Garbage Day

A short story by Sarah Burt Howell

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The wind kept blowing the tops off the waves, leaving streaks of spray that made the strait look absurdly rough. But it was actually pleasant. The sun was shining, and Nan could finally breathe. 

She’d been watching the highest wave of the day approach for about ten minutes, and she’d been aiming for its low spot, a veritable gap that she planned to scoot the sailboat through.  

As they neared the rogue wave, it looked so horrifically tall that Nan kept an eye on Greg. He’d acted terrified by the waves when they left at dawn. Now he sat calmly facing this one, anticipating her next move as she sailed into the trough before it, waiting for the gap. 

He seemed to be pouring all his anxiety into scanning for floating hazards. He often warned her that if she hit a log or some debris that put a hole in the Galene’s thin planks, they would for sure sink and drown in this freezing water, because they’d ventured too far from civilization to radio for help. That’s why he didn’t bother with his life-jacket. She didn’t wear one because she knew that if she fell off the boat, he was incapable of sailing back to get her. Meanwhile, the flotsam that he’d found for her to avoid today included a commercial fishing net that was nearly the size of their 40’ boat, a monster truck tire, and a cooler that was maybe 12 feet long. Nan had seen no other signs of people for weeks, just garbage. 

Now Greg shrieked and pointed at what looked like a sea monster. A tree—longer than their sailboat—rolled in the foamy trough before them, stabbing the water with its terrible sharp stubs of branches.  

Nan had to swerve so much to avoid the tree that she was forced to sail up the tallest section of the rogue wave. She laughed, this was such a dumb thing to do. The wave grew as they sailed up its face, then she looked down from a great height, as though a hillside of water had risen beneath them. Ten-thousand rows of whitecaps marched down the strait towards her. She was certain that Greg looked as elated as she felt, right up until the boat started rolling back down the wave. 

To stop them from capsizing, Nan turned into the wave. She tried to punch the bow straight through it, but the wave was too thick, and the boat shuddered and stalled with its foredeck submerged. Nan couldn’t steer because the back of the boat stuck out of the wave and the rudder hung useless in the air. She could feel through her boots that the Galene had stopped sailing, and become just another broken thing floating in the windstorm.

Greg looked like his mind was blown because the front third of the boat was beneath the green-black water, which made it look like they were headed towards the bottom of Queen Charlotte’s Strait. Nan released the front sail, so the wind couldn’t keep using it to push the front of the boat into the wave.

The water poured from the foredeck into the cockpit, and a shocking cold filled her boots as Nan wrapped the mainsheet around a cockpit winch. She started grinding, and motioned for Greg to help. He braced his legs and they managed to turn the winch handle, which tensioned the rig. The backstay hummed like a violin string, but the sail didn’t come in one inch. 

Greg looked terrified by the shriek of the wind in the rigging that made it sound like the wooden mast might splinter and crash down onto them. Nan motioned for him to keep grinding, wishing she could explain that their mainsail was so immovable against these high winds that by pulling on its line, they were slowly pivoting the boat through the water, winching Galene’s bow from the wave. Greg kept turning the winch but he didn’t understand why. He looked like he might cry, and then the sunlight lit up the spray as their bow burst from the sea, and the wave that had tried to devour their boat split in half against the deckhouse. A splash like a dozen buckets of water fell on their heads. The tiller came alive in Nan’s hand again as the boat dug in, sailing away in a trough. 

They locked eyes and Greg looked capable of peeing himself with gratitude. He yelled something else that the wind blew away. This time she’d read his lips though, and had seen, “I love sailing with you!” 

She screamed into the wind, “I love you too!” 

Greg frowned and went back to looking for storm debris, so maybe he couldn’t read lips. 

Nan kicked at the water draining from the cockpit, then checked the GPS. For the first time in weeks, they were within sailing distance of a marina. Its proximity was the only reason she was heading into a windstorm as fast as their double-reefed boat could manage. She was determined to make harbor before the truly dangerous winds blew through. For the next few hours, she used all of her skill and energy to charge past the rocky islets and storm-bent trees, until finally, the red roofs of the Sullivan Bay Marina came into view. 

