Opal had looked at his tomatoes, complimented how large the crop was as a response. If she had responded directly to what he had said, then there would have been trouble. But the redirection, Antony knew from their years together, gave her a chance to think. And if Opal was willing to not make a snap judgment, she could be persuaded. Was being able to know exactly how to get her to say yes proof he had truly loved her once? Was this way of going about it proof he had never loved her in the right way?

*  *  *

The Joes chopped some of the socks into makeshift gloves, passed out sweatshirts and parkas. They tried to make a joke about how this, too, was an adventure, but everyone ignored them. It was simultaneously too rehearsed and also not really a joke. No one was in the mood to do some community-building, half-hearted chuckles.

One of the women from the church was encouraging everyone to wait. She had a bad feeling about this from the unexpected snow to the switch from dark to light. There was adventure, and there was recklessness. You didn’t go into the ocean in unsavory conditions unless you were trying to save a life. “We have to treat this like nature,” she said.

“What do you know about the ocean?” Joe asked.

“I used to surf,” she said.

“Oh, surfing,” the other Joe said. “Hang ten, bro. Great.” And that was somehow enough to make everyone ignore her advice.

It was so humid, everyone was uncomfortable. It was a day meant not for arguing outside in a field with little shade, but for lying underneath a powerful ceiling fan and slowly eating a bowl of ice cream. Everyone wanted to be in charge and didn’t want to do any of the necessary thinking and compromising that came with being in charge.

“I think we should go for it,” said one of the men. “Everything that gets written about in the history books is unexpected and difficult. Great men don’t do easy things.”

One of the other explorers couldn’t help himself and whispered, “That’s what she said.”

A few people laughed in a half-hearted way. Only the explorers treated the joke as if it were funny.

“Look, we already signed off,” Antony said. “I doubt we can say no now, but I do think you should be really careful. And it’s fine to wait until things are more normal.”