“You’re the captain of the Midnight Sun?” he says to me in Norwegian, looking me up and down. I get that a lot. Not that I don’t look like a fisherman, but that it’s not usual to have a twenty-five-year-old as the captain and owner of a fishing vessel.
“Yes, I lent the boat to my first mate, Epsen Larsen,” I tell him. “And Dag Nilsen is in charge of it for this round. They’re both very experienced, I don’t understand how this could happen.”
My voice is starting to crack, and I feel like whatever I’m being held together by is slowly unraveling. Even though Shay can’t understand what we’re talking about, she holds my hand tightly, giving it a strong, reassuring squeeze.
The search-and-rescue guy nods grimly. “I know. They started heading in when it got bad, but it was too late.”
I can’t breathe. “You know for sure the boat is gone?”
He shakes his head. “No. We don’t. But we can’t get a read off the boat. No signal.” He pauses. “We did pick up the signals from the survival suits, though. Six in total. That would be Dag, Epsen, and the deckhands, Erik, Tor, Hagen, and Vik.”
It’s happening all over again.
The survival suits.
They knew they were in trouble, they knew they were going down. The last radio transmission said they were bringing on water, so they put those suits on and activated the beacons, knowing they’d be sinking.
The signals often lead searchers to the dead.
My father went down the same way, except he was never found.
I stumble back on my feet, feeling dizzy, like there’s no air, and then Shay is holding me up, and the search-and-rescue guy has his hand on my shoulder, steadying me.
“Go and sit down,” he says to me. “I’ll let you know when we have news.”
I try to swallow, but it’s like I have chalk in my throat.
Shay leads me back to the Datsun, making me lie down in the backseat, the wind and rain battering the car. There’s so much darkness and fear in my heart, that it feels like I’m drowning too.
I lie there in agony, only Shay’s hand reminding me that I’m still alive, that she’s still here, and then darkness descends as the day turns to night. The only relief is that the storm abates, just a little.
But the vice around my heart, that clamps down even harder.
I must be drifting off to sleep at some point because I hear Shay’s sweet voice, sounding so far off. “Something is happening,” she says in a hush.
I open my eyes and slowly sit up and look out the rain-streaked window. The crowd has moved down onto the docks, lights moving around, and out on the water, I can see the spotlight of a rescue ship as it comes through the harbor.
Oh my god.
I throw the door open and start running across the parking lot, nearly stumbling as I go. I hear Shay yell after me, hear her footsteps splashing through the puddles, but I keep going. I go through the crowd of people, past the news cameras, past a few arms that try to hold me back.
It’s like my world goes into slow motion.
I see the boat pull in, people huddled on it, and my eyes are frantically searching for familiar faces. But I don’t see any, not really. It’s so dark and they’re huddled under blankets and I’m starting to fear that worst, that Epsen and Dag haven’t been found.
Then I start to recognize one of the faces as the boat comes to the dock. It’s a guy I’ve hired before as a deckhand. Yes. Erik Andersen. That’s him.
And then I start to see everyone else more clearly.
I see Dag.
And I see Epsen.
Both of them alive, wet, pale. Here.
I let out a choked cry and suddenly Shay is at my side, holding onto me.
“I see them, I see them, they’re alive,” she says.
Oh thank god. I’m not just seeing things.
I nearly collapse right to my knees.
They’re alive.
I can’t help but exhale loudly, a tear running down my cheek even though I’m smiling, and when Epsen and Dag see me, they manage to light up too, as much as they can. I was so certain I’d lost them, so certain that they went the same way my father did. The relief pouring through me is indescribable.
They’re alive.
They get off the ship slowly, the search-and-rescue team helping them, and it’s obvious that they were all pretty close to death out there. They can barely walk, huddled under blankets, moving like zombies.
They shuffle up the dock toward us, Dag giving me a solemn nod, looking weary and ashamed, barely glancing at me, while Epsen’s eyes are frantic and brimming with tears.
“We lost the ship, Anders,” Epsen says to me, shaking, his voice harrowed. “She’s gone. She’s at the bottom of the sea.”
I refuse to let those words sink in. “It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter,” I say to him, making a move to embrace him. “You’re here.”
But the search-and-rescue guy pulls Epsen along, just as two ambulances wheel into the parking lot, red lights flashing. “We have to take them to the nearest hospital,” the man says to us.
I nod, trying to hold it together, watching as they lead Epsen, Dag, and the rest of the crew up the docks, toward the ambulances. At least they’re going to be okay.
But am I going to be okay?
“I’m so sorry, Anders,” Shay whispers to me. “About the boat.”
“All that matters is that they’re alive,” I tell her. And while that’s the truth, it’s not the whole truth. That I bury deep inside, for now.
Time starts to pass in a daze. Because it’s so late, I don’t have the energy to drive to Trondheim, but the owner of a local guesthouse decides to put everyone, including the search-and-rescue crew, up for free, May still being the slow season out here.
They give me and Shay a small room with a view that’s probably beautiful when the sun