Once Nan rounded the sailboat up into the sheltered part of the bay, the raging wind calmed like it had all been a joke, like all the noise and waves had been a crazy misunderstanding.

The mast stood up again, the deck was flat for the first time all day.  

She scooted over and offered Greg the helm. 

He took the tiller. “Can you believe that wave? I thought we were dead.” 

She shoved her cold, cramped hands under her thighs. “It wasn’t so bad.”   

“You were incredible.”

Nan looked up at him, letting the sun warm her face. 

“I don’t ever want to sail without you again.” Greg looked excited as he gently pursed his lips and felt around in his pocket for something. After a while, Nan realized she was holding her breath, waiting for him to finish that last thought. 

“You were saying?” 

“One sec.” He checked the chart, then looked back at her. “What were we saying?”

She unpeeled a cold, wet sock from her foot. “You would have been fine without me today.”

Even to Nan, her voice sounded petulant.  

He waved away her orneriness as if it was modesty. “I could never have sailed through that storm without you.”

“I know. You would have stayed anchored, waited it out.”

“But we couldn’t stay at that last anchorage. It was too exposed. You said so.” 

Nan sighed. “If you had been alone, I’m sure you would have figured out how to use the dinghy to drop another anchor. Then you’d have tied lines to trees on shore. You’d have looked at your sailing books, and you’d have figured out how. You are too clever to drown at anchor. You would have waited out the windstorm with a book and a merlot.” 

“Are you serious? Why didn’t we do that?”

She wrung the saltwater from her socks. “The weather radio predicted gusts of 64 knots. The kind of wind that pulls the open hatches off a boat.” 

“We sailed into that storm all day because you didn’t want to close the hatches?”

“Pretty much.”

With the sun behind him, Nan had to squint to see Greg’s expression. It didn’t look like he was smiling anymore. 

“Are you fucking kidding me?”  

“It was a fun sail. You can thank me tonight, when the hatches are open.”

Greg stared back at her, keeping his face very still, blinking once or twice. Then he abruptly turned the sailboat into the wind, causing Nan to fall backwards, hitting her elbow on a winch. 

Greg ignored her while she got up from the cockpit floor and cradled her elbow. He kept the boat headed into the wind, letting the sails and lines flog in the breeze until Nan grabbed the sail-ties and lowered the sails. 

Greg was still looking away when they stood across the boom from each other, folding the mainsail. 

As he motored toward the marina, a small floatplane descended from the clouds and flew low over their mast. It bounced on the waves, skipping on its silver pontoons before settling down to taxi into the marina. 

On a nearby dock, an older couple in matching yellow windbreakers waved from an empty spot. So Greg landed the sailboat there, between two tall powerboats. The woman held up her arms and caught the bow line from Nan.  

Greg jumped to the dock and cleated the stern. 

The old man stood behind him. “You’re a remarkable sailor. We watched you with binoculars for hours, in that wind. We’ve never seen such gorgeous sailing. What a sight! You've got guts and skills, my man.”

“Thanks,” said Greg. 

Nan knelt on the foredeck and raised the large, square deck hatch. Then she quickly stepped away, trying not to gag from the smell. 

When she hopped down to thank the woman who caught their lines, she realized the couple was not especially old—maybe the same age her parents would have been. From a distance, their sun-weathered faces had made them looked like grandparents. 

“We’re next door.” The woman cheerfully pointed to a three-story powerboat. “Marc and Babe Wilson.” 

Nan said hello, but then excused herself to run down the dock to the marina restroom. She was tempted to wander further, after peeing, but she knew Greg would want to explore with her. This place was so marvelously remote that no roads connected it to the rest of the world. Everything—the long docks of boats and floatplanes, the floating buildings, even the convenience store and restaurant—was moored by cables to the dark green wilderness of British Columbia. 

