“We’ll look again tomorrow, Anna.”

I was sitting under the awning the next day peeling breadfruit when T.J. walked up. I knew by the look on his face that he had bad news.

“You must have found Chicken. Is she dead?”

He nodded.

“Where?”

“Out in the woods.”

T.J. sat down, and I put my head in his lap, blinking back tears.

“She’d been dead at least a day,” T.J. said. “I buried her next to Mick.”

T.J. and I ate our food as soon as we killed it because we worried about food poisoning. Knowing that Chicken had been dead too long to eat saved us from making a meal out of our pet.

T.J. and I were, after all, extremely pragmatic.

I didn’t feel like getting out of bed a few days later, on the morning of Christmas Eve. Curled up on my side, I pretended to be asleep whenever T.J. checked on me. I cried some. He let me get away with it that day, but the next morning he insisted I get up.

“It’s Christmas, Anna,” he said, bending down beside the life raft until his head was level with mine. I looked into his eyes, alarmed by how lifeless they appeared. The color surrounding his pupils appeared a shade duller than I remembered.

Getting out of that bed was one of the hardest things I’d ever done. I only succeeded because I sensed it wouldn’t take much to bring T.J. down to my level and that was something I simply couldn’t handle.

He convinced me to go down to the water with him. “It’ll make you feel better.”

“Okay.”

I floated on my back, feeling weightless and insubstantial, as if my body was breaking down from the inside out, which it likely was. The dolphins joined us and brought a genuine smile to my face, if only for a minute.

We sat on the sand afterward, as we had so many times. T.J. sat behind me, and I leaned back against his chest. He wrapped me in his arms. I pictured my family back home, gathered around the big oak table in my mom and dad’s dining room, eating Christmas dinner. My mom would have spent the day cooking and my dad would have been right alongside her, getting in her way.

“I wonder if Santa Claus was good to Chloe and Joe,” I said. I missed watching my niece and nephew grow up.

“How old are they now?” T.J. asked.

“Joe’s eight. Chloe just turned six. I hope they still believe in Santa.” Unless someone spoiled it for them, they probably did.

“I promise you and I will spend Christmas together in Chicago next year, Anna.” He squeezed me, hard, and didn’t let go. “But you have to promise me that you won’t give up, okay?”

“I won’t,” I said. And now both of us were full of shit.

The calendar in my datebook ran out at the end of the month, and I’d have to find another way to keep track of the date in 2005.

Maybe I wouldn’t bother.

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Chapter 34 – T.J.

Anna and I walked hand in hand on the beach the day after Christmas. Neither of us had slept well the night before. She wasn’t very talkative, but I hoped she might cheer up now that the holidays were over.

I noticed something strange about the lagoon. The water had receded almost to the reef, leaving a huge area of dry seabed behind.

“Look at that, Anna. What’s going on?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve never seen that before.”

Stranded fish flopped back and forth. “This is weird.”

“Yeah. I don’t get it.” She shielded her eyes with her hand. “What’s that out there?”

“Where?” I squinted, trying to figure out what she was looking at. Something blue had formed in the distance but it confused me because the size was all wrong.

And whatever it was, it was roaring.

Anna screamed, and I understood. I grabbed her hand, and we ran.

My lungs burned. “Hurry Anna, come on, faster, faster!” I looked over my shoulder at the wall of water coming toward us and realized it wouldn’t matter how fast we ran. Our low-lying island didn’t stand a chance.

Seconds later, the wave arrived, ripping Anna’s hand from my grasp. It swallowed her, and me, and the island.

It swallowed everything.

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Chapter 35 – Anna

When the wave hit it pushed me forward and then pulled me under. I spun and somersaulted under the water for so long I thought my lungs would explode. Knowing I wouldn’t be able to hold my breath much longer, I kicked and clawed with everything I had toward the sunlight shimmering above me. My head broke the surface and I coughed and gasped, struggling to get enough air.

“T.J.,” I screamed his name but as soon as I opened my mouth, water poured down my throat. Tree trunks, large pieces of wood, bricks, and chunks of concrete floated in the water, and I didn’t understand where any of it came from.

I thought of sharks, and I panicked, flailing and hyperventilating. My heart beat so violently I thought it might burst through my chest. My windpipe constricted and it felt like trying to suck air through a straw. I heard T.J.’s voice in my head.

Slow down your breathing, Anna.

I inhaled slowly, dodging the debris. Fighting to keep my head above water, I floated on my back to conserve energy. I yelled T.J.’s name again, screaming for him until I lost my voice, my pained cries reduced to nothing more than a hoarse whisper. I strained to hear his voice calling for me, but there was only silence.

Another wave came then, not as powerful as the first, but it pulled me under, spinning and turning my body in circles. Again, I swam toward the sunlight. When I surfaced, gasping, I spotted a large, plastic bucket floating in the water. My fingers stretched toward the handle and I grabbed it, its buoyancy barely keeping me afloat.

The sea calmed down. I looked around, but there was nothing but blue.

Hours passed, and gradually my body temperature dropped. I shivered, tears pouring from my eyes, wondering when the sharks would come because I knew, eventually, they would. Maybe they were already circling below.

The bucket kept my head above water, but the effort required to constantly shift position, so it remained at an angle that wouldn’t cause it to submerge, exhausted me.

I would have given anything – paid any price – to be back on the island with T.J. I’d have lived there forever, as long as we could have been together.

I dozed, jerking awake when the water covered my face. The bucket slipped from my grasp and floated a few yards away. I tried to swim toward it, but my limbs no longer functioned. My head went under, and I fought my way back up.

I thought of T.J., and I smiled through my tears.

You like Pink Floyd?

I was trying to reach those little green coconuts you like.

You know what, Anna? You’re all right.

I cried, letting it all out. My head went under, and I thrashed about, using the last of my strength to come back up.

I’ll never leave you alone Anna. Not if I can help it.

I think you love me too, Anna.

I went under again and when I surfaced I knew it was for the last time, and the panic, the panic and fear were running neck and neck, and I screamed, but I was so tired it sounded like a whimper. And just when I thought, this is it, this is the end of my life, I heard the helicopter.

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