Page 73 of The Hitchhiker in Panama
Footsteps came up behind me and I turned to find Marcella gripping the shroud in one hand, tears streaming down her face.
“Jonas, I’m so—” She broke off in a sob.
Jonas climbed to his feet and walked over, wrapping Marcella in his arms and cooing gently to her.
“The line . . . there was a twist. I couldn’t . . . sorry . . .”
“Hey,” Jonas said. “It is okay. We are all safe, and the boat is okay.”
Eivind chuffed a laugh underneath my cheek. “I cannot believe the sail is back on deck. It is a miracle it did not catch on the keel or the propeller.”
“That could happen?” I asked. “The sail floats though . . .”
He shook his head. “You saw how it filled with water. If we had been going too fast it would have been sucked under the boat. That would have been bad. We could have lost our engine.”
Eivind’s words weren’t making me or Marcella feel much better. Jonas hushed him softly, rocking Marcella a little bit. “We are okay, the boat is okay,” he kept repeating.
When Marcella calmed down, we started to move, gathering the sail to put it into the bag for now. Jonas didn’t want to deal with it today and the sail needed to be checked over before we could deploy it again. It would be out of commission for the rest of the passage.
With the sail put away and nothing left for me to do to help, I climbed back downstairs and sank into bed, exhausted.
* * *
When I woke up again, Eivind was not in bed with me. In fact, his side of the bed hadn’t changed at all.
I dressed, wandered out, and found him in the cockpit.
“Hey, babe,” I said. “Did you come to bed?”
“No, I let Jonas go down and rest. He needed it.”
“That was nice of you.” I ran my fingers over his cheek. He leaned into my touch. “Can I get you anything? Coffee?”
He smiled up at me. “Coffee would be nice.”
I moved around downstairs, making us both coffee and dicing some fruit.
Back up in the cockpit, I snuggled against Eivind while we sipped our coffee and ate our fruit. Eivind liked pineapple the best, so I picked the chunks out and fed them to him.
“I like how you take care of your brother.”
Eivind looked at me skeptically. “What do you mean? He is the older, responsible one. He has helped my mum take care of me since I was a child.”
I shook my head. “Yeah, nah. You may be younger and more laid-back, but when Jonas is stressed, when he needs you, you’re there for him.” I fed him another chunk of pineapple. “You both strained and struggled with the sail today, but you let him relax more. You gave him time off.”
“We did both work hard, but with Jonas, he has this big added responsibility. It is heavy.” Eivind looked away from me, out at sea. “I do not think he thought it would be this hard.” He chuckled darkly. “I am sure everyone says that. But also, we might be living this dream lifestyle, you know. People think, ‘Oh, you sail and visit beautiful beaches—what stress can you have?’ But it is not that.”
Eivind trailed off, deep in thought. I finished my fruit and put the bowl beside me. We stayed quiet, the firm press of our bodies comforting each other.
“Sometimes,” he confessed, “I do not think Jonas likes this very much. Maybe he would quit if it was just himself.”
I pulled my head back a little to look up at Eivind. “You should talk to him about it.”
He blinked down at me and smiled. “Maybe I will.”
Thirty-Three
Eikchugged along peacefully, the only sign of our previous trouble being that we didn’t have the spinnaker out. Instead we had to sail what was called wing on wing, where the mainsail was on one side of the boat, the genoa on the other, and the wind came in from directly behind us. It was slower and less comfortable.