When she returned, Babe was showing Greg photos on her phone. From where they stood on the dock, Nan could smell the faint stench of their sailboat again. 

Babe flashed her phone at Nan. “Our sons with a 90-pound halibut.” In the photo, two blond men with Babe’s wide smile were hoisting a flat fish into a marina dock cart. 

Greg was looking over their shoulders at the marina’s floating buildings. “I’m going to register with the dock master now.”

“Wait,” said Nan. “Let me grab my wallet.”

“No.” He was looking at his sailboat now. “If you want to leave the hatches open, you need to keep an eye on the boat. You stay here.” 

Nan wrinkled her nose. “Have you smelled this boat lately? You think someone’s going in there to rob us?”

He moved to the balls of his feet and made fists like he might hit her. Greg had explained how that was an unconscious habit he got from growing up with older brothers. She wondered if he knew the meaning of the word unconscious as he said, “You want to be safe or sorry?”

Nan considered this. Then Babe said, “Let him go for his walk. You can keep an eye on your boat from the top of ours.” When Babe smiled, her blue eyes were framed by the most impressively tanned crow's feet. Nan smiled back gratefully.

As Greg strode down the dock, Nan followed Babe up the steps of the big white powerboat. Somewhere inside, a TV played. When they emerged onto the flybridge, with its view of the boats and red roofs, Nan felt about as high as she’d been on the rogue wave.   

The breeze carried hints of kelp and salt. Nan was glad she couldn’t smell the Galene. She sniffed her sleeve, wondering if her clothes smelled like garbage. Maybe her hair smelled by now, and she couldn’t tell anymore. 

Babe handed Nan a beer, and they sat behind a plexiglass windscreen. 

Babe watched Nan sneak another sniff at her sleeve. “Having a grand adventure?” 

“Absolutely.” Nan took an ironic swig of beer that went down wrong, and she coughed. 

She was thinking about the first night of their trip, when Greg was waiting for her in the v-berth, and she was brushing her teeth in the bathroom, when she decided to quickly trim a painful hangnail. Anxiety makes her do weird things. She’d grabbed Greg’s doc kit from the bathroom cupboard. It was bulging with supplies for their adventure, and the nail clippers were hard to find. Digging around, she stumbled across an impressive stash of emergency cash. Then, tucked like loose change, between the Benadryl and Dramamine, she found a diamond ring.

She held it up to the LED light. Maybe he didn’t know she shared his doc kit. And yes, this was the very same ring that she’d picked out with him at the jewelry store. 

But why no box? In his pursuit of a waste-free life, he’d probably asked the store to keep it. She wanted to tell him the box was headed to the landfill whether he gave it to her or not. He hadn’t uncreated the box by not bringing it home. She would go back to the jewelry store and ask for it. Nan teared up, thinking she must be very tired if she was crying about a dumb blue box.

She focused on the white-gold band, the impressive square diamond. She’d argued against a big stone, seeing it on her finger now, she imagined how proud she would feel to spend the rest of her life casually making it visible to people. 

That day in the jewelry store, she’d had this same powerful feeling. But she’d told Greg she wanted a ring she could wear sailing. He and the saleswoman both laughed. The saleswoman explained that this square-cut ring was special. She said Nan would always place the ring in its box when she went sailing. Nan wanted that box. She would ask Greg for it when he proposed. 

Nan reluctantly replaced the ring in his zippered shaving kit, tucking it between the antihistamines. She found the clippers, trimmed her nail, and joined Greg in bed. 

Sex that first night was fantastic, in an eye-contact, simultaneous-orgasm, deep-connection kind of way. When Greg went to the bathroom afterwards, Nan posed on her side, prepared to act surprised when he returned with the ring. But he came back and spooned with her. She watched him fall asleep. It helped to think that he was saving the ring for a more special time and place.

