After The End

Chapter One

April 2005

Day fourteen of the wait. They were sitting at the seaside, watching as the angry waves dashed across the rocky shoreline. Maureen was reading loudly from a romance novel. She slammed it shut after reading the last words—and they lived happily ever after.
She sighed. "Have you ever wondered what happens after the end?" She glanced at Colleen, who was lying on the sand beside her and enjoying the story.
Colleen understood Maureen's melancholy question; she hadn't wanted the story to end either. She sighed a deep, heartfelt sigh and then responded, "They have children, they fight now and again, they love each other through the rough patches, and they live. There is nothing exciting after the end. That's why the story has to end." She glanced at Maureen. "Or if they are fishermen's wives, like us, they get married, they wait and wait and wait..."
Maureen grinned. "And wait for their men to come home." She patted her belly. "If I weren't so far gone with this pregnancy, I would find a job…take my mind off the wait."
Colleen twisted on her side and rested her head on her elbow and looked at Maureen. They were the same age—twenty years old. They were both the daughters of fishermen. They had both married their high school sweethearts who were also fishermen, and they were best friends and business partners.
Maureen married Greg as soon as she finished high school; shortly after that, baby number one made his appearance. Colleen had married Isaiah after doing a one-year cooking course at the community center; her mother had insisted that she learn a skill. She couldn't believe that that was two years ago.
She sat up and adjusted the strap on her dress. It had gotten a bit loose on her in the past few days and kept falling to her arms. Isaiah and Greg had never been at sea so long and that had caused her much anxiety.
"I mean it," Maureen said, looking at Colleen. "We should both find ourselves jobs. Maybe..." her voice cracked, "the men won't be around to look after us. We have to think about that."
"Stop it!" Colleen hissed and got up.
"You know it," Maureen insisted. "The sea is a dreadful mistress."
Colleen stomped off but not before hissing, "You are speaking like one of the characters in your stupid romance book, dreadful mistress. You are too dramatic."
"But it's true," Maureen made several attempts to get up, her protruding belly making it hard for her to do so gracefully. She then changed her mind with a defeated sigh. "Sometimes fishermen never come back. Look at Dillon; he disappeared four years ago, and we have not heard a word about his whereabouts. Several of the women here have lost their husbands, as well. Isaiah's father was lost at sea, leaving Miss Monica with five other mouths to feed. Think, Colleen. We need to discuss this rationally. It has been fourteen days!"
"No!" Colleen shouted, heading down the shore, far from Maureen's sensible speech. She didn't want to think, she wanted Isaiah to come back now. They hadn't gotten the chance to have babies or live in their own place. They still lived with his mother because Isaiah couldn't afford to support two separate households. He had to help out at home.
Maureen finally hauled herself from the sand and waddled to where Colleen was standing.
She huffed, "I wish I had stayed in school like you did. I wish I hadn't started having children so early." She pointed a pudgy finger at Colleen. "You should get yourself a job. I heard that the Lopez’s are hiring all sorts of local people for their new guesthouse, Sea Breeze."
Colleen made a face. "I don't want to work with the Lopez’s."
"Why?" Maureen frowned.
"Because of Enrique Lopez." Colleen shuddered dramatically. "He used to tease me that year he attended our high school; he took an instant dislike to me but was so nice to everyone else. The teachers thought he walked on water and the girls...the stupid girls..."
Maureen groaned. "Seriously, Colleen. High school was three years ago. It's his parents you would be working for. Enrique is not here. Rich people always send their children to university to get degrees. I am no expert on relationships, but don't you recall that you were the one girl in the entire school who wasn't batting her eyelashes at the guy? I think he hated that. Come to think of it, maybe he liked you, but you were so fixated on Isaiah."
"No," Colleen said abruptly. "He didn't like me. I was too common for him, anyway. One day I was heading to the cafeteria and he stopped me. I didn't even know that he knew my name. He said, 'Colleen Perry, you are going to end up like all the other fisherwomen around here. In five years you'll be unattractive and undesirable, with a million kids running around you and hanging onto your skirt tail.'"
Maureen frowned. "Really? He said that?"
"Yup." Colleen nodded vigorously. "He hates women--well obviously not women, just fisherwomen, as he calls us local female folks."
Maureen sighed. "He's not half wrong. Most of the women in my family are unattractive, with a million and one kids running around. I vow to be different. I won't let myself go after this one."
Colleen snorted. "It's not just what he said, it's how he said it. He sounded so vicious about it, like he was looking forward to me being unattractive and undesirable. Read my lips, Maureen. I would prefer to starve than work for Enrique-snotty-Lopez and his parents. Got that?"
Maureen nodded. "Got it."

