Chapter Thirteen

Day Six, Evening

Sam ate only four spoonfuls of soup. On a positive note, he finished off the sports drink. His temperature rose another degree, which worried Kate. Sitting on the floor with him had its drawbacks, and she decided to somehow get him to his berth if they weren't rescued by the following day.

What posed the biggest problem was getting the wetsuit off him so he could be as comfortable as possible. She waited for the pain pill to take effect and then cut the suit away. He had his swim trunks beneath it and they were dry so it would work. With limited clothes it would be much easier for him to take care of personal needs.

Earlier, Kate had fished out the handheld solar lights that were stored in a drawer beneath Sam's berth. She'd recharged them by placing them next to the window. Now the galley was lit up, and the ominous feeling Kate had carried didn't seem as threatening.

"Do you want to sleep out here or in your own bed?" she asked Ryan about an hour after the sun went down.

Ryan's lower lip trembled and her face paled. Kate immediately regretted asking.

"I want to stay out here with Daddy," she said timidly, which wasn't like her at all.

Kate's heart ached. "No worries. Your dad likes having you close by."

"I do," Sam said gruffly, making them aware he was awake. "You're my helper, and it makes me feel safe when you're near."

Ryan gave Sam a long hug.

"It's time to send up a flare," Kate told her daughter. "Do you want to fire it?"

"Yay!" Ryan jumped up and headed for the deck.

"Making her feel safe was short-lived," Sam said with a weary smile.

"She rebounds constantly, and I'm grateful for it."

"Are you doing okay?" he asked. "The floor can't be comfortable," he continued before Kate replied.

"I hate to admit it, but I feel safer with all of us together."

Sam reached his hand up, and she took his warm fingers.

"You and Ryan come first, no matter what happens," he said determinedly.

"We're a team," Kate told him. "The three of us, not just me and Ryan, so stop talking stupid or I'll take your pee bottle away."

His hand squeezed hers more tightly, almost to the point of pain.

"Keep Ryan alive," he said with determination.

He shouldn't be talking this way. They would all be safe.

"I need to get on deck before Ryan gets impatient and fires the flare without me," Kate told him.

Sam released her, and she hurried outside, unwilling to be part of his defeatist talk. Things were difficult enough, and she refused to consider that they wouldn't survive. She reminded herself that Sam had suffered a severe injury with extreme blood loss or he wouldn't be talking this way. Help was coming.

Ryan waited with crossed arms and a tapping foot when Kate joined her on deck. Her indignant pose made Kate smile and took away her irritation. Kate removed the flare gun box from the container.

"What if you give me a lesson on firing the flair gun this time?" Kate asked.

"Can I still fire one?" Ryan replied, her expression dubious.

"Absolutely. If you tell me how to do it correctly, it lets me know you can be safe with the gun and if for some reason I couldn't come out here, you could do it by yourself."

Ryan smiled, good with the new game Kate invented. Her small nose scrunched up in concentration while she removed the gun and a flair.

"You push the barrel away from the hammer like this," Ryan said and showed Kate how it was done. "That way you can load the flair like this." She bit her lip as she inserted the flair into the barrel. "You snap it back in place like this."

Ryan was super smart but even Kate was impressed with how much she retained.

"Then you hold it at an angle and fire. Do you want to try?" Ryan asked.

"Nope, that was an excellent lesson and you have safety protocols down. Go ahead and fire."

Ryan proudly fired the flare. It went up and dropped back down, the light only shining for about five seconds but it was bright and hopefully would be seen. They stood on the deck for a long time, watching and waiting, but they neither saw nor heard anything that sounded like another boat in the distance.

"Tomorrow, you and I are taking showers," Kate told Ryan when she finally accepted that the flare hadn't been seen.

"I was hoping you would say that," Ryan said with a devious smile. "You stink." She pinched her nose to bring home the point.

"You took the words right out of my mouth." Kate grabbed her daughter, pulling her close, and tickled her for a few seconds, delighted over the innocent giggles that seemed untouched by recent events. She hugged her tightly. "I love you," she whispered.

Ryan tipped her head back, and Kate kissed her cheeks, chin, and forehead.

"I love you too, Mommy."

A thump from under the boat ended their cheery mood. The shark couldn't have picked a worse time to alert them that it was still around.

"I want to go inside," Ryan said after looking downward where the noise and slight vibration originated.

The shark's insistence on terrifying them was even creepier in the dark. Kate stared out across the nearly black ocean, and a slight quiver ran across her flesh. The only sound was the water lapping against the yacht.

"I agree, let's go inside," Kate said as her fear ramped up.

