Fowler - Traveling with Ghosts

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Copyright 2017 by Shannon Leone Fowler

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Simon & Schuster Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

Certain names and identifying characteristics have been changed.

First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition February 2017

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Book design by Ellen R. Sasahara

Jacket Design by Alison Forner

Jacket Illustration by Jim Tierney

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Fowler, Shannon Leone, author.

Title: Traveling with ghosts : a memoir / Shannon Leone Fowler.

Description: First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition. | New York : Simon & Schuster, [2017]

Identifiers: LCCN 2016022676| ISBN 9781501107795 (Hardcover) | ISBN 9781501107863 (Trade paperback) | ISBN 9781501107870 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Fowler, Shannon Leone. | Women marine biolgists

Great BritainBiography. | Marine biologistsGreat Britain

Biography. | Marine biology.

Classification: LCC QH91.3.F69 F69 2017 | DDC 578.77092 [B]dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016022676

ISBN 978-1-5011-0779-5

ISBN 978-1-5011-0787-0 (ebook)

For:

Two teenagers. May 6, 1996. Pulau Langkawi.

British tourist, age 26. October 20, 1999. Ko Samui.

Sean from Australia, age 25. August 9, 2002. Ko Pha Ngan.

Mounya Dena from Switzerland, age 23. August 10, 2002. Ko Pha Ngan.

Moa Bergman from Sweden, age 11. April 3, 2008. Ko Lanta.

Carina Lofgren from Sweden, age 45. February 3, 2010. Langkawi.

Max Moudir from France, age 5. August 23, 2014. Ko Pha Ngan.

Chayanan Surin from Bangkok, age 31. July 31, 2015. Ko Pha Ngan.

Saskia Thies from Germany, age 20. October 6, 2015. Ko Samui.

And for anyone else whose death has not been recognized.

The miracle is not to fly in the air, nor to walk on the water, but to walk on the earth.

Chinese Proverb

SUNRISE

T HE OCEAN HAS ALWAYS HAD a hold on me, and over the years has left its mark.

A chipped front tooth from when I was surfing at Tourmaline in San Diego and the board snapped back on the leash and struck me in the face. The cold water of the Pacific hit an exposed nerve, and the pain shot straight through to my skull. It felt as if Id fractured my jaw, lost an entire tooth, or even two. But my college roommate, floating on his board next to me in the swell, just laughed at the size of the chip.

A small white dent in my thumb from shucking raw oysters on Kangaroo Island. Taking a break from studying Australian sea lions and sitting with a friend, kicking our feet off the wharf at American River and out over the Southern Ocean. There were bottles of Coopers Red Sparkling Ale and a bucket of oysters between us. She made me laugh and the knife jumped from the chalky, rippled shell and straight into my opposite thumb joint.

A pair of pink mottled splotches, one on each ankle, from when I was wakeboarding off Saint Kitts in the Caribbean Sea. The inflatable Zodiac boat had already circled me once, dropping the towrope, but Id missed it. The driver, my boss, circled again, faster this time. He thought I had the rope, when instead it had wrapped around my legs. As he turned hard on the throttle and sped away, the rope went with him, taking the skin off my ankles before tightening around them and pulling me under. I couldnt come up or scream. It was the kids on board who noticed. They pulled me from the water and we watched the wounds go from white to red as the blood began to pour. In the moist heat of the tropics, I was in and out of the ocean teaching scuba diving all day and it took weeks for the skin to start to heal. Seventeen years later, the scars look like tiny raised maps of forgotten islands.

Those are the scars on the surface, the ones you can see, the ones I can touch. But as it is with the sea, its really about what lies beneath.

August 9, 2002

T HIS IS WHAT I REMEMBER about waiting at the templecold, bitter black coffee. Someone had pushed a tiny white plastic cup into my hands. A small dark pool at the bottom. The bitterness I expected, but the cold of the liquid surprised me. I can still taste it, thirteen years later.

It must have been around two a.m., but the temple was full of locals. It didnt occur to me to wonder why. Women were passing out the cups of coffee and snacks, or sitting on mats spread on the rough tile floor. Men stood on the periphery, a small group of them gathered around a red Toyota truck in which the body of my fianc lay, wrapped in a white sheet.

Two Israeli girls sat next to me on a low wall at the edge of the temple. They had ridden in the front of the truck with me on the drive from the clinic. These girls had been with me through the most intimate and terrible moments of my life. I didnt even know their names.

We were waiting for a key. We had been waiting a long time. At the clinic, theyd explained that Sean had to be kept in a box at the temple. They said it was the only place on the island to keep his body cold. But they hadnt been able to locate the key to the box.

No problem, someone would say every so often. They will find the key soon. No problem.

As we sipped the cold dark coffee, I watched one of the men reach into the truck and peel back the white sheet Sean was wrapped in. He gestured to the other men, who gathered in closer. They pointed to the red welts encircling Seans calves. Their conversation grew louder and more animated.

Oh my God, I whispered. The Israeli girls followed my gaze. One of them, the one with light eyes, jumped up, crossing the short length to the truck in a few strides. She snatched the sheet from their hands and tucked it around Seans body.

Show some respect, she said, motioning toward me with a thrust of her chin. Leave him alone. The men may not have understood English, but they understood. They backed away. Still, she continued to stand, blocking the opened tailgate with her arms crossed in front of her chest.

The other girl, the thinner, darker one, turned to me. We dont have to wait here. Theyll put him in the box as soon as they find the key. We can leave. Do you want to go home?

I want to stay with him. I dont want to go back, I said, avoiding the word home. Back in cabana 214, at the Seaview Haadrin, was the last place I wanted to be. Seans things spread all over the room, our sea view looking out onto the spot on the beach where hed collapsed face first into the sand. The sheets on the double bed printed with colorful cartoon clowns, sheets still smelling of him, of our sex earlier that day.