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character out of a pirate story. Rigging, sails, that was about the extent of my seafaring knowledge. I’d paddled a canoe or two in my time, but that didn’t exactly count. If it wasn’t in Master and Commander I didn’t know about it. We drifted north, hitting a strong current, and sailed by Queen Anne—with its dense atmosphere of smoke—and passed the Olympic Sculpture Park. A red spidery sculpture watched us from the hill top, abandoned and absurd in the rising fog.
    Arturo split his time between dashing down into the covered cockpit of the Ketch and barking orders in broken English at the teenage boy. I learned that his name was Noah and that he also knew next to nothing about sailing. He did his best, his dark, curly head bobbing up and down as he tried to follow Arturo’s directions, the old man’s chosen assistant. It wasn’t obvious whether the position was voluntary or not. I sidled up to the Portuguese sailor. He—or actually his bushy beard—smelled strongly of stale cigarettes and port wine. Shane hid behind me, peeking out around my arm to stare shyly up at Arturo.
    “Anything I can do to help?” I asked.
    “Don’t worry. Not so hard for us. Straight,” Arturo said in his heavily accented English. He made a hatchet blade out of his hand and chopped it in a vaguely northern direction. “Straightforward, very easy,” he said, and then again, “don’t worry. Very straightforward.”
    Glancing at the maze of inlets and islands ahead of us, navigation looked about as straightforward as a bag of snakes. Peering down into the cockpit, I was temporarily cheered by the sight of fishing rods, wine bottles, tampons (Andrea’s influence there, I hoped) and a stack of plastic-wrapped white bread. Arturo lit up a cigarette with a match.
    “You go sit,” he said. “Take care of boy.” He tried to smile, his square, pointed badger face breaking out into a series of wrinkly crags. “You feel sick, you do your business over the side. Into the water.”
    Well, gee thanks, Art, without your timeless wisdom I might have just barfed on my shoes instead.
    When I ducked back out from behind the cockpit, Andrea was already busy making conversation with the German man. His long legs were stretched out in front of him, his trouser legs hiking up to reveal woolly green socks bunched into his loafers. Nobody wanted to talk to the blood-covered nurse—for obvious reasons—who was still crying quietly in a lonely corner of the boat. She had a wild head of raspberry red hair, swept out of her face with a banana clip. For some reason, the sight of her reminded me of what we had lost—our apartment, our day to day, our offbeat little home … I felt my own tears coming on and fumbled for the deck railing.
    Now wasn’t the time to break down. The Citadel was becoming a vague pattern of grays and browns in the heavy cover of fog. It was disappearing behind us. The wind rushed in around us, ruffling coats, mussing hair, making Shane cuddle against me more fiercely. It should have been exhilarating, liberating, but the urge to cry persisted.
    Wait for night, I thought. Don’t cry in front of the kid. Wait until nobody’s looking.

 
    THREE
    Finding privacy on a sailboat is like finding a Starbucks in the desert. You might desperately want it to happen, you might wish upon a star, but you’re better off accepting that you’re going to die, and not with a soy latte in your hand either.
    The first afternoon on the sea I got sick. Tremendously sick. Green-faced, projectile vomit seasick. This was an excellent first impression. Somehow, the little boy with the picky appetite was just peachy, but I felt like I had swallowed a live eel. Not surprisingly, I wasn’t alone in suffering from this affliction. The German, Moritz Kellerman, was seasick too.
    I didn’t expect to step onto the boat and become the designated tribe leader. Arturo, rightly, was in charge. His boat? His rules. But I know a thing or two about