Then Lily points with her nose off the bow where a shadow emerges from the darkness and fog.
LOOK! LOOK! LOOK!
The shadow becomes a shape and the shape becomes a ship and hope washes over me in a way I would have thought impossible just minutes before. Is it possible we are not alone out here after all? I sound Fishful Thinking’s horn to announce our presence. Foremost in my mind is avoiding a collision. I sound the horn again, and again every ten seconds until we’re answered by the quiet bellowing of the other ship, which is closer than the horn’s blast would suggest, most of her yell swallowed by the wind.
The other ship is a deep-sea yacht, and by the way it approaches, steadily and with purpose, it seems it still has the use of both its engines. I step out of the deckhouse and wave my arms furiously, signaling our inability to steer. The yacht approaches slowly, skillfully, eventually pulling up beside us before she cuts her engines.
After a beat, a man appears holding a coil of rope.
“Ahoy!” he yells.
“Ahoy there!” I reply. Water belches between us, wetting me with spray, but I don’t care—I’m just so overwhelmed and relieved that out of nowhere help has arrived.
The man tosses the rope and it lands with a thud at my feet. I grab the end and pull us together, tying the lariat to a large cleat on the deck with a poor man’s imitation of a sailor’s knot, keeping us as close to the yacht as the side trawl will allow.
“Some storm.” The man looks drier and more put together than I must, but he is weathered and scraggly, too. He’s bald, with a round head, his skin almost bluish from the cold. Judging by our distance from shore, he has been at sea awhile.
“She was a rager,” I say. And then, almost as an afterthought, “You think that was the worst of it?” I brace myself for the answer. If it’s not, I don’t know what will become of us.
The man smiles. A dog’s bark pierces the wind and I look back at Lily, but she shivers in silence. A golden retriever emerges from the yacht’s cabin, tail wagging. “Lost your engines, eh? Why don’t you come aboard. We’ll have what the whalers used to call a gam.”
I remember gams from reading Moby-Dick. When two ships would meet at sea, they would drop anchor and whaleboats would ferry the crews of each to the other ship to exchange gossip and news. I look toward Lily. She seems unnerved, and I wonder why. It’s not like her to be so still in the presence of another dog.
“Sounds good to me. May I bring my first mate?” I indicate Lily.
“Goldie here insists.” The man pats his dog on the head, and I lift Lily and hold her close so that she feels safe. I grab the last bottle of scotch from the deckhouse, thinking it rude to come aboard empty-handed. There’s only a swig or two left, but it will more than do.
The seas are instantly calmer aboard the sturdier boat. The yacht is named Owe Too, and is newer than Fishful Thinking. The cabin is warm and inviting, and while not overwhelmingly large, it seems absolutely palatial when compared to our deckhouse. The man pulls some towels out of a closet and tosses them to me. I undo Lily from her life preserver and gently rub her dry. She noses up to Goldie while I dry myself. Goldie sniffs her hindquarters in return and Lily relaxes in the dryness of Owe Too’s shelter. The overwhelming relief of seeing another person, and another dog, brings the feeling of tears to my eyes even though none appear. I’m too dehydrated and too shocked to actually cry.
“Goldie, why don’t you take your friend to your special place in the hull.” The man whistles and snaps and Goldie motions to Lily to follow, and they disappear through a small door together. “Wasted space under there, so I hollowed it out for Goldie. The enclosed nature gives her a safe place in the vast expanse of sea. I thought us captains could speak while I fix us something to eat.”
I raise what’s left of the scotch as an offering. The man smiles and pushes two glasses toward me.
He heats a stew for us, and chicken and rice for the dogs. Lily is going to be ecstatic. As he works I tell him our story. I tell him about the octopus’s arrival, the vet’s diagnosis, and all we’ve been through—the octopus’s sudden disappearance, chartering Fishful Thinking, the details of our hunt. He listens intently, interrupting only twice to ask me to clarify a point. When I finish we are both quiet for a moment.
“Do you think you’ll be able to kill this octopus?”
I answer truthfully. “I think I will enjoy it.”
My response hangs awkwardly in the air.
“You know, yacht derives from the Dutch word jacht. Translated literally it means the hunt.”
I nod as if this isn’t new information, but it is. Even after three weeks at sea, my knowledge of boating is limited. The man serves us two bowls of hot stew and it is, in this moment, the best thing I have ever tasted. Salted fish and tomatoes and parsnips and other root vegetables. He puts the chicken and rice in two bowls on the floor and whistles for the dogs, who come running.
CHICKEN! AND! RICE! LOOK! I! GOT! CHICKEN! AND! RICE!
For Lily, it’s Christmas morning. She is just as excited as I am. Her initial hesitance to come aboard has now fully abated. She wastes no time marveling to Goldie about how chicken and rice is her
