The Answer

© Michael Simon 2025

It took the better part of the morning, but I finally found him on a deserted dock in the marina, loading supplies into his new yacht. My contact told me he had purchased the fiberglass beauty just last week, which sent alarm bells ringing in my reporters’ brain. The man couldn’t swim.

The parking lot was empty. Tied up in their berths, sailboats rose and fell on gentle swells like slumbering water carriages. A warm westerly breeze stirred stray bits of fishing line, while seagulls dozed atop ancient wooden pilings.

I put the keychain with Emily’s name engraved on the tag into my shirt pocket and climbed down the rickety ladder to the dock. I wasn’t a big man, but the wooden planks still creaked beneath my feet.

Next to the boat sat a pile of boxes and cases of water. The object of my search wore a red flannel shirt and brown cargo shorts that exposed a pair of knobby knees. Puffing on a corncob pipe, he cast a wary eye in my direction.

I brushed a lock of red hair out of my eyes and extended my arm. “Professor Ripley?”

“Depends.” He ignored the hand. “Who’s asking?”

“Sam Reynolds, from the Post.”

“Oh?” He exhaled, filling the space between us with a cloud of blue smoke.  “The Washington Post?”

I dropped my arm. “Only in my dreams. I mean the local version.”

He grunted and leaned his hip against the side of the boat. “You do look familiar.”

“Yeah.” I forced a smile. “During your news conferences, I was the guy in the back, behind the network hotshots.”

His expression finally cracked. “Sorry about that. The seating arrangement was the university’s idea of proper hierarchy.”

I shrugged. I had lost count of the hours spent covering his work; the numerous articles, not to mention the magazines and talk shows.

His eyes searched my face. “I don’t suppose this is a social call?”

“Not exactly.” Professor Ripley had a reputation for shooting from the hip. Gut instinct told me to do the same. “I came to ask why you unexpectedly tendered your resignation from the university, and why you used the money from the sale of your Cape Cod, which you sold in what amounted to a fire sale, to buy this beauty.” I ran my fingers along the fiberglass hull.

His expression slipped into a grimace. “So much for secrets.”

“Not in this town, Professor.” Not when my contact at city hall was a family member.

I waited but the tenured professor from Yale remained mute. As he puffed quietly on his pipe, I couldn’t help but notice how the long battle had carved wrinkles into his face and painted dark circles under his eyes. He looked thinner that I remembered.

I sensed him drifting so I pushed harder. “You were months away from retirement and a full pension.” The unspoken inference to something suspicious hung in the air like a stale odor.

But if there were skeletons in the closest, he did well not to show. Instead, he glanced sidelong at me. “So, in your reporter role, have you attended my lectures?”

“That and read your papers, and interviewed your students. Professor, I’ve followed your career since the first book.”

He pretended to examine his pipe. “If that’s true . . . you must share a similar interest in the afterlife.”

I kept my tone neutral. “It sells newspapers.”

“That’s it then? You’re just looking for a story, specifically why I pulled up roots and flushed my career down the toilet?”

As I suspected; straight from the hip.  “Level with me, Professor, for ten years you’ve been the poster boy for life after death, reincarnation, a higher dimension . . . whatever you want to call it. You stood up to pundits and nay-sayers from all over the globe. Why choose this moment to get out of Dodge?”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he resumed moving boxes into the sailboat. I waited silently. After five minutes, he straightened and wiped sweat from his brow. A harsh cough rattled his chest. “These bones are getting old, Mr. Reporter, so I’ll make you a deal. You help load these boxes and I’ll answer . . .”

I dropped my knapsack before he finished the sentence. Grabbing the top boxes, I took a step toward the boat. “Where do you want them?”

#

He wheezed as he worked, like a Scottish bagpipe leaking air. The steps down into the boat seemed especially hard on him. The green tinge that infiltrated his skin wasn’t present at his last press conference. I caught him staring at me a couple of times. When he realized I was looking, he broke into a whimsical smile and turned away.

A cold lump formed in my gut.

#

After an hour, we took a break. He opened up a case of Budweiser and passed me two. I found a comfortable seat on the dock and pressed one can against my forehead.

“I’m only a land lubber, but she seems like a nice boat.”

He smiled and patted the white hull affectionately. “She’s forty feet of creature comforts and computer chips. She can set course, cook supper, and wipe your ass all at the same time.”

He laughed at my sudden consternation. “I exaggerate at times,” he admitted.

It was time to ask the first question. “Why did you quit?”

