steady rowing lulls her to sleep as humidity rolls over her like sweat on her skin. And the rising of the fog so that the sun can zap them all into nothing. Maybaleen settled into an area with shade and stared across the ocean.
That was about four hours, a half a bottle of water, and a protein bar ago. Her fingers are laced on her knees as she sits with her back against one of the domes. The afternoon sun slants down on her. She closes her eyes, thinking about summer days and kisses in the shade and when she got the tattoos between her fingers. Kim laughed so hard when she told him about her love for the Canadian show Continuum aired on Scifi and how she got tattoos to match the Freelancers.
She opens her eyes, expecting to see the crease of his cheeks and the gray starting in his hair that looks more like silver when the sun hits it. The sun glares off the ocean and she closes them again, cursing. Spots blind her for a moment, but she looks out again because amidst the glare, there was darkness that didn’t make sense.
“Hey.” She licks her lips. “Hey!” she shouts and scrambles, up, legs tingleing and pants tight with sweat on her legs. She rounds on the nearest person. “There, to the left, I think I saw…” Maybaleen jerks her head that way, looking out one more time before she says it: “I think I saw land.”