The next day, the wilderness of trees and water reached its pinnacle of magnificence. A crisp breeze took them through a small island chain while she reclined in his arms. As he steered with his foot, an orca breached off their windward bow. Greg said it was the most beautiful afternoon of his life. She waited to hear more. The whale breached again, and Greg sighed. 

He also didn’t propose on their third night, when the fir trees moaned in a midnight squall and they sipped merlot under their covers, whispering how much they treasured each other. 

He also didn’t propose the next dawn, when they held hands and moved slowly together in bed while the loons cried out in the fog. 

On the fifth day, she felt peaceful and confident because he’d said they were approaching an unnamed island that he wanted to show her. He remembered this odd rock from a previous sailing trip, and said this was the most special spot on their journey because his last time up this way, it was as far as he dared sail by himself. When he’d been forced by a storm to turn around at this rock, he’d promised himself he’d find the ideal woman to sail with, and he’d return with her to share all the adventures of his life. He had actually said that to her, and then kissed her. 

Once they’d arrived at this strange rock, he kissed her again. His eyes shone. She waited for more. He said, “Let the adventure begin!” Then he sailed northward.

She wondered what he was waiting for. It all seemed so adequately gorgeous and meaningful to her.   

She would have bet money on Greg proposing the seventh day of their trip, the day they bartered for salmon. After a spectacular day of sailing, they dropped anchor in Otter Cove. She was hanging a shower bag on the sunny side of the mast when she saw a purse seiner working some nets at the mouth of the cove. It was the first boat she’d seen all week. She went below and suggested salmon for dinner. Greg seemed briefly excited about trading with the purse seiners, but then said he felt too lazy to deal with a fish tonight. So Nan promised to clean and cook it herself. 

They rowed downwind of the red fishing boat. Greg held a six-pack of beer over his head until the fishermen let out a dinghy on a line. When the dinghy reached them, it banged against their gunwales as Nan grabbed a plastic bag filled with ice and a newspaper-wrapped parcel. Greg put the six-pack on a seat, and the fishermen pulled in their dinghy. Nan waved and shouted thanks as Greg rowed away. After the fishermen waved thanks and turned their backs again, the wilderness seemed without bounds. 

Greg spotted a gravel beach on the way back, so he rowed in and tied the boat to a tree, saying he wanted to explore. Nan tucked the plastic bag under a seat, hoping it might stay in the shade. She followed him up a hill until he could see his sailboat at anchor in a coves of trees and say, “I’m king of the world.” They had sex on the warm flat rocks. Afterwards, he pulled on his pants and said, “I’ll race you back.”  

She ran after him back to the dinghy, through giant ferns and wildflowers. As she rowed them back to the Galene, they saw hundreds of white jellyfish undulating in the water, like a sunken field of lilies. 

Back in the sailboat, Greg dropped the fish and its bag of ice in the galley sink. He said, “I think this is officially my all-time favorite anchorage.” He opened their best merlot and sat down with his tattered Dostoevsky paperback, still grinning.  

She climbed up to the deck with a towel and her ditty bag. The water she’d hung at the mast was hot now. The fishing boat was gone, replaced by a black cormorant standing on a rock. She showered, and wanted to shave her legs too, but discovered her razor was rusty.

Naked and wet, she climbed back down the hatch into the cabin, drying her hair with a towel.

Greg looked up from his book. “You’re so beautiful.” 

Nan tossed her razor into the trash under the kitchen sink. 

He made a clucking sound.

“What?” 

“We all make choices.” He arched his eyebrows in a way that wasn’t appreciative anymore, and she felt naked in a different way.

“You don’t like my razor?"

“Let’s just say it was designed for the landfill.”

She felt a chill, and removed the towel from her hair to wrap around her chest. “Everything you own will be in a landfill too, someday.” 

“A splendid argument for owning nothing.” He blinked like she was stupid. She was sorry for saying anything. She’d preferred the way he was looking at her before. She ducked into the forward cabin, put on shorts and a sweater, then went to the galley-kitchen. 