“Quit?” He studied me for a moment. “Perhaps I got tired of waging an unwinnable war.”

I shook my head, dismissing his point. “I watched you too long. A Rottweiler couldn’t drag you off the scent.”

He shrugged and struggled to relight his pipe. In the rising breeze, it took several attempts.

“My sources tell me you were under contract to produce a third book.” The first two had spent months on the New York Times Bestseller list, and were soundly ridiculed by the scientific intelligentsia.

“I was. I changed my mind.”

“Despite the six-figure advance?” I had good sources.

He took a drag. “I gave it back.”

That stopped me cold. Why would a man throw away a surefire bestseller and that much money? What was he hiding?

He caught my eye. “Do you believe?”

I hesitated, careful not to put him off. “Your books are hard to put down, and the patient stories are . . . captivating.” In fact, he had interviewed hundreds of people who had survived death’s embrace. In every case, the medical evidence was unequivocal; they had, for varying periods, been clinically dead.

“What about the similarities?”

I sipped the beer. “You’re referring to seeing familiar faces?”

“That and more, like the feelings the patients recounted of serenity and acceptance.”

I kept my expression neutral. “Your detractors described them as isolated incidents.”

He smirked. “That’s so old school. Back when we were forced to form conclusions based on few events. But now, thanks to modern medicine, there are literally hundreds of new cases every year. The pool of data is huge, not isolated.”

I fingered the keychain in my pocket. Before plunging headlong into the paranormal, Professor Ridley had been a highly regarded scientist, holding dual doctorates in Psychology and Neurology, and authoring a score of papers. It wasn’t until he published his first book of survivor interviews that all hell broke loose.

“It was the data that slapped me in the face,” he said. “It didn’t matter whether it was a heart attack or a car accident. Everyone reported similar visions and,” His expression hardened. “An overwhelming sense of peace.”

He took another puff while I sipped my beer and waited. “Of course, without reproducible evidence, the establishment dismissed my findings.”

“Except for the university,” I said. “They never cast you adrift.”

Another wet cough forced him to catch his breath. “They never endorsed me either. For them, I was just a cash cow. The media put the university on the front page, and they profited from the exposure.”

I needed to take control of the interview. “Professor, can I ask you a related question?”

He knew what was coming and I expected him to bristle. Instead, he simply nodded. “You want to know why I fell into this quasi-scientific field in the first place.”

“You always skirted the issue.”

“You don’t buy the fact it was simple curiosity?”

“Would you?”

He slid down into a sitting position and cracked open another beer. “Probably not.” He sighed. “All right, it’s time I got it off my chest anyway.” He put the pipe down and took a drink. “It was a morning just like this––hot and breezy––when I picked up Lana, my girlfriend, and little Jack for our weekly picnic.”

My pulse picked up. I couldn’t believe it, after all the years, this was it, his raison d’être. I was the first reporter to find out. But why now? It didn’t take a genius to know something was different. A gust of wind tussled my hair.

“It was Lana’s idea to head for the coast. We were on the freeway when a tractor-trailer blew a tire, careened off the divider and smashed into our station wagon. I woke up in the emergency room with fractured ribs and a concussion.” He took another sip. “That was forty years ago. In another country.

 “Lana lay on the stretcher next to me, tubes and wires running everywhere. I remember the blood pooling on the floor as they worked on her. A second gurney in the corner held a small body covered in a white sheet.” The professor paused and took a steadying breath.

“I’m sorry, I . . .”

But he continued like I wasn’t there. “The pain from my broken bones was incredible. I tried to reach out to Lana, but a nurse put a needle in my thigh and I passed out.”

I wanted to pinch myself. All those network talking heads would kill to hear this. Part of my brain begged me to pull out my phone and start recording, but I dared not distract him. I understood why no reporter had tracked down the smoking gun––without a marriage license, there was no common name.

“It got worse,” he continued in a slow, halting tone. “I was awake when her heart stopped. She was gone for over ten minutes. They shocked her over and over . . . and then, unexpectedly, the monitor began beeping.”

“They got her back?”

He wiped his eyes. “The doctors said it wouldn’t be for long. They couldn’t stop the bleeding.”

“Did she know?”

“She took my hand.” A tear ran down his cheek. “Her skin felt so cold . . . she told me to live a good life.”

A lump formed in my throat.

