HOLDING FAST

A wife follows her husband to sea and finds herself along the way in this memoir.

When Cole met John in 1969, they were both married to other people, and he had two children. A few years later, they had left their spouses and were living on a ferryboat on the Long Island Sound. On paper, they couldn’t have been more different. John learned to sail at the age of 4 and spent a few years of his childhood in Africa, whereas the author grew up in Ohio. Yet after one year of aquatic life, they got married. After 15 years on the water, they bought a house in Connecticut. But for John, homeownership and the birth of their daughter, Kate, could not dampen the call of the sea. When Kate was in second grade, Cole and John removed her from school and they set off on an oceangoing sailboat called the Laughing Goat. For three years, the family sailed between Florida and Caribbean locations. The author and John worked remotely and flew to the United States for meetings, but the family’s daily life was mostly on the water. At times, there were not enough children to keep Kate company. For her sake, the family returned to Florida when she was in fifth grade. Once Kate was in college, Cole and John bought a catamaran and sailed between Florida and the Bahamas. The couple’s seafaring adventures ended when John had a heart attack, which led to the discovery of tumors on his lungs and brain. After treatment held John’s cancer in abeyance, the couple sold the catamaran and moved to Mexico. But their reprieve was short-lived, and he died, ending the author and John’s 44-year relationship. A perfect, realistic counterpart to Amity Gaige’s Sea Wife (2020), Cole’s moving memoir is emotionally astute, and her use of excerpts from the Laughing Goat’s log provides welcome insights into John’s perspective. Vivid characterizations of the people and places the family encountered are occasionally bogged down with too many adjectives; Key West men don’t need to be described as “lean,” “tanned,” “gray-haired,” and “pony-tailed.” But the author’s voice is so assured that the occasional saggy sentence is easily overlooked.

This poignant account will resonate with readers who have loved someone who adores the sea.