Five Years Diving for a Husband Who Faked His Death

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My husband, the ship's captain, was lost to the deep in a sudden sea storm.

Trying to save him, my sister joined the ocean rescue and was swept off by the waves too, her body never recovered.

The public mourned with one breath and turned on me with the next.

They accused me, a diving instructor, of failing to bring my own family back alive, and they wanted me to pay with my life.

Even the front of my house was smeared with vicious curses.

A single obsession kept me standing.

For five whole years, I pulled on my wetsuit and dove into those waters again and again, searching.

And then, the day I dragged myself back, worn to the bone, to the seaside guesthouse Daniel Sanchez had kept booked long-term—

The husband and sister I'd spent five years believing dead were celebrating a little boy's first time in the water.

Friends and family stood around them, everyone warm and happy.

I stared at them, unable to make my mind move toward the questions I should have been screaming.

My best friend saw me first. She took my hand, her face full of apology.

"May Sullivan, I'm sorry. We didn't mean to keep you in the dark... it's just that Kayla Thomas was pregnant back then. We couldn't make her get rid of the baby."

"And you have trouble carrying a child. Daniel needed an heir, or there'd be no way to answer to his family."

My mother, though, lifted her chin, all arrogance.

"Better you know now. Saves you from clinging to Daniel forever."

"Your sister gave him a son, and the Sanchez family gave your father and me a car and a house. If it had been you, how would your father and I ever enjoy comforts like these?"

"If you've got any sense, walk away on your own. Stop being an eyesore to them."

It finally reached me. There was a roar in my ears, like seawater flooding back in.

So all these years, I'd been nothing but a complete joke.

...

Fine little whispers cut through the sea wind and drifted clearly into my ears.

"I told Daniel and Kayla long ago—hiding out here didn't guarantee any peace. She'd track them down sooner or later."

"What were they supposed to do? They couldn't exactly tell her the truth, could they?"

"The whole internet's been cursing her for five years. Better she carries it alone than everyone gets dragged through the shame together."

I stood frozen, watching that happy little family of three not far off, and all I felt was how absurd it was.

The wetsuit, still not dry, clung heavy against my body.

Rough with sea salt, it chafed my skin tight and raw.

That familiar exhaustion yanked me straight back into five years of searching, day after day.

Five years. I'd combed every undertow and reef in these waters.

The cold of the deep cut to the bone, the crushing pressure grinding down on my body over and over.

Aching eardrums, numb limbs—that was every dive, routine.

Countless times the undertow dragged me off, and I nearly stayed down there forever.

Storms, thick fog, towering waves. I'd fought through danger too many times to count.

Even when every search turned up nothing, I refused to stop.

I clung stubbornly to one thread of hope, wanting only to find some trace of them.

To give everyone, and myself, an answer.

Night after night, day after day, I hauled myself back ashore soaked in seawater and covered in wounds.

What met me was never comfort, only endless cruelty.

Strangers snapping photos to shame me, people online hurling abuse.

And no one cared what it looked like, risking my life down in the deep.

My mother never ached over my injuries. She only complained, again and again, that I'd failed to hold on to the Sanchez family's fortune.

The friends and relatives I'd once known all drew away, pointing and muttering whenever they passed.

Everyone simply took my guilt for granted, watching with clear consciences as I did penance alone in the deep and suffered under the weight of public opinion.

They watched five years of my misery and struggle, and quietly accepted my sister and Daniel's safe, reborn life.

Daniel straightened slowly and let go of the child's hand.

There wasn't a trace of guilt in his face. His voice was cold and distant.

"Back then we all agreed on the same story—we deliberately told you the undertow after the storm was violent, that no bodies could ever be found, so you'd let it go for good."

"These five years you insisted on searching, refused to give up. That was just you moving yourself to tears."

My best friend lowered her voice, pleading.

"May, I know this is hard on you."

"But what's done is done. No matter how you cling to it, you can't change a thing. You'll only make it awkward for everyone."

The cold swept through me, and the old ailments from years of deep diving flared all at once.

The stabbing in my eardrums came back, ringing and buzzing.

The old injuries in my shoulders and back, pressed under strain for years, tore and ached faintly, and my whole body went cold and weak.

I clutched the diving gear in my hands hard, and only that kept me from collapsing.

Five years of obsession, five years of torment, five years of searching with my life on the line.

In the end, nothing but a joke.

The sea hadn't taken my family from me. My husband, my family, my friends—together they'd pushed me into the abyss.

With one sea storm, they'd buried my love, my family, my whole life.

And I, like a fool.

Had spent five years down in the deep, searching for ghosts.