✍️ Part 7: Adrift
The boat had gone quiet.
No engine. No voices.
Just the groan of old wood and the slap of waves like an endless, tired heartbeat.
Abby pressed her hand to Tom’s chest.
Still breathing.
But shallow.
“Grandpa,” she whispered. “Please wake up.”
He didn’t.
His eyes were half-open, rolled up toward nothing.
One side of his face was bruised, and the sleeve of his coat was soaked with blood from where he’d hit the wheel.
Abby sat beside him on the cold floor, rocking with the movement of the sea.
She’d never seen him like this.
Her strong, stubborn, sea-legged grandpa—who once caught a jellyfish with his bare hands to show her it wasn’t magic—now looked small.
Old.
Fragile.
She wiped her nose and reached for the emergency radio again.
She didn’t really know how to work it, but she tried.
“Hello?” she said into the mic, voice cracking. “This is… um… my name is Abby McCrae. My grandpa is hurt. We’re on a boat called Ellie Mae. We don’t have gas. We’re lost.”
Nothing.
She pressed the button harder.
“Please,” she said. “We need help.”
Still nothing.
The sea answered her in waves.
She sat there for a long time, whispering pieces of Ellie’s old logbook aloud.
Not to herself.
To the sea.
“There’s a place in the ocean that remembers who we are.
Where loss can’t follow.
Where fear falls quiet.”
She wasn’t sure what it meant. But she hoped the ocean was listening.
Somewhere far off, thunder cracked again.
The sky looked like bruises layered over bone.
And then—
A light.
Small. White. Flickering.
Far in the distance, off their starboard side.
Abby scrambled up, nearly slipping.
“Grandpa!” she shouted, shaking him. “Grandpa, I think someone’s coming!”
He groaned.
Didn’t open his eyes.
But his hand twitched.
She turned back toward the light.
It blinked once. Then again.
Regular. Steady.
A beacon. A pattern. Not lightning. Not chance.
A boat.
Abby grabbed the flare gun from where he’d left it by the bench.
She braced herself against the wind and raised it high.
It was heavier than she expected. Cold in her hands.
She didn’t know how to aim, not really.
But she pulled the trigger.
A second red flare soared into the sky, trailing sparks like a dying comet.
It burst.
And for a moment, the sea turned red and gold.
Like the sun had come back, just for a breath.
She waited. Heart pounding.
Hands shaking.
And then—
The light from the distance shifted direction.
It was coming toward them now.
Abby dropped to her knees beside Tom.
“They saw us,” she whispered. “They saw us.”
He didn’t respond.
But his breathing deepened.
And somewhere in the mist, a new sound cut through the wind:
Engines.
Big ones.
Steady.
And a voice, crackling through the radio speaker:
“Ellie Mae, this is Coast Guard Station Rockland. Hold your position. We’re coming aboard.”
Abby cried.
Not loudly. Not the sobs of panic.
Just soft, tired tears of relief and love.
She leaned over and kissed Tom’s forehead.
“See?” she said. “Grandma told you the sea listens.”
✍️ Part 8: Carried Home
The cutter loomed through the fog like something ancient and holy.
White hull. Flashing lights. A horn blast that shook the bones.
Abby stood at the bow of The Ellie Mae, waving both arms as high as she could. The flare gun was empty now, but it had done its job.
Two uniformed crew members from the Coast Guard cutter Seahawk climbed aboard within minutes.
They worked fast—trained hands, calm voices.
“Sir, can you hear me?” one of them asked, kneeling beside Tom.
He groaned. His lips were cracked. His eyelids fluttered.
“He’s got a head wound and possible hypothermia,” the other said. “Vitals are weak, but steady.”
Abby clutched the edge of the cabin, trembling.
One of the officers turned to her.
“You did good, kid,” he said gently. “Really good.”
They lifted Tom onto a stretcher, secured him with blankets, and radioed ahead to the mainland.
Abby held his hand the whole time.
He opened his eyes once as they secured the stretcher to the lift.
She leaned close.
“I’m here,” she whispered. “We’re going home.”
He blinked slowly.
Then squeezed her fingers, barely there—but it was enough.
They brought them both aboard the cutter. The warmth hit her like a wave—clean lights, the smell of coffee and diesel, the low thrum of safety.
She sat wrapped in a scratchy blanket, watching them tend to Tom.
His pulse was better now. His breathing more even.
But she knew he was still far from okay.
Physically, yes—but also in the way he stared at the ceiling, unblinking, like something had come undone in him.
They docked at Rockland just before dusk.
A waiting ambulance took Tom to Penobscot Memorial.
Abby rode in front, still holding the logbook like a talisman.
Inside, the halls were too bright. The smell of antiseptic hit her like a slap.
They wheeled Tom away, and for the first time in hours, she let herself sit down and breathe.
Just breathe.
Later that night, a nurse handed her a small envelope with her name written on it in shaky ink.
She opened it slowly.
Inside was a note. Just four words, written in Tom’s unmistakable hand:
“You saved me. —Grandpa”
Her throat closed.
She didn’t cry this time.
She just smiled.
Outside the hospital, the wind had calmed.
The storm was gone.
But the boat was gone too.
The Coast Guard had tried towing it in, but the swells had snapped the line.
The Ellie Mae had drifted, damaged and empty, toward the rocks north of Spruce Head.
They said it probably wouldn’t be recoverable.
Abby sat on a bench outside the ER and looked at the stars beginning to poke through the clouds.
The boat was gone.
The fish was gone.
The money was still owed.
But her grandfather was alive.
And something in the air that night felt clean—like something had been paid, not in cash, but in full.
