Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee/ For those in peril on the sea…

There was only so far self-control could go, in the end; the hymn was the proverbial straw that broke her tenuous grip on composure. The woman who hurried out of the sanctuary was openly crying as she left her pew, and was past caring if anyone saw. She'd already lost what she valued a great deal more than her dignity. Her son, looking helpless, hesitated a moment before following, and he reached the outer hall just in time to see the door of the ladies' powder room swinging shut. At a loss, he waited, staring numbly at the memorial plaques on the wall.

Mrs. Kelly found him there, and put a motherly hand on his arm. He summoned a weak smile for the old woman, who had sat in the pew behind theirs for as long as he could remember. She always had a peppermint candy in her pocketbook for a good boy; she also had a reproving flick on the earlobe for one who fidgeted in his seat during Mass, and both he and his brother had received their fair share of each. Especially the latter, until it had become a game; up until the day he'd left for the Navy, his brother had been masterful at wriggling just enough to get her attention, then disarming her with a smile and a wink.

"How is she doing, Mark, dear?" she asked quietly.

Mark shook his head. "We heard from the Coast Guard," he told her. "They're calling off the search." It hurt to say it aloud. They had known. After hearing the reports of the storm, as the days dragged by with no news at all, they had all known that… that nothing would be found. That there was nothing left to be found. They had known. But so long as the Coast Guard was still searching, there had been a chance that what they all knew wasn't so, and now even that forlorn hope was gone. How was his mother doing? She was a wreck. She was a shadow of her usual self. She was devastated. How could he say any of that to the nice old lady from down the street?

Mrs. Kelly put a hand to her mouth in genuine grief, and a tear slid slowly down her cheek. "Oh, your poor mother. That poor boy. Please, dear—if there's anything I can do?"

He nodded. "Thank you, Mrs. Kelly," he said. Anything she could do. If only. There was nothing to be done, aside from the thousand things that no one could help them with. Arranging for a headstone, even if there was nothing to put beneath it. Sending someone all the way to Hawaii to pack up his personal effects. Legal paperwork, because it seemed that the government had a lot to say on the subject of missing persons, and it all needed to be filed in triplicate. Should there be a wake? Friends and family had been sending enough food to feed an army for a week (or his brother for a day,) and he didn't know if he could face one more casserole.

And maybe the old woman recognized that, because she enfolded him in a peppermint-scented embrace. He rested his head on her shoulder, free—for the moment—of the need to be strong for anyone, and just let himself be held. She made no further useless attempts at conversation, just stroked his hair, murmuring something comforting he didn't really hear.

Two weeks later, he stepped off the plane, blinking in the bright Hawaiian sun, and immediately peeled off his jacket. The tropical heat was intense; as if these miserable islands and this godforsaken ocean were conspiring to give him more reasons to hate them. Suppressing a snarl, he started towards the taxi stand, and from there to the address he had taken from one of his brother's periodic letters home. The sight of the house did little to improve his mood.

"His room is right this way," said the landlady, and he followed her down the hall, only half-listening to her no doubt sincerely meant condolences. The boarding house was Spartan in the extreme; as regarded the amenities, it was clear that neither effort nor expense had been attempted.

You didn't have to stay out here, he thought. The hallway smelled of cabbage. You could have come back home once your tour was up! You could have gotten a job somewhere, something safe, something that didn't involve rattletrap boats or deadly storms. Dammit, little brother—why didn't you just come home?

"Here it is," the landlady said, opening the door. "I called around, and I found you some boxes to pack his things. They're in the back; shall I get them for you?"

Of course. Dead men pay no rent, is that it? And once I've gotten his things packed and gone, you can find yourself a new tenant. Wouldn't want to delay that a moment longer than necessary.

"Thank you," he said stiffly. "That's very kind." He nodded a polite dismissal, and walked into the room.

Bed, dresser, table and chair, lamp… the stale air in the small room didn't smell as strongly of cabbage as the corridor had, but that was about all Mark could have said for it. The only window faced the sea. He opened it as far as it could go, letting in some badly-needed fresh air, and he looked out, putting off the moment he would have to begin his grim task for another moment or two. Mark didn't notice the 'stunning beauty of azure sky and sapphire water', to quote one of the more insipid brochures he'd seen at the airport, or feel 'the intoxication of salt-kissed breezes,' ibid; he looked at the ocean and saw an enemy. With a sigh, he turned away, jerked open the first dresser drawer, and began piling socks and underwear on the lumpy bed.

