Three hundred and sixty-five—the number of days since I left the Army. After twenty years in, drifting awhile sounded good. Mom and Dad, however, have been rolling their eyes of late. One of the many reasons I’d run away from home this morning.
Coming up on forty, girl.
Yeah, I get it; a little late to the maturity game.
Life on the inside always made sense. I’d become a top operative for the smallest and most elite intelligence agency we have. Insiders simply call it The Activity, short for the Intelligence Support Activity, one of many names that floated by over the years of hiding us under one budget or another. Now, a year adrift—living mostly in my converted DC-3 airplane—confirmed my assessment that, while civilian life rated more directionless, it included far fewer hazards than scouting sites Special Operations Command forces wanted to attack.
I was all in favor of a measurably increased life expectancy.
But this time, I was literally drifting along. I’d liberated my folks’ Nonsuch 36 sailboat for a few days, cruising through the turquoise Bahamian waters (I did leave a note on the kitchen counter—I think). The wind had died, and we wallowed together. Forty was no longer off the bow; my birthday was coming fast abeam and would be boarding ship tomorrow. Taking no prisoners, it would force me to walk the plank into my fifth decade, whether I was ready or not.
The halyard slapped against the mast in a swell’s light roll, but that’s all that was happening; not a single knot of forward motion. Gads, but I hate it when reality slaps me with an accurate metaphor like a cold fish to the face.
I’d been ready to face Mom and Dad, but with my little sister threatening to take a day off from her gold-standard jet training and charter service to come tease me over a birthday dinner, I decided to go sailing instead.
Other than the lack of wind catching the sixty-two feet of my catboat’s towering mast and the imminent arrival of another irritating metaphor, I only had one other complaint—I hadn’t brought my music. It was on my phone and that (I know for certain) I left at home. Nothing easier to trace than a cell phone—as Taliban and al-Qaeda learned from us the hard way.
The only music aboard was what Dad called his Al tape. (Yes, he still uses cassettes. Not retro either; he never stopped using them.) Al Dimeola, Al Green (seriously, Dad?), Al Jarreau, Al… If I didn’t lose my mind or catch a breeze by the time I alphabetically arrived at Al Stewart, either the tape or I was going overboard. Better that than his John tape. While I was down with Fogerty, Johnny Lee Hooker, and Prine—Denver and McCartney both give me hives.
Ten hours into my six-hour sail… (The Al tape had drowned overboard around iteration five. Sorry, Dad. Hey, not into microplastics, so I only dunked it overboard for an hour or two before hauling it back aboard.) …I finally drifted up to the beach at Shannas Cove Resort. The turquoise waters and white sand beach were only the beginning of what drew me here. The resort perched among the palm trees being the best restaurant in the Out Islands didn’t hurt either.
