“I still don’t know what this is,” he said, after I handed it to him.

“It might be breadfruit.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a fruit that’s supposed to taste like bread.”

T.J. peeled it, and the fragrant smell reminded me of guava. We divided it in half and sucked on the fruit, the juice flooding our dry mouths. We chewed and swallowed the pieces. The rubbery texture probably meant the breadfruit needed to ripen longer, but we ate it anyway.

“This doesn’t taste like bread to me,” T.J. said.

“Maybe it would if it was cooked.”

After we finished it, I climbed back on T.J.’s shoulders and knocked down two more, which we consumed immediately. Then we walked back to the coconut tree, sat down, and waited again.

Late in the afternoon, with no warning, the sky opened up and a torrential rain poured down on us. We got out from under the tree, turned our faces to the sky, and opened our mouths, but the rain ended ten minutes later.

“It’s the rainy season,” I said. “It should rain every day, probably more than once.” We didn’t have anything to collect the water in, and the drops I managed to catch on my tongue only made me want more.

“Where are they?” T.J. asked when the sun went down. The desperation in his voice matched my own emotional state.

“I don’t know.” For reasons I couldn’t fathom, the plane hadn’t come. “They’ll find us tomorrow.”

We moved back to the beach and stretched out on the sand, resting our heads on our life jackets. The air cooled and the wind blowing off the water made me shiver. I wrapped my arms around myself and curled into a ball, listening to the rhythmic crashing of the waves hitting the reef.

We heard them before we figured out what they were. A flapping sound filled the air followed by the silhouettes of hundreds, maybe thousands, of bats. They blocked out the sliver of moonlight, and I wondered if they’d been hanging above us somewhere when we walked to the breadfruit tree.

T.J. sat up. “I’ve never seen so many bats.”

We watched them for a while and eventually they scattered, off to hunt elsewhere. A few minutes later, T.J. fell asleep. I stared up at the sky, knowing that no one was searching for us in the dark. Any rescue mission undertaken during the daylight hours wouldn’t resume until morning. I pictured T.J.’s distraught parents, waiting for the sun to rise. The possibility of my family getting a call brought tears to my eyes.

I thought about my sister, Sarah, and a conversation I’d had with her a couple months ago. We’d met for dinner at a Mexican restaurant and when the waiter brought our drinks I took a sip of my margarita and said, “I accepted that tutoring job I told you about. With the kid who had cancer.” I set my drink down, scooped some salsa onto a tortilla chip, and popped it in my mouth.

“The one where you have to go on vacation with them?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“You’ll be gone so long. What does John think about this?”

“John and I had the marriage talk again. But this time I told him I also wanted a baby.” I shrugged. “I figured, why not go for broke?”

“Oh, Anna,” Sarah said.

Until recently, I hadn’t really given much thought to having a baby. I was perfectly content being an aunt to Sarah’s kids – two-year-old Chloe and five-year-old Joe. But then everyone I knew started thrusting blanket-wrapped bundles at me to hold, and I realized I wanted one of my own. The intensity of my baby fever, and the subsequent ticking of my biological clock, surprised me. I always thought the desire to have a child was something that happened slowly, but one day it was just there.

“I can’t do this anymore, Sarah,” I continued. “How could he handle a baby when he can’t even commit to marriage?” I shook my head. “Other women make this look so easy. They meet someone, fall in love, and they get married. Maybe in a year or two they start a family. Simple, right? When John and I discuss our future, it’s about as romantic as a real estate transaction, with almost as much countering.” I grabbed my cocktail napkin and wiped my eyes.

“I’m sorry, Anna. Frankly, I don’t know how you’ve waited this long. Seven years seems like enough time for John to figure out what he wants.”

“Eight, Sarah. It’s been eight.” I picked up my drink and finished it in two big gulps.

“Oh. I missed a year in there somewhere.” Our waiter stopped by and asked if we wanted another round.

“You should probably just keep them coming,” Sarah told him. “So, how did the conversation end?”

“I told him I was leaving for the summer, that I needed to get away for a while to think about what I wanted.”

“What did he say?”

“The same thing he always says. That he loves me, but he’s just not ready. He’s always been honest, but I think for the first time he realized that maybe it’s not just his decision to make.”

“Did you talk to Mom about it?” Sarah asked.

“Yes. She told me to ask myself if my life was better with him or without him.”

Sarah and I were lucky. Our mother had perfected the art of giving simple, yet practical, advice. She stayed neutral, and she never judged. A parental anomaly, according to many of our girlfriends.

“Well, what’s your answer?”

“I’m not sure, Sarah. I love him, but I don’t think that’s going to be enough for me.” I needed time to think, to be sure, and Tom and Jane Callahan had given me the perfect opportunity to get some distance. Literal space to make my decision.

“He’ll see this as an ultimatum,” Sarah said.

“Of course he will.” I took another drink of my margarita.

“You’re handling it pretty well.”

“That’s because I haven’t actually broken up with him yet.”

“Maybe it is a good idea for you to be alone for a while, Anna. Sort things out and decide what you want for the rest of your life.”

“I don’t have to sit and wait for him, Sarah. I have plenty of time to find someone who wants the same things I do.”

“You do.” She finished her margarita and smiled at me. “And look at you, jetting off to exotic locations just because you can.” She sighed. “I wish I could go with you. The closest thing I’ve had to a vacation in the last year was when David and I took the kids to see the tropical fish at Shedd Aquarium.”

Sarah juggled marriage, parenting, and a full-time job. Flying solo to a tropical paradise probably sounded like nirvana to her.

We paid our bill and as we walked to the train I thought that maybe, just this once, my grass was a little greener. That if my situation had an upside, it was the freedom to spend the summer on a beautiful island if I felt like it.

So far, that plan hadn’t worked out very well.

My head ached, my stomach growled, and I’d never been so thirsty in my life. Shivering, my head resting on my life jacket, I tried not to think about how long it might take them to find us.

Chapter 4 – T.J.

Day 2

I woke up as soon as it got light. Anna was already awake, sitting on the sand beside me looking up at the sky. My stomach growled, and I didn’t have any spit.

I sat up. “Hey. How’s your head?”

“Still pretty sore,” she said.

Her face was kind of a mess, too. Purple bruises covered her swollen cheeks and there was crusty, dried blood near her hairline.

We walked to the breadfruit tree and Anna climbed on my shoulders and knocked down two. I felt weak, unsteady, and it was hard to hold her. She got off and while we were standing there, a breadfruit fell off a branch and landed at our feet. We looked at each other.

“That will make things easier,” she said.

We cleared away the rotten breadfruit under the tree so if we came back and found any on the ground, we’d know we could eat them. I picked up the one that fell and peeled it. The juice tasted sweeter and the fruit wasn’t so hard to chew.