They returned to the galley, and she gave Sam Tylenol for his temperature. He couldn't get comfortable and his flushed face made him look as bad as he felt. It took an hour before his temperature dropped steadily and he slept.

"Come on," she told Ryan after she heard Sam snoring lightly. "Let's get your teeth and hair brushed. We can read a story after that." Kate wanted to keep everything as normal as possible.

They each took a solar light and went to the stairwell of the lower deck. Kate used the rope to swing herself into the waiting wheelchair, suppressing a groan. When she was settled, she looked upward, where her daughter waited.

"Can I try it, Mom?" Ryan asked.

"Of course, let me back up." Kate rolled a few feet away and watched as Ryan swung down the rope and landed on her feet like a pro.

It had taken only a short time for Ryan to acclimate to Kate's disability. To her, Mom was Mom. Kate's proficiency at swimming in the exercise pool at the gym helped Ryan see her mother could still do many things. The loss of Kate's legs was simply part of Ryan's childhood.

"That was fun. Can I climb up the rope when it's time?"

"Absolutely." Kate realized getting Sam to his berth came with additional logistics problems she hadn't considered. It might be beyond what they were capable of. She decided to take it one step at a time. For now, getting herself up and down was proving more difficult than she expected.

When she brushed her daughter's hair, she noticed Ryan's shark tooth necklace. Sharks were not Kate's favorite animal right now. It was ridiculous that the tooth bothered her like it was some type of omen.

The faucet water trickled when they brushed their teeth. There was a lot to do on tomorrow's list and Kate felt exhausted just thinking about it. After they finished Ryan's nighttime ritual, she was ready for her story.

Ryan scrambled up the rope to the upper deck. For Kate, it wasn't as easy and it took twice as long to get to the top as it had taken her earlier. Ryan had to adjust the waiting chair for her and Kate was damp with sweat when she finally sat down. Once they had the inverter repaired or replaced and they took the yacht out again, Kate would use the rope once per day so she was more proficient.

They settled in beside Sam, and she read Ryan one of her personal favorites, Ramona Quimby, Age 8 by Beverly Cleary. Kate made it a quarter through the book when Ryan grew tired. Thankfully, the shark hadn't bumped the boat in the past hour, and Ryan was able to settle down and fall asleep.

Kate snuggled in beside her on the cushions and welcomed the steady hum of her daughter's breathing. Sam continued snoring, which was not a habit of his, but for now, it gave her comfort. Unfortunately, Kate and sleep weren't on the best of terms at the moment.

She lay awake and her thoughts went where they always did, her marriage. Kate's therapist insisted Kate was not responsible for her husband's infidelity. That didn't mean Kate always believed it, and now, she was rethinking quite a lot. She had returned to her job when Ryan was old enough to vocalize life in daycare. Kate found that her career didn't hold the same excitement it once had. She felt guilty for leaving Ryan in the hands of strangers and most of all, she missed her.

There had never been enough time during the evenings after work to accomplish everything. Sam helped when he could, but he often traveled for his job. Kate hated how tired she felt. She'd wondered how working women did it with multiple children. She had trouble with only her daughter, and Ryan was a great child.

On the intimate side, Kate was often too tired for sex. Sam took it in stride and she had never questioned it.

Why?

She understood when Ryan was a baby because they both got little sleep in the first year. But after that, Sam was as trapped in their lifestyle as Kate. They had only ever wanted one child. Maybe if they had talked about their feelings in the beginning, the chasm she hadn't noticed wouldn't have widened.

Their family became a team of three and Kate had allowed the new dynamic to take away from the intimate side of her marriage. This didn't dismiss Sam's fault for his actions, but for the first time, she didn't feel the fury she normally did when she thought of him cheating. He'd sworn it was only the one woman. Unsure of the why, she finally believed him. Maybe it was because the shark attack made Sam vulnerable. The usual guilt in his expression was gone now and that helped too.

Kate rolled to her other side, almost falling off the cushion to the floor when she did. She fluffed her pillow. Her body was weary, but her brain stayed on high alert. After her attempt at sleep failed, she hauled herself to the wheelchair and grabbed one of the solar lights. She wheeled outside and shined the light over the water.

The dark ocean still evoked a sense of mystery in her as she looked across the surface. Its vastness so immense, it created an otherworldly landscape of soft, comforting sounds. The ocean still held fascination with geological wonders it hid far beneath the surface, in a world where silence reigned and time stood still. A half-moon showed across the water for as far as she could see and she turned off the solar light. The yacht swayed to the rhythm of the tide. The shark was still out there. The heavy weight of menace pressing down on her proved it. She didn't go back inside, refusing to allow the cold-blooded demon to intimidate her.

The shark hit the yacht.

"You will not win," she promised.