The Sky Beneath Her(4)

Confident she was minutes behind me, I rose and popped above the surface. I was surprised to see that the clouds had blackened, and the water was still churning. Waves smacked against the boat. I hoisted myself onto the dive platform.

When Mom didn’t surface, I readied myself to go back down. But a wave hit the boat and knocked me backward. I smacked against the deck. I struggled to my feet and scrambled to the boat’s radio. I called in a Mayday. More and more minutes passed. And Mom didn’t surface.

The waves kicked up higher, and it was hard to maintain my footing. When the coast guard helicopter arrived, the waves were washing over the side. A guardsman descended on a rope and ordered me to put on a harness. I tried to explain that Mom was still in the water. He insisted they would look for her. And I was pulled aboard the helicopter. From above, I stared at the rolling, angry waves. It was clear any search was too dangerous. Another guardsman promised me that they’d search once the storm had passed.

And hours later, they returned. But Mom was never found.

I returned to our rental house. We both traveled so light, there wasn’t much more than a suitcase full of clothes that belonged to her. I held her T-shirt to my nose, inhaling the familiar scent of coconut suntan lotion.

In her suitcase, I’d found a two-hundred-year-old coin fashioned into a corded necklace. My mother had always worn it. The coin was as fixed to all my memories of my mother as her smile and vivid blue eyes.

Attached to the necklace was a note written on a grocery receipt. For Tula. No tender words. No warnings. No hints of her impending disappearance. The brief message was so Mom. I’d slid the coin on my sea-glass necklace chain.

I’d lingered on the Outer Banks for months, hoping Mom would be found. When our lease expired, I moved in with a friend from high school. I’d begged the ocean to give her back. I pointed out that Mom was too stubborn, too tough, too full of fight to stay lost. I believed the ocean would eject her and she would swim ashore, just as she’d done a million times before.

But the ocean had kept her.

The community rallied around me—the girl whose mother was swallowed by the ocean. That close to the Atlantic, stories of lost loved ones weren’t uncommon. The deep sea had claimed fishermen daring rough waters, surfers who’d underestimated rip current warnings, or swimmers seduced by calm waters, only to venture out too far. Living on the barrier islands came with risk.

Still, our story caught headlines. Mother Lost at Sea. Teen Girl Rescued.

As days turned into weeks and Mom still didn’t return, the locals set up a trust fund for me. It wasn’t enough to make me rich, but it would bridge the distance between now and the next part of my life. At the end of the summer, I’d left the Outer Banks and returned to Norfolk.

When I married Dave, I thought I’d put my unsettled nomadic life behind me. But it always tugged at me. And then resentment festered for the too-stable guy and the cubicle that grew smaller and smaller every day.

“I’m not sure that has anything to do with my job performance,” I said, pulling myself from my memories.

“It doesn’t.”

“Then why bring it up?”

He ignored the question. “My great-uncle built a house in the Southern Shores area on the Outer Banks in the late 1940s. I spent many vacations down there.”

“It’s a beautiful place.” What else was I going to say?

“He passed about the time your mother died. I held on to the house, but I never use it anymore.”

“Okay.” If he was dropping a trail of breadcrumbs, I wasn’t following them.

“My great-uncle died in 2019, but I’ve kept and maintained the house as it was when he lived there.” He flipped through the pages in his file. “When I was in my great-uncle’s home office a few months ago, I found a partial manuscript. It’s about the Oceanus.”

I’d avoided all articles and online videos featuring the wreck. It might have been a curiosity for history or dive buffs, but for me it represented loss. “I see.”

“I want to give you the pages. I thought if there was anyone who might have an interest, it would be you.” I was ready to refuse the offer, when he raised his hand. “There’s no one else I know who cares as much about the vessel as you. And maybe reading about it will spark your interest in diving again.”

His suggestion annoyed me. “How do you know I don’t dive anymore?”

“News travels.”

“It doesn’t, because I don’t share it.”

He studied me as if coming to a decision. “I’ve heard you’re not much of a gossip.”

“I’m not. Again, why does this matter?”

My anger didn’t seem to faze him. “I have a job for you.”

“A job? I thought I had one.”

“Think of this as an extension of what you do now. I need someone who doesn’t gossip to close my great-uncle’s house. It’s remained untouched for seven years. There will be boxes of files to weed through and destroy, and all the contents need to be sold or donated.”

“Do you want anything from the house?”

“No. But you’re welcome to anything in the house.”

“Seems like there are more efficient ways to close up a property.”

“There are, but I would rather someone who has a connection to the firm and area tackle it.”