“She said, don’t worry, that she and little Jack would be fine.” He took out a handkerchief and dabbed his cheeks. “I made some vague comment about Jack being so young, how it was so unfair . . . when she interrupted and said he was happy playing with his new friends. I figured she was hallucinating, but then she mumbled something about Jack missing his firetruck.”

“Firetruck?”

His eyes met mine. “It was Jack’s favorite toy. A birthday present.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Lana said Jack wanted me to save it for him. Back then, I didn’t understand but, as you can imagine, I’ve had plenty of time to ponder those words.”

“She didn’t say anything else?”

The professor shook his head. “She passed minutes later.”

“I’m sorry,” I murmured. “I never knew.”

He cleared his throat. “Nobody does, Mr. Reporter, else they would have attributed my research to just another nut on a personal crusade. I published my first book thirty years after the accident, and no one has able to connect the dots, until now.”

“So, the motivation came from your need to understand?”

His lips thinned into a white line. “It’s hardly my need. Each of us has an unquenchable thirst to know. Look at my book sales. For thousands of years, mankind has wondered about the next stage of existence? Are we simply aggregates of stellar dust randomly combined into human form, living and dying in the blink of a cosmic eye? Or do we harbor something more valuable and permanent deep inside?

“We all want to believe in a soul,” I said.

“Yes.” He stared over my shoulder. “We all want to believe, but in our modern world, we rely on hard, physical evidence.”

“The foundation of science.”

“And why not?” He threw his arms up in a defeated gesture. “Science has given us electricity, automobiles, an improved quality of life, none of which has to be taken on faith, unlike the accounts from revived patients which are impossible to verify.”

In my mind, a piece of the puzzle fell into place. “You thought that by piling up tons of antidotal reports, the sheer weight of evidence would tip the scale?”

He looked away. “People want to believe.” Without another word, he got up and grabbed a box.

I figured the keychain in my pocket and silently joined him.

#

I cracked open a beer as he secured the last of the canned goods in the galley. Dark clouds approached from the north, injecting a chill in the air. The winds had picked up and whitecaps lashed the boat. A storm was moving in.

I waited until he stepped out on deck. “Where are you going?”

“Does it matter?” he said. “You have your answers.”

He was right. The story alone would elevate my career. However, my sixth sense continued to buzz. There was more. “You said you’d answer all my questions.”

He sagged back against the sailboat as a series of thick coughs sucked the energy out of him. He used a handkerchief to wipe specks of blood from his lips. “I understand you’re married, Mr. Reporter?”

The question took me off guard. “Ah, yes.”

“You have children?”

I nodded, unsure. “Two boys.”

He paused to relight his pipe. “Then you know kids.”

I grinned. “As a parent, that goes without saying.” At that moment, I realized something else; the man had never married. After the car accident, he had never moved on.

“Children are different,” he said. “Like when they enter a room. What do they do?”

“They make a beeline for the nearest shiny object,” I said. “Which is how things usually get broken.”

“Exactly,” he smiled.” They only have eyes for certain things.”

I started to take another drink but stopped. He was going somewhere.

“Adults are different,” the professor continued. “When they enter a room, the first thing they do is look for references. You came to this dock, recognized me, identified my boat and supplies”

My sixth sense buzzed louder.

“We take the pulse of a room, Mr. Reporter. Is it a friendly place? Is there a feeling of foreboding? That’s the way we, as adults, are programmed.” He leaned forward like he was going to poke me in the chest. “The idea came to me a year ago. Paranormal scientists have always interviewed adults and gotten similar results. Nobody had taken the next step.”

I choked on the question. “What step?”

“Nobody interviewed the kids!” His eyes flashed. “Cancer patients, trauma victims . . . you name it, modern medicine has brought thousands back.”

“For God sakes!” I blurted. He had crossed a line.

“Relax.” He waved down my indignation. “Nobody was tortured, and kids like talking about it. In their young minds, it’s only a dream.”

I couldn’t shake my rising anger . . . and fear. “I can’t believe you’d subject children to that kind of talk just to support your theory.”

He cracked a wry smile that quickly evaporated. “My publisher loved the idea. That’s why they were so keen on a third book.”

“Did you expect the confused utterings of children to legitimize a theory that’s mired in sleaze?”

He met my stare squarely. “I never said it would. Remember, I refused the book deal.”

I tried and failed to fit the pieces together. “You’re not trying to substantiate your theories?”

His eyes narrowed. “Not for the public. As you say, the confused utterings are not going to push my theory over the top.”

“Then what––”

“You lied to me, Mr. Reporter.