I threw the buoy. It was a perfect throw, landing just a few feet from his grasping hands.
Greg lunged for it. He hooked his arm through the ring, clutching it to his chest like a lover. “I got it! I got it!” he sobbed, relief washing over his face. “Pull me in! Pull me in, Dad!”
He waited for the jerk of the rope, the tension that would tether him back to safety, back to the boat, back to life.
But the jerk never came.
As the yacht continued forward, the rope unspooled from its casing… and then the end of it simply flopped onto the water, trailing uselessly behind the buoy. It wasn’t attached to the ship.
Greg stared at the severed end of the rope floating in the black water. He looked up at me, his eyes bulging.
“The rope!” he shrieked. “It’s cut!”
I leaned over the railing, looking down at him as he grew smaller in the distance.
“I know,” I called out. “I saw you yesterday afternoon, Greg. You were down here with a knife. You spent ten minutes sawing through that rope. You were worried, weren’t you? Worried that if I fell over, I might grab the buoy and save myself. You wanted to be sure.”
The realization hit him harder than the cold water. The trap he had built, the failsafe he had engineered to ensure my death, was now his coffin. He had sealed his own fate with his own paranoia.
“You were thorough, Greg,” I said, my voice carrying over the widening gap. “Too thorough.”
“DAD! PLEASE! STOP THE BOAT!”
His screams were becoming faint. The orange buoy bobbed in the moonlight, a tiny speck in the vast, indifferent ocean. He wasn’t going to drown immediately; the buoy would keep him afloat. But the water was cold, and the nearest land was fifty miles away. And the sharks… well, they were always hungry.
I didn’t run to the bridge. I didn’t hit the ‘Man Overboard’ alarm. Not yet.
I turned away from the railing. The adrenaline was fading, leaving a calm, cold clarity in its wake. I walked back into the salon, the cane tapping rhythmically on the deck. Tap. Tap. Tap.
I went to the bar and poured myself a generous measure of scotch. I held it up to the light, admiring the amber color.
I would call the Coast Guard. Of course I would. It was the proper procedure. But first, I needed to finish this drink. It was a good scotch, aged twenty-five years. It deserved to be savored.
I took a sip and looked out the window at the empty, moonlit sea.
“He looked at me and saw a senile old man,” I whispered to the empty room. “He forgot that before I was old, I was a killer whale. He wanted me to sink, so he cut every lifeline. Now, he has his buoy, and I have my peace.”
I sat down in the plush armchair.
“The sea is always fair,” I mused. “It doesn’t care who is old or young. It doesn’t care about debts or inheritances. It only cares about one thing: who knows how to swim.”
I took another sip. Ten minutes. I’d give him ten minutes. After all, I was an old man. It took me a while to react to things.