The sum total of a life, he thought several hours later, should take up more space. There had been clothing in the dresser. Hairbrush, toothbrush, razor and the like. A fishing pole and meticulously organized tackle box had been propped in one corner; a butterfly net in another. A bongo drum, which must have been a real delight for his neighbors. A radio. A camera. A small box with his Navy medal and dog tags; a large manila envelope full of letters from home. Some battered comic books, a couple of seashells on the windowsill, and assorted other bits and pieces of ephemera. Nothing very large, nothing particularly valuable; his brother had lived lightly on the world, and had left little to show that he had existed at all.

An album of butterflies caught his attention. Each one was carefully pressed and labeled—Monarch, Swallowtail, Sandhill Skipper and so forth. So far, so unremarkable. Each one, however, had also been given a name—Jim, Lou, Al, and the like. Later, in a different pen, he had apparently gone back and carefully added a 'Dr.' to each one. He stared at a page for a moment, trying to understand the point of that, when it hit him. The addition made them scientific names. He had written the butterflies' scientific names in his album. The absurdity, the completely logical absurdity of it all, was his brother in a nutshell, and he almost laughed, almost cried.

There was also a shoebox full of photographs. Most had descriptions written on the back in the appalling spelling that had been the despair of every teacher in the district. He riffled through them; they were in no particular order, and pictures of family Christmases, childhood friends, pets of various species, and a great many relations were intercut with snapshots from his Navy days, fish caught, any number of people he didn't recognize, and Hawaiian scenes. And, over and over, a stocky man with a wide smile.

One picture—the stocky man and his brother standing on a dock, one of them on either side of a mock ship's wheel with a sign advertising chartered tours, and both grinning like fools—bore the inscription Me & Skipper—the Minnow's maydin voyej!

"You," Mark whispered, glaring at the photo. "This is your fault. You bastard," he hissed. It wasn't fair, and it didn't even make much sense, and he didn't much care. "You and your damned boat." He threw the picture back in the shoebox, none too gently, and closed his eyes, fighting to regain control of himself.

His brother had been happy in that photograph, on that boat. Happy wasn't even the word for it—he had all but glowed. He was…. No, wrong tense. He had been happy here. In this dismal room, on that ramshackle boat… he had been happy. Mark swallowed hard, picked up the photo again, studied it.

You were never coming home at all, were you? Whether it was his boat, or some other one, or another hitch in the Navy… why? I just don't understand. What was out here that you wanted so damned badly? Didn't you care about us at all?

He looked back at the window, and its view of the ocean, and stood up. He had to get out of this room. He had to get away from his questions. And he had to get a closer look at the enemy that had seduced and taken his brother.

OoOoOoOoOoO

He found his way around the marina via the simple tactic of asking people who looked like they knew what they were doing. Efficient it was not, but it did work; eventually, someone was able to give him directions to the Minnow's slip. He would never have found it on his own. The mock ship's wheel from the photograph was still in place, but it was unrecognizable under the dozens of leis draped over and around it. Some were wilted, others fresh; a great many people, it seemed, had been paying their respects. He stood there and stared at it, no longer sure why he had wanted to come. What had he expected to see? A ghost ship sailing into port?

"Good men, the both of 'em."

Mark spun to face the voice; it was a man he didn't recognize. Broad-shouldered, with greying hair and a somewhat weatherbeaten look to him, smile lines more or less permanently sunburned into his face. He leaned past Mark to hang yet another lei over the sign. "It was one hell of a storm. It would have taken one that bad to get those two. Good men. Good sailors."

Mark nodded, and turned away, back to the ocean.

The man, unrattled by Mark's stony silence, went serenely on. "I'm Horowitz. Gave 'em a hand on the Minnow a time or two. You?"

"Mark," he said, after the silence had dragged on just a moment more than was comfortable. Obviously, the other man was not going to go away. "Mark Gilligan. My brother was on the crew."

"I wondered about that. You kind of look like the Kid."

"You knew my brother?"

"Half of Honolulu knew your brother," Horowitz said. "And Skipper, too. The other half just heard the stories. Come on," he said. "Let me buy you a drink. You look like you need it, and God knows I do."