Jamison

I USED TO LIKE SILENCE. THOUGH MAYBE like isn’t the correct word for it. Appreciate would probably be more appropriate. I appreciated the silence of my house before my mom came home from work each night. She didn’t appreciate it so much; she preferred to have music playing at all times. As soon as she got home, she’d connect her phone to the linked speakers in the house—the kitchen, living room, dining room, bathrooms, her bedroom, but not mine—and her favorite playlists would begin to pipe out. I could always tell how her day went from the music she played.

I wish I had streaming music now. Something to fill all the silence.

“Stop that.”

I look up from the gears and metal fasteners on the boat deck to see that Cara is scolding me without even looking my way.

“Stop what?”

“Everything you’re doing right now. Moping or whatever it is.”

“It’s not moping, it’s thinking.”

“About what?” She glances at me as she uncaps the OneDrop winch oil.

“Music.”

Cara recaps the winch oil and ducks into the cabin of the forty-two-foot sailboat. I hear a door open and a switch flip, and then the speakers built into the cockpit seats crackle briefly. She pulls herself back into the cockpit and points at the helm.

“See if Blanca is broadcasting,” she says.

I smile as gratitude fills my chest. Cara knows perfectly well that I wasn’t thinking only about music, but she already said she wasn’t getting in the middle of whatever’s going on between Andrew and me.

She doesn’t want to have to hear about our issues every time she’s with one of us. It’s bad enough that Andrew isn’t on the boat crew anymore and so she only gets to see him for a couple hours on the weekends and at the monthly socials.

I stand and turn on the radio. Static. Blanca broadcasts on the same channel every time, but the hours are iffy. There’s no set schedule, and even if she’s said there is, we don’t really understand it because Daria is the only one on the boat who speaks Spanish. She’s translated a few broadcasts while we listened, but so far it’s just been radio DJ stuff—making announcements for the Cuban settlement, music requests or dedications from people on the island, and once a guest who played guitar and sang live in the studio.

I flick through the AM stations that bookend the one she broadcasts from, hoping to hear her come through even just a little bit. But there’s only static on every station. She must not be on the air right now.

Like us, she’s probably working on something else at the moment. In the apocalypse, the job of radio DJ is appreciated, but not necessary. She most likely only gets to broadcast when she has downtime.

I lower the volume but leave the radio on so the crackle of static drones in the background. It’s better than the silence.

“It was worth a shot,” Cara says, and goes back to rebuilding the winch that’s been sticking.

We’re supposed to leave on Sunday morning—the day after my birthday—and we’ll be gone for seven whole weeks.

Seven weeks without seeing Andrew.

When he got kicked off the crew a couple of weeks ago it seemed like a nightmare. I told Admiral Hickey right away that I didn’t want to be on the boat if Andrew wasn’t there, too. That’s when Andrew freaked out. He spoke for me and told Hickey I was staying on the crew, even though I didn’t want to. That night we had a big blowup. He was pissed at me because I was so willing to give up on the boat mission; I was pissed at him for minimizing my fears of being separated from him. After that we got quiet, and the quiet—something I used to enjoy—has now grown into awkward stiltedness. So at first I was scared about being away from him, but the closer we get to the day, the more I think the separation might be a good thing for us.

I hope it might be a good thing for us. That the absence truly will make our hearts grow fonder—or at least make his grow fonder, because he’s the one who snapped at me. The one who didn’t talk to me for a whole day and has been staying late with the kids to avoid me.

“You’re doing it again,” Cara says, rubbing a gear with grease and placing it in its spot in the winch.

“I’m just tired,” I tell her. “Didn’t sleep well last night.” It’s not a lie. I haven’t been sleeping well any night for the last week and a half. I wake up in the middle of the night and can feel how far apart Andrew and I are.

He used to yell at me playfully—he made it clear that he thought it was adorable—because he says I sleep like a goldfish grows, expanding to take up whatever space is available to me. So each morning I would wake up half on my side of the bed, half on his, with him pressed up against me.

“I’m looking forward to the winter when your furnace body will be helpful instead of making me sweaty and gross,” he said.

I told him to just push me back to my side, but he refused, giving me a devilish grin. “I like your furnace body making me sweaty.”

But every time I’ve woken up these past few weeks, he’s been hugging his edge of the bed as if he’s trying not to touch me.

He says he isn’t mad at me and he was just upset in the moment that he was kicked off the boat and that I would give up on the trip north to bring back Amy’s mom. But the crew can do that without me. And I don’t understand why staying here with him would be such an issue. So I didn’t press any further, but it still doesn’t feel like we’ve gone back to normal.

Across from me, Cara lets out an annoyed breath through her nose. She opens her mouth to say something, but the radio crackles and finally Blanca’s voice comes through the speaker. My heart leaps and I stand, reaching over to turn up the volume.

I’m happy for the distraction, and Cara seems to welcome it, too, giving me a wan smile. But then the smile drops.

Blanca is speaking quickly, her voice fast and higher than it’s ever been. It’s not her usual, almost sensual radio DJ voice. It’s panicked—at least it sounds that way in between waves of static.

Maybe it’s excitement? For all we know she could be announcing a new guest who’s in the studio with her. I turn to Cara, who crouches near the speaker, listening intently.

“Do you know what she’s saying?”

Cara doesn’t speak Spanish, but she can understand some. A word here or there that she can pick up and piece together into some semblance of context clues that she’ll repeat to Daria. Then Daria will nod or clarify. But Daria isn’t here. She, Admiral Hickey, and Trevor are all at a Committee meeting going over the plan to head north on Sunday. To scavenge the coast and return with Henri, the woman who is the reason Andrew and I found the Key Colony in the first place.

“She’s talking too fast,” Cara says.

More static. Then Blanca comes back and yells something we can’t comprehend. In the background there’s more shouting followed by a high-pitched whistle. The static returns, cutting through her voice like waves crashing against a shoreline.

Movement from the dock catches my eye. Hickey, Daria, and Trevor are on their way back. I cup my hands to my mouth and call out to Daria.

“Something’s going on with Blanca! Quick!”

Daria, a Black woman in her late forties with her hair in locs, runs the rest of the length of the dock—Hickey and Trevor following behind her—then jumps onto the boat. I hold my hand out to help steady her and she grabs it, leaping into the cockpit. Her face clouds as she tries to listen. Hickey and Trevor come to a stop at the end of the dock, and we all listen to the static in silence.

Blanca’s voice breaks in with another shout, but the whole sentence doesn’t come through.

Daria shakes her head. Then another man speaks. He gets a few words out before the static returns.

“A hundred and ninety kilometers?” Daria says.

Cara and I share a look, trying to figure out what the 190 kilometers could mean. She seems just as puzzled as I am.

The man’s voice returns, speaking faster, sounding more desperate.

Daria gasps and covers her mouth.

“What is it?” Hickey asks behind her. Hickey is an old navy admiral from before the world ended—and one of the reasons Andrew isn’t on the boat anymore. Daria holds up her hand to quiet him. When there’s a longer stretch of static she speaks.

“The Cuban colony got hit by a storm. Hundred and ninety kilometers is the wind speed.”

Hickey does the calculations in his head. “That’s almost a hundred and twenty miles per hour.”

“Then it’s not just a storm,” Cara says. “It’s a hurricane.”

The static disappears and Blanca returns. Her voice comes through loud and clear for a few moments before static takes over again.

“The island is flooded,” Daria translates. “Pray for us, pray for yourselves.”

We listen to the static, but neither Blanca nor the other man comes back.