Just as quickly it’s hidden under her many layers, down deep in a space that’s not reachable. Like a diver breaking the surface, and then dropping down and gone. Nothing there but the rocking sea and the light caught by the water, and the flatness of an empty horizon.

I don’t remember. I just know it happened. It’s what I imagine it must be like to be born, to be warm and submerged, then suddenly, violently forced through the birth canal, and shocked and manhandled into breathing, into living this life. I have no memory of Benton helping me to the surface. I can’t recall reaching the stern of the boat or how I got up on it. I couldn’t have climbed the ladder.

My first real memory is someone holding a mask over my face, giving me oxygen, and how dry my mouth was. It felt as if my right thigh was in a vise that was clamped so tight it was crushing my femur. It was the worst pain I’ve ever experienced, at least that’s my impression of it now. The black carbon fiber spear had entered through the quadriceps, perforating the vastus medialis and in the process grazing the bone before protruding from the other side of my leg. When I saw it, I didn’t understand.

For a bizarre instant I thought I’d been involved in a construction accident and my thigh was impaled by rebar. Then I didn’t believe what I was seeing was reality until I touched the tip of the spear and pain reverberated along the shaft. I saw blood on my hands, and smears of blood on the fiberglass flooring of the boat. I kept feeling for my inner thigh, making sure the spear was nowhere near my femoral artery.

Dear God please don’t let me bleed to death. You’re going to bleed to death. No, if you were going to you already would have. I remember what was going through my mind. The thoughts were splinters piercing my awareness, disconnected bits and pieces, and then blackness, and then I would drift back. I’d have a vague awareness of lying on the floor of the boat. I remember blood and a lot of towels, and Benton leaning close to me.

“Benton? Benton? Where am I? What’s happened?”

He gently kept my leg still, and as he made me breathe he talked to me. He explained everything. He says he did but I can’t replay it, not a word of it now. It’s all so hazy. It’s so strangely out of reach.

“Does Desi have any idea what’s going on?” I ask Lucy, focusing on her, realizing she’s not sitting anymore.

“Are you okay?” She stands over me. “Where were you just then?”