After supper in the galley of the Dernière Chance, Colette sat at the end of the long serving counter, watching her uncle gather the plates and silverware. LeBlanc and her brother were at the other end of the little room, looking at a chart, talking about currents. The steel walls and ceiling gave off a smell of hot enamel and diesel oil. Most of the men were asleep or getting ready to sleep, rigging hammocks in the engine room or cots on the stern. Colette pushed open the oval screen door onto the walkway, staring at the dim superstructure of the oil platform they were tied against. Her legs ached like sore teeth, and her hair felt like an oiled rag tied to her head. She pulled it into a ponytail and fastened it with a rubber band. Climbing down to the lower deck, she looked into the engine room at the insulated piping, the braided wires brocading the ceiling, the quiet main engines and yammering generator, the fuse boxes, buttons, rheostats, and valves bathed in a yellow, throbbing light. It was impossible for her not to imagine Paul in there, his hands tingling to touch everything, to draw power from the machine and take it home in his pockets. She realized that men who are good with anything generate their own energy along with a type of grace, which is the oil that helps love slide along. She put her arm into the warm electrical breath of the engine room and drew it slowly back, turning toward the dark night as she began to cry with a quiet anger.

At the first gray hint of light, she climbed out of the bunk and listened to the calm breathing of Paul’s father above her. Her head was clear at once, and she knew what to do, mounting the steps to the wheelhouse and pulling one giant long drone from the air horns. Her shoes clopped into the galley and she turned on the lights, put on a gallon of grits, fired up the grill, and began frying slabs of bacon and islands of eggs. The men came in one by one, and she gave each a steaming mug of coffee, until everyone was there—LeBlanc’s redneck and even the rescued—rattling knives and forks and banging plates. She was the heart of the rescue, powering everyone, getting everything started again.