James Rodriguez

Wilson's courier would arrive empty-handed.

Whatever legal battles followed would be fought on ground of our choosing, not his.

The afternoon sun beat down on the dock as I completed the inventory.

He rippled off the Cessna as metal surfaces.

Normal physical reality.

No whispers, no apparitions.

Just a man with a clipboard documenting what remained after catastrophic failure.

Five loves lost.

Seeking something that should have remained undisturbed.

One survivor with research that might prevent future expeditions from making the same mistake and myself neither fully broken nor fully healed, but finally went to face what I had buried for three years.

Lara wouldn't appear again in the corners of my vision.

Not because the grief had vanished, but because I had finally accepted it as part of myself rather than something to outrun.

The island had taught that lesson with brutal efficiency.

I signed the final inventory page and handed it to the harbourmaster.

The Cessna would remain in Fiji until ownership disputes were resolved.

I had no need for it anymore.

My next journey required different transportation.

A commercial flight to Denver, then a rental car to the small mountain cemetery where a yellow Zondress had been folded into a child-sized casket.

Two years, four months and twenty-two days ago, it was time to visit my daughter properly without fear of what saying goodbye might unleash.

Esau Island had shunned the deadly cost of hiding from grief.