Nan unwrapped the fish. Its iridescent tail draped over the edge of the countertop, into the sink. It smelled like the sea. She’d never cleaned a fish this big, but guessed it would be like an oversized trout. She’d heard that salmon are big trout, like koi are goldfish that escaped into a pond. 

Nan removed the fins with a filet knife. After the fins and tail went in the garbage, the fish fit better on the countertop. She had to think what to do next. She sliced open its abdomen and separated the first heavy fillet, then flipped the fish to remove the second fillet. She slipped the head, guts, and bones into the garbage while wondering if Greg had taken the ring to the island that afternoon—then she rinsed off the counter before trimming the fillets. 

It would be easy enough to find out. She put down the knife and went to the bathroom, where she quietly unzipped his shaving kit and found the ring still tucked between the antihistamines. Sitting on the toilet, she slipped it on her finger again. She stayed to admire it as long as she dared, then returned it to his shaving kit exactly as she’d found it.

At dinner, they agreed the salmon tasted surprisingly fishy, considering its freshness. Greg wondered out loud if it had been worth filling the cabin with that nasty aroma.

They woke at the same time the next morning, rolling into each other and groaning at a salty, fishy, putrid smell, like the sea itself had limped into their boat and died. Greg hopped from bed and strode to the galley in his boxers like he was stopping a home invasion. He looked at the garbage under the sink, and then turned away in utter disgust.  

Greg then marched around the inside of the boat, opening all the windows and hatches, shaking his head. “How can anybody be so fucking stupid? You threw fish guts in the trash?” 

Nan scrambled into her clothes and carried the bag of vile-smelling garbage outside, to the deck. She opened it to peek in, and warm, putrid air escaped onto her face. The fish guts had detached from the backbone and congealed around the blades of her rusty pink razor. Some of the guts had been absorbed by tampons and a cracker box, because she’d also failed to separate the recycling and garbage once or twice. 

She reached in and grabbed the slippery fish head, then tossed it overboard for the seagulls. She carefully picked out bones and scraped off the guts from the rest of the trash. She double-bagged the rest and returned it under the sink. 

Greg was making coffee. She told him she’d be more careful, and he raised an eyebrow like he’d believe her when he saw it.

Even triple-bagged, their garbage continued to smell like dead fish. That evening, as Greg stir-fried broccoli, he said he didn’t want to inhale the disgusting odor he cooked. “Let’s keep the garbage bags way up in the v-berth.” 

“That’s our bed.” She looked at their messy sheets in the forward cabin. “Can’t we put it outside?”

“The gulls would make a terrible mess.”

“I meant the cockpit lazarettes? Those compartments under the seats?”

“Bears will swim out, climb onto a boat and rip the cockpit apart, looking for garbage they smell from shore.” He shook his head. 

“Bears don't swim to anchored sailboats. How would one even climb aboard?”

“Bears are surprisingly strong.” 

“You are so full of shit.” 

“The boat has six other beds.” He squinted patiently. “You can pick yours first.”

Nan didn’t tell Babe about any of that. She peeled her beer label and talked about meeting Greg three years ago at a Zero Waste fundraiser. He was the photographer behind a deceptively gorgeous show called “One Less Valley.” His massive, vivid photos snaked around the art gallery like boxcars, documenting the journey of a candy wrapper from garbage can to landfill, via the infamous mile-long train of garbage that travels from Seattle to eastern Oregon each day with one hundred and ten train cars of compacted waste. But the trains weren’t creating a mountain of garbage. They were filling a valley with trash. 

Nan told Babe that she had never specifically thought about where her garbage went, but those photos comforted her with the idea that every object that had passed through her family’s hands was lying in this Oregon valley, organized chronologically, with fine layers of dirt separating each day. Flushed with gratitude, she wrote a generous check for the fundraiser and was introduced to Greg, the photographer. They spent the rest of their evening discovering all the ways they were made for each other. 

