Fifteen years later

I have had a severe headache since the moment we boarded the yacht. People were on the beach with family and friends while I was loading a hefty backpack on my shoulders.

I was greeted by Mr. Kevin Swamy, the captain and partial-owner. He had inherited it from his father and was a nice middle-aged man with a spotty beard. A peaking cartogram rested in his breast pocket. I couldn’t tell if it had any significance or if he wore it to fumigate his position on the yacht amongst us civilians.

"I couldn't believe when your mother called that you were coming. Hell, I couldn't even recognise her voice."

"I want to look at the bridge if it isn't too much trouble. It is the only place I remember in bits." I pitched in mid-conversation. I expected a whole-hearted apology but instead, he stared like I had my head up the pole. "Sorry. It's fine." I added to avoid the embarrassment.

"Of course, you can come to the bridge. I didn’t think you’d want to. We made our way to the unexplored arena of the ship. I walked with stumbly steps. The ship moved loopily on the water.

"Your father and I used to play cards for hours in my cabin. Do you want to see the cabin?"

"If it's going, yeah. Sure." I agreed enthusiastically. I was not surprised Kevin offered me a tour of his cabin. I remember being there once before. When my brother and I were practically toddlers. I only remembered vague glimpses but enough to recognise the path. It was better furnished now that it's been fifteen years since my last visit. The door, though, still has a similar ravelin pattern. Father loved ancient artwork.

"This is the bridge. Recognise some of it?" Old wooden seats had been replaced with vogue furniture. Other men ceased their operation as we entered.

"This is Param's kid. She is so big isn't she?" Kevin introduced me as if I were a famed celebrity. Yet, all of them cheered and nodded to each other. One of them, an old man pushing seventy, came up and hugged me like he was my grandfather. He reeked of cigarettes and oranges. He had a firm grasp for a man his age but it was all the way friendly and gentle.

"What are you talking about, captain? She looks just as I saw her ten years ago. Ten years? Has it been ten years or what?"

"It's been almost fifteen years, Dad."

"Is it? Glorious." I waved to several others who were knowingly staring as we passed by to a lone corner. Kevin was indulged in conversation with one of the other men. He had a stoic demeanor that gave nothing away. My father and Kevin were in college together and became best pals. My brother had said, there was a time in his childhood when he didn't remember being on land.

"I have spent my life on water. Before and after retirement. I can't step on land without feeling like an alien. It's the price you pay for passion." Kevin's dad, Mr. Swamy said. His senses were outspent but his willingness to explore the water had not run its course. He automatically inclined to the window beside him as the roaring waves made it parallel to where we sat across a shabby Kago holding fresh roses on a wooden table. It was held like a precious diamond inside a cubical glass. I failed to point out its place in my memory. It was beautiful, unforgettable indeed.

"What was the best part of working here? Other than your passion for ocean."

"It was watching my son fall in love."

"That's very sweet. Is this the basket his lover gave him?" Mr. Swamy raised his eyebrow.

"Either you are very smart or have more memory than you let out." He reached over the roses and tapped my head. I took in the warmth of his hand. The familiarity was uncanny.

Later on, Kevin asked me again for the tour of his cabin and I unwillingly agreed. I was tired and the idea of the captain's cabin was no longer exhilarating. I gallantly stayed on my feet but wished he would hold my hand so I wouldn't embarrass myself falling face-first. Somewhere along the way, he grabbed my elbow and soon we were in an average-sized cabin, less than luxurious, and mostly covered in bookshelves and dead flowers in paper bags. It looked like an old ship from Dickens' novels from where I stood inside Kevin's cabin. "Your father brought all these flowers from his different adventures around the world." He had peculiar choices in both books and flowers. This room has not changed since he last left.

Kevin was a fancy man with well-ironed clothes, a broach, cufflinks and dark hair gelled to precision.

It was in contradiction with the way his room had been kept for ages. I searched in my memory lane for the answers that may decipher the current circumstances he had shackled himself to. He was not poor but he lacked something. The only photo frame in the room was on the table with many pencil sketches and spilled paint. I shifted it around to see the photograph of my father and Kevin. Kevin was sitting on the same chair that sat opposite the table and my father had his hands wrapped around his neck. They looked happy and the cabin looked charming as well.

The next day, while going off the cruise, I handed him the ashes of my father. "Mother insisted you put them into the ocean you and father explored together." He was quiet for a long time. I stood close to comfort but couldn’t raise my hand for a gentle tap on his shoulder.

"When he left last time, your little hands were clinging onto his finger, said you wanted to live with Pari." He said at last. "It was a fish we saw in the sea. You wanted to feed it. That day, I saw something in his eyes that said he won't be back. I wished I was wrong. But eyes say what mouth can't and I guess he was only brave enough to leave me." I heard him and had no answer to it. He shifted on his legs and asked, "Did he talk about me? Ever?"

"I don’t think he did," I said and walked away.

I did not turn. Not once. I was too afraid to see the sorrow I had left him with. The love he had for my father was way more than that father had for him. My father left his true love to keep the pride of his family and married my mother.

Millions of others lost their loved ones that day, one of them was Kevin. He might have been the only one who had been grieving this loss for the past fifteen years.