*****

Enrique was dreaming that he was back in Jamaica, in Whitehouse, the lazy fishing village by his parents' villa. He could hear the sea; he could feel the sun as it touched his skin and warmed his face. Powdery white sands beckoned him to run on them and feel their grainy texture as it massaged his bare feet.
"Wipe that smile off your face, Lopez, and concentrate! Final exams are tomorrow."
Enrique opened his eyes slowly as the beach slowly disappeared from his mind's eye, leaving him with a nostalgic feeling. He looked down at his laptop groggily. It had gone into screensaver mode. It was a picture of a girl sitting on a rock by the same beach in his dreams. He had recently put on the picture as his screensaver. He had scanned the photo along with some old pictures of his time in Jamaica, but this was the one that made it to his computer.
"Okay, he's awake and alert," Heidi said, peering at him from her long spiky lashes. "Ready to go for round two of situational questions?"
"Yes." Enrique ran his hand through his hair and tugged at his scalp. "I am awake. Not quite alert."
"What were you dreaming about?" Lizzy asked. She had a marker poised over a textbook. "You had a peaceful smile on your face."
Marco groaned, a jealous glint in his eye as he glanced at Enrique's classically handsome profile. "Seriously, Lizzy. There is only one reason a guy like Enrique would have that expression on his face. He was thinking of someone special. Maybe one of the girls who continually stalk him."
"No," Enrique said, gazing at his three study partners. They had commandeered a small part of the Harvard Business Library and had been studying for most of the day without any real break. " I was just dreaming of Jamaica…the sea and sand and the breeze."
Heidi looked at his laptop. "Not that girl, then?" she asked hopefully.
Enrique glanced at his screensaver. The picture hadn't even been his. It had fallen out of an album that Isaiah Reid had taken to school back in high school. While Isaiah had been showing the pictures to his friends that particular photo had fallen out of the album and had fluttered in the air, landing almost at his feet.
He had picked it up and glanced at it, clutching it for a while and looking at her face, her smile. By the time he was about to hand it back to Isaiah, the bell had rung, and Isaiah had left with his friends. It had been a convenient coincidence.
Enrique had never gotten around to giving the photo back to Isaiah. It was a nice shot of the beach, with a fishing boat to one side of the picture, the cloudless azure blue-sky and... Colleen.
She was looking directly at the camera and smiling. She looked so lighthearted and effortlessly pretty, with a white hibiscus in her thick curly hair. He could clearly see her plush curly eyelashes; they were long and thick, framing her black smoky eyes. Those eyes gave her an innocent yet sultry look. Her whole face was a study in contrasts, cute upturned nose, looking like it belonged to a girl next door and thick bow-shaped lips, with a come-hither smile, which looked like it belonged to a seductress.
She was in a white sleeveless dress. The camera froze movement just when the breeze lifted her hair away from her face. She looked happy and carefree. If he had been Isaiah, he would have missed this particular picture from his album. It was iconic. It was pure, untouched beauty.
But why would Isaiah miss the picture? After all, he had the real thing; he had Colleen in his life constantly. He saw her every day. They were probably married by now and already had a gazillion babies.
If he ever returned to Jamaica, he was sure that the girl in the picture would look very different from the reality of Colleen, the woman. He actually felt a bit regretful at the thought. Such beauty and promise wasted in the sleepy village where she lived. She had a face that could launch magazines and break men's hearts.
"Okay, he's zoned out again," Heidi said, still crouching beside him.
"Thinking of the girl," Marco laughed. "See that slack-jawed dreamy eye look? You are wasting your time, Heidi."
"I am ready to study," Enrique snapped out of his reverie and said determinedly. Whenever he thought about Colleen, he always had a vague feeling of unease—or was it regret?
He regretted that he had not made a play for her in high school. But where would they have been? He had a feeling that it wouldn't have worked out for them, even if by some chance Colleen had liked him as much as he had liked her, and they had started a relationship.
"There is no space for a girl…any girl…in my life." He looked at Heidi meaningfully. "There is this degree, then the MBA, then my family's hotel business and maybe a private venture or two."
He swiped his hand over his laptop's trackpad, effectively erasing Colleen's smiling face from the screen. He should remove the picture. One day he would get around to it.
"I am ready for round two," he declared. "Let’s go."
Heidi looked crestfallen, but then she recovered swiftly, taking up the book again and sitting across from him.

