Up ahead the spotlight picked up fins. Were they sharks or dolphins? A pair swept by the bow. Sharks. He was cold now. Was it fear or hunger? he asked himself. He wasn’t sure. He should’ve brought something to drink, he thought, as well as a sweater against the cold. He began to shiver, and he felt himself wobble once or twice in his seat. Looking around for the fins again, he dipped his hand in the water and wet his face. The salt burned his eyes. He shut them till the sting passed away and opened them to see the shark fins sailing off to his left. As he watched them disappear there was a sudden whooshing eruption and he whipped around to see a school of twenty dolphins, curling in and out of the waves. Arcing. Flapping. Splashing. Draining moonlight off their backs. Fire smiled. A half hour later, he’d cut the motor at the place where he would sprinkle Ian’s ashes.

The dolphins were grouped in a circle toward the bow with their heads above the water, chattering. They are spirits, Fire thought, coming forth to carry him home. Bracing himself against the thwart, he rose on his unsteady legs, holding the urn across his chest, and slipped. He ducked down to keep his balance and the boat tipped a bit, then settled. He rose again, much slower this time, gripping tightly with his toes, aware for the first time of the smell of blood and death that was soaked into the belly of the boat.

“Ian, my friend,” he began. “Only you really know what you went through, and why you made certain choices. And as you go now, my brother, I want you to know that you are loved, that you are blessed, that you are remembered. How did life happen so fast? We were boys only yesterday. Little boys with a jawfulla sweetie and pocketloadsa marbles and a headfulla Anansi stories. And boom! here we are now, men … without the young boy’s simple optimism or the elder’s crystal wisdom. As I was coming out here, Ian, I thought about the sea, y’know, and great writers who loved the sea. Like theirs, my work is filled with heroic figures, people who fight on for their boon, who understand the cosmic truth that life is struggle. Life is struggle. One trial after another, and that is why we need heroes, for they remind us of how much we can endure. You are gone now, Ian, and I must go on. I must do what you did not do. I must learn from the errors of your ways. It is so easy to give up … and to give in. I must endure. How is it that we grew up listening to Marley without understanding this? What did we think the man was saying when he said: ‘Everything’s gonna be all right.’ That he was wishing that fate would fix things? Naw, man … Bob was saying that things would be all right because Jah would give him the strength to make it all right. We have to ask for the strength sometimes, Ian, but the choice is ours—to fight or surrender. And I will not surrender. I have a whole life in fronta me. A whole life of struggle … struggle I will endure … because I have the blood of survivors in me. Today is a new day. We are born again.”