“Your photographs,” she said, hoping she didn't sound drunk, “they remind me of an opera.”

“Which one?” His eyes were sparkling.

“Carmen,” she said, thinking of the colors.

“Exactly,” he said. “Think of the suffering.”

It turned out he lived on a sailboat, and she was a sailing instructor. Neither owned a car. Both owned fewer than five hundred possessions. What should it matter if he'd made these choices out of respect for the environment, while she was afraid that owning a thing meant losing it, eventually?

Nan told him she'd been using the same roll of aluminum foil for over a dozen years. 

“That's unbelievable! Me too!”

He searched her eyes as they laughed and compared notes on methods of washing tin foil. 

Greg took her hands in his. “I know we’ve been drinking, but seriously. I’ve waited years to meet a woman who shares this level of commitment.” 

The amber flakes sparkled in his eyes, and she neglected to tell him about the casserole that her mother had covered with tinfoil and left on the counter when Nan and her sister were teenagers. They remembered it was the last thing their mom had touched before she got into the car, because their father had been holding the front door open, calling, “Hurry, we’ll miss the overture.” Their mother had paused to press the tin foil around the edges of the dish before walking out the door in her high heels and black coat, disappearing into the inexplicable unfairness of an early death. Nan's older sister had claimed the Pyrex, and Nan had taken the roll of aluminum foil to hoard. 

Still, when they left for this trip and Greg told her about the garbage situation, Nan thought she understood. He explained that there were no garbage facilities north of the Strait of Georgia. Most boaters improvised. Metal and glass went overboard. Plastic was burned for a fee at an incinerator at the north end of Vancouver Island.   

“That's terrible.” She’d frowned. “I don’t want to be the kind of person who throws our garbage overboard.”

“I know, right? I want to pack it out, like camping. But I wasn’t sure you'd be okay with that.”

“Absolutely.”

Their eyes met and he flashed his most luminous smile, the one with so much light that she had trouble believing it was meant for her.

And that’s how they'd agreed to keep all their garbage on board until they returned to civilization.

Now, at the apex of their journey, Nan took a deep, clean breath from her perch on the powerboat. She grimaced at the thought of spending the rest of their trip breathing garbage fumes on the Galene. 

Then one of Babe’s sons popped up the stairs of the white boat. She recognized him from the photo. He was as tan as Babe, but without wrinkles. “Hey, Babes! Dad wants lunch.”

Babe laughed like he'd told a dirty joke. “Ask your father to make tuna sandwiches. One for Nan too. We're keeping an eye on that beautiful sailboat.”

Her son craned his neck to look at the Galene. “Someone's gonna steal your solar panels?”

Nan knew she was blushing. She said she’d be right back, then ran down to the Galene. 

When she returned, Babe’s son was gone from the bridge but Babe was waiting expectantly. 

Nan fished the engagement ring from her pocket and handed it to Babe. “I probably shouldn’t be showing you this. But it was the only thing on board worth stealing. Greg hides it in a ridiculously obvious place. The first place any thief would look. Now I don't have to watch the Galene. We can go make sandwiches.”

“Lemme see.” Babe squinted at the ring.

“He hasn't proposed.”

Nan peered over Babe’s shoulder, at the ring. “My parents died in a car accident when I was a teenager. But it still occurs to me every day to ask my mom what she thinks. Like, about a hundred times an hour.”

“What do you love most about him?”

Nan groaned. “I feel like I need him. It’s overwhelming.”

“Honey, you’ve got everything you need inside you. That’s what your mother would say.”

Nan took the ring and held it up to the sunlight. “See how it reflects? The first time I saw this sparkle I was thinking how happy this ring would make me. But it’s been the opposite. It’s been sitting in that shaving kit, judging me, making me feel like I’m not good enough.”

Babe tsked. She put on her reading glasses and more carefully examined the stone. "You've been trying this on?”

