Reel Problem

I couldn't go back down alone and it was going to take time to get a new dive crew so I would be furloughed home as soon as I could safely fly. It was a long four days and nights and those days gave me too much time to think. The money doing saturation diving is very good as I said earlier. About $2,000 a day plus depth bonus over 150 feet of about $2 per foot. At three hundred feet I was making $2,300 a day. I'd grossed just about $48,000 in three weeks. As much as I'd make in six months on my boat doing routine work. But it came with big risks, and there weren't a lot of old saturation divers. Your body couldn't take it forever. Allan would never work underwater again and Corey was dead. Whose fault? I didn't know, didn't even want to. I really wanted to go home. It was in that chamber that I began to question what kind of mistakes are forgivable and what aren't. One or both of those guys made a bad mistake, because accidents don't happen, they are caused. Both those guys were professional certified commercial divers. They both knew there was no room for error down there, but one of them let his guard down. One of them had a mental lapse, but whether you like it or not, at three hundred feet a mental lapse is also a moral lapse, because you can take someone else out with you, which is exactly what I witnessed. Forgivable? Yes, at least I hoped so, for Allan's sake and for Corey's family. Forgettable? No, never, because then it would also be repeatable! You remember your mistakes or you repeat them.

It was the third week of October when I was flown home from the rig. I dropped my bags off at the apartment and called Sarah at the hospital. She agreed to come to the apartment for coffee after work, but she sounded apprehensive. I guess I was pretty subdued and she feared the worst.

When Sarah got there. We sat for a while and just talked about the weather and family crap. I took a deep breath and told her about the accident on the rig, how it could have been any one of us, and how I had sat alone for four days and nights thinking about everything that had happened to me over the last three months. I told her about my thoughts on forgiveness and about not forgetting. I saw her tense up and I knew she was thinking if I could never forget then we could never heal and be happy together.

"Sarah, forgetting is dangerous. The lapse of judgement I witnessed at three hundred feet under the surface cost one man his life and the other his profession. I don't know exactly what went wrong down there, so I don't know how much was Corey's fault and how much was Allan's. From what I saw on the video I have some ideas, but it really doesn't matter now. I think I can come to forgive you for what happened, although it still hurts me a lot. What I can't do, what you can't do, is to forget, because then it can happen again. So, Sarah, here's the deal, if you are willing I will stop the divorce and we will work together to try to build a new marriage, but this thing will always be there, not as guilt, but as a reminder of how easily things can go very wrong. Our relationship is going to be fragile for quite a long time and there will be more tears and probably some pretty bad days. Even if I forgive you, I know things will happen and I will get angry! Still, even so, I think it's worth it, Sarah, if you do, if you are willing to make the commitment."

Here tears were her answer, she couldn't speak, and she just nodded her head over and over again.

We spoke at length that evening about the things that went wrong in our relationship that allowed the snake into the garden. Certainly my vocation had coloured who I became as a person, as a husband, and I was, because of the exacting rigours of my profession, somewhat serious and methodical. Sarah was correct in that I was a good steady husband, but maybe not terribly exciting or spontaneous. I promised to make an effort to lighten up and Sarah vowed she would be at my side no matter what and that she would never again trade what we had for the lure of a sparkling chimera. Her insecurity in losing her image of herself as young and attractive was the poison pill. I took for granted that Sarah knew I thought she was wonderful, and beautiful, and didn't vocalize it as much as in the first months of our marriage. Did any of that condone or excuse what happened that Saturday? NO, of course not, but knowing why will help us both to be observant and aware in the future.

With the money from the settlement, the sale of the Malibu, and the payout from my oil rig diving we had enough to buy a nice house in Pascagoula, only a few blocks from the hospital. I surprised Sarah with the pile of Krugerrands and told her to furnish it any way she wanted. She didn't even spend half, so we put the rest away for a rainy day, just another word for a nursery fund. Intimacy, at first was hard. Actually it wasn't, if you catch my drift, and that was the problem. But with time and patience and gentle encouragement it got better. Proof of the pudding is our two rambunctious kids. Gavin is eight and his sister Tori is six and in first grade. That has allowed Sarah to go back to work nine to four, and I have just done my last saturation dive. I'll still do salvage work and the State of Mississippi has hired me to do underwater bridge inspections, while I am on call with the State Police for search and rescue work. Financially we will be fine.

What of Tony's question? Better off with her or without her? Of course no one ever really knows the answer because you only get to choose one or the other, and then you live the best you can with that choice. I chose to forgive the woman I love, some wouldn't, and I understand that. They have to live with their choice too! But you make your decision, your choice, and you live with it, make the best you can of it. Was it all giggles and roses? Heck no! But over time it's become a loving and good marriage. Looking back I am convinced that I made the right choice for me, for us. Sarah has worked very hard to make sure I don't regret it.