A Port in Any Story

“It comes in waves.” He said, pulling at the hem of his sweater like it alone had the power to keep the cold at bay. “Sometimes I feel like I could break down crying, but it won’t come out.”

He adjusted the pile of books to his right, making sure each corner was uniform with the next. Then he huffed and misaligned them.

“And it’s always there—hanging around my neck like a fifty-pound weight. Like a live wire I can’t stop brushing against. And every breath I take, it hits me with another shock.”

She wrote in her notebook and folded one leg over the other.

“Even worse,” he said, leaning forward. He was talking to his feet now. And he felt tears begin to well in the lower lids of his eyes, not yet swollen enough to depart. “I’ve been trained to enjoy it. I’m like a sick dog. And my mouth starts to drool every time I feel it start to come on.”

Then he ran out of words. He fidgeted with a hangnail as the therapist finished scrawling.

His beard was peppered with gray. It was unkempt, but in a way that made him look like a mariner. He was aware of such things, and at times, he even indulged in the fantasy.

On those nights, he would drink brandy on his couch and imagine himself as a deckhand, his muscles wrapped with leather skin and faded tattoos. He would be playing cards on a frozen dock, huddled by a fire to keep the bite from his hands. His scarf would smell of tobacco smoke and sea salt, and blood from a fight would congeal on his knuckles. The others would talk about his triumph, and he would win on the river.

Other nights, he would be dancing under a Spanish sun, kissing a woman he’d never met. The onlookers would be jealous, but she would taste like sangria, and her silk dress would slide between his fingers as they felt the curve of her hips. She would ask him to stay, and he would lie to her. Then they would laugh together, and her father would call him mi yerno. And he would visit her every time they made port.

But he’d never been more than waist-deep in the ocean. He’d never been in a fight, visited Spain, or kissed more than one woman. He was predictable, sensible—his wife called it his “most endearing quality.”

Often, she would drink her morning coffee and rub her nails across his back while equating him to a German Shepherd or an accountant. And when she got pregnant, she would tell him that the baby was the luckiest kid in the world because he always knew how to solve the problem. He always had an answer.

“Do you?” asked the therapist, peeking over the frame of her glasses to catch his eye.

“If I did, I wouldn’t be here,” he said, managing a breathy laugh. He caught himself grinning, and the feeling made him smile a little wider.

“But you feel like you should?” she asked, her tone softening.

“It’s a hard habit to break.” The wire went live and sent 10,000 volts into his chest. He tightened his jaw. The therapist resumed her note-taking.

When he left, he felt no different than before.

In his car, he checked his phone for missed calls. A notification bubble read Anniversary. Every letter was capitalized, and colorful pictures framed its border. He smiled again, thinking of his wife setting the reminder. She did that—turned his grayscale into something worth looking at.

He bought half a dozen roses as he passed through town. And while he waited at the checkout counter, he bought a book. It was a potboiler, something about a ship captain and lost treasure.

“How’s that for predictable?” he thought as he tucked it into a plastic bag.

It stayed in his lap while he drove, and he thought about it as he walked the concrete path. But he didn’t open it until he’d arrived. Then, he sat in the grass. To his right, the roses leaned against a tombstone. To his left, a smaller one; it was in the shape of a teddy bear.

He stayed until the book was finished. And the electric hum quieted, if only for a short while.