“You can tell?” 

“You got lotion in the setting. Does he notice details?”

Nan laughed, that was such an understatement. 

“Let's clean this off so he doesn't notice what you’ve been up to.”

In a downstairs bathroom, Babe spat on the ring before she attacked it with Q-tips and toothpaste. They ate tuna sandwiches on the bridge deck. Eventually, they heard the twin engines of the dinghy. Exhaust wafted up. 

Babe yelled down at her sons. “Happy fishing! Catch a big one.”

“Thanks, Ma!”

“And don’t forget to take out the garbage!”

“We got it!”

“They take out your garbage?” asked Nan.

“Every day,” said Babe.

“Can they take ours, too? Please?”

Babe gestured for her boys to kill their engines. “Hold up. Nan’s got something for you.”

Nan ran back to the Galene again, feeling dumb for believing Greg when he said there was no garbage facility at this marina. She carried a pile of trash bags from their v-berth to the fishing boat. The men took all the bags, laughing good-naturedly at the stink and declining her offer to pay. She waved goodbye as the Whaler roared away into the choppy bay.

Nan thanked Babe, then returned to the Galene. With the garbage gone, and the hatches open, the air had started to clear. She could almost breathe normally again. She was washing a dish at the sink when Greg returned. 

The forward cabin door was ajar, so he saw the empty bed as he noticed the fresh air. He spun on his heels. “What did you do with the garbage, Nan?”

“Babe's sons took it. On their way fishing. Your cruising guide was wrong. There are garbage facilities here.” 

“That guide is not wrong!” Greg ran his hands through his hair. 

She pointed towards the whitecaps at the mouth of the bay. “They went that way. I think there’s a transfer station around the point.”  

“A transfer station? You’re saying there’s a facility that collects garbage, then barges it back to civilization?”

“I assume so.” 

“The trouble with people like you, Nan, is that you work so hard to assume whatever’s convenient.” 

“People like me?” she squeezed the water out of the dish sponge. 

“At least Babe knows her sons will cut holes in the bags, pour in gravel, and toss them overboard.” Greg slipped into his sing-song voice. “There’s no garbage facility. All these big white boats? You think they have cabins full of garbage? Grow up! They've been dumping trash into these waters for decades!” 

“I didn’t know.” 

“My shaving kit was in there. You stupid woman.”

“In the garbage?” She dropped the sponge into the sink. “Why?”

“I came back and you weren’t watching the boat. The hatches were open. Before I went out again, I hid my valuables in a clean trash bag, because who the fuck is gonna steal the garbage? We had agreed to take it back!”

“I’m so sorry.” 

“It’s fine.” His tone wasn’t fine. “Good riddance.”  

Nan held the engagement ring tightly in her fist. She tried to fight off an old, hopeless, feeling that she and her sister had nicknamed “The Sheriff.” It’s the feeling you get when you’re a teenager and your parents are late coming home from the opera, and a sheriff knocks on the door instead. It’s a guy in a brown suit with a hat and a gun, come to wreck your adolescent heart. Whenever “The Sheriff” comes to visit, she gets a pain in her chest like she’s seventeen again, and her family has just been vaporized. The Sheriff was here now, in Greg’s eyes.

Nan opened her palm and held out his diamond ring to him now, while she savored the sweet relief of letting go of a thing before it became hers to lose. “Here.” 

Greg’s ears turned pink. He snatched the ring back. Then he grabbed his Russian novel and launched himself onto the settee with his legs stretched out, reading his Dostoevsky, an author who had always reminded Nan of the hot breath of unpleasant men delivering bad news too close to one’s face.

In the window above him, an echelon of seagulls flew out of the bay. The birds stayed visible for a long moment, flapping like they were stuck in a wind tunnel. Then a floatplane descended and scattered them backwards.  

The plane bounced on the waves and then taxied towards the interior of the marina. 

“I’m not stupid,” she said.

Greg made a face like that was for him to decide, and kept reading his paperback. 