*****

"We are going to die," Greg said almost calmly, taking up a fish and holding it up, a look of panic in his eyes.
Isaiah understood how Greg felt. They had taken turns encouraging each other over the past few days, but he was just about to panic as well. He drew in a deep breath; they couldn't panic at the same time.
He looked out at the endless blue of the ocean and felt a jolt of revulsion overtaking him. He hated it, the endless miles of salt water. It was responsible for taking his father away from him when he was just fifteen. That was just a few years ago, and now it was about to take him. He felt the burning sting of tears at the back of his eyes.
He wouldn't see his loved ones again. He wouldn't see Colleen again. He wouldn't get to touch her, smell her hair, or feel her skin beneath his. This was it. He was barely twenty-one; he didn't have much to show for his life so far. Eventually, even his mother would forget him.
His family would find a way to survive like he had survived when his father died. Colleen would love another man, marry him, and have his babies.
He swallowed hard and tasted the itchy stiffness at the back of his throat that indicated that he was thirsty. The skies were cloudless and took away a little more hope. They had been drinking the melted ice that they carried to preserve the fish that they caught. That was almost finished; they needed fresh water, and soon.
What was supposed to be a three-day trip had turned into a comedy of errors. They had been drifting for eleven days since they made a major catch of tuna and salmon at Finger Bank. These were pricey fish, and that would have given him and Greg a financial boost.
First, the boat engine died, and then they realized that the water was too deep to use the anchor and the current too strong to use the oars. They were slowly drifting farther out to sea. There was no land in sight, and Isaiah had no idea where they were. They had lost their bearings a long time ago.
"We can't give up hope," he said half-heartedly to Greg, who had started picking at the raw fish that he had held up earlier.
At least they had food for now. When the fish started to spoil, they would have to dump it.
Greg grunted. "This was bound to happen some time or other. Remember how Dillon got lost at sea? We are next."
"Somebody will find us." Isaiah scratched his beard; he wished that he could shave. He fantasized what he would do when they were rescued. First, he would hug Colleen as soon as he stepped on shore. Then he would carry her, clamped to his side, and head home and shave and have a shower; maybe he'd bathe twice. He pictured his mother's three-bedroom bungalow house.
He had added on a bedroom, a bathroom and little kitchenette for him and Colleen to live in. It had a separate entrance from the main house. The addition had been necessary because his mother, Lou Reid, was not exactly happy that he and Colleen had married so young. She saw Colleen as another mouth to feed, another burden on the family's already stretched budget. She wanted him to take care of her and his siblings, without a wife demanding his attention.
He sighed. He couldn't picture life without Colleen. They had been friends from kindergarten. He had asked her to be his girlfriend when they were just tots. Colleen was his first everything...First kiss, first love, first touch and today, squinting at the midday sun, he felt deep down that she would be his last—or to put a hopeful spin on it, his first and only.
"If you survive and I don't," Greg moved higher on the boat, his lips were chapped and his voice quivery, as if what he was about to say was difficult, "tell Maureen that I love her."
Isaiah sighed, a tight pain squeezing his chest. "And if you survive and I don't, you do the same for Colleen. Tell her that I love her. Always have. Always will."
Greg nodded. "I won't even get to meet the new baby, and I hate that Junior will grow up without me; I have so many things to teach him. One of them is not to become a fisherman."
Isaiah laughed weakly.
"Seriously." Greg looked over into the glistening water and squinted. "I want him to work on land. This life is not for everyone."
Isaiah nodded. "True, but this kind of thing rarely happens, though…where people get lost at sea. There are so many old retired fishermen at home, who have never had an adventure."
"And so many who are not there." Greg grunted, "like your father and my uncle and Dillon…You hear that?"
Isaiah listened keenly; there was a buzzing sound, like a boat—not a small boat like their 20-footer. It sounded much larger and more powerful. It was coming toward them.
They waited and watched and then saw a dot on the horizon as the vessel came in sight.
"There is a God!" Greg exclaimed, jumping up in the boat and waving vigorously.
Isaiah joined his friend. He took off his shirt and waved with it. They shouted until they were hoarse and almost drunk with relief when the vessel drew near.