Nan spent the next five minutes gathering her gear and clothes. Greg read his book, even as she reached in a cubby behind him, for her wallet. When she was all packed, she stood in front of him, holding her duffle. He didn’t look up. When she cleared her throat, he kept reading. 

“Can we say goodbye, at least?” 

He shook his head like he’d caught her being stupid. “You’re gonna hitchhike home? We’re stuck here together.”

Nan put her duffle over a shoulder, climbed the stairs to the cockpit. Then she hopped down to the dock and saw Babe and Marc Wilson sitting on their aft deck, playing cards. Babe shouted hello. 

Nan waved. “Do those planes fly to Seattle?” 

Before Babe could answer, Greg shouted from inside the sailboat. “You can’t go!” 

He ran out, all the way to the bow pulpit, and shouted down at her. “Is this about the ring? Here! I want you to have it.” He held out the diamond ring towards Nan.

From deep in the marina, a float plane fired up its engine and taxied by. Nan could see just one small yellow airplane left on the dock now.

“Marry me!” Greg fell on his knees, begging her with his beautiful, sparkly eyes. 

Nan wondered what her mother would say. 

“Honey, he’s waiting for you to say yes!”  shouted Babe’s husband. 

“Nan, I’m all you’ve got in the world.”

Nan waited. The departing floatplane finished its taxi into the bay. With a loud rev, it sped along the water and bounced into the air. It was airborne surprisingly fast.

“Nan, take the ring. My knees hurt.” 

“Marry him!” shouted Babe’s husband. 

“What do you most love about me?” she asked.

Greg pouted like this was a trick question. “I love that we need each other. How would I sail back without you?” 

Nan shook her head and picked up her duffel. “Hire a captain. Or maybe learn to sail.” She turned to Babe, who placed a hand over her heart and grinned. 

Babe said, “The last plane to Seattle leaves in four minutes. My other son is the pilot. He’s the best at flying in these winds. I’ll text him to wait. There’s always an empty seat beside him.”

Nan waved to Greg. “I’ve got a plane to catch.” With her duffel slung over a shoulder, Nan trotted down the long wooden dock to catch the last flight of the day, while the seagulls circled and scattered in the windstorm. 

- The End

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(c) 2012 - 2025 Sarah Burt Howell

Author's note: I wrote the first draft of Garbage Day as a weekend assignment for an MFA class in 2012. On Friday we were asked to write an environmentally themed story and submit it to a literary on Monday. To my surprise, that first draft was accepted and quickly published online. At the time, I didn't think through how I would feel about having a first draft perpetually available, but it does offer a unique opportunity to observe a short story's evolution over time. My primary rewrite goal was to give my main character more agency. That also improved the ending, but if you like literary fiction with soft, formless endings, then the first draft might be your preferred version. The revised draft published here was finished in 2020 while I was working with editor Jazmine Kanengiser.

The backdrop of Garbage Day—Seattle's waste journey—is grounded in reality. Since the 1990s, Seattle has transported its municipal solid waste approximately 257 miles by rail to the Columbia Ridge Landfill in Arlington, Oregon. This facility processes nearly 3 million tons of waste annually and boasts a projected capacity to operate for another 120 years . Meanwhile, King County's only landfill, Cedar Hills Regional Landfill, is nearing its capacity and is expected to be full by 2040 .

The story is set in the remote coastal waters of British Columbia, where waste disposal is an even bigger issue. Sailors are expected to keep their trash onboard until they return to civilization, but most don’t. The common logic is: paper and plastic burn; metal and glass go overboard. When I sailed there, I couldn’t bring myself to toss anything overboard, so I carried my garbage home in a duffle bag on the seaplane. The pilot gave me a strange look when I told him what was in the bag, but I was compelled to take it back to Seattle — even knowing it would end up on the train to Oregon. That feeling of wanting badly to do the right thing, even when no good choices exist, is part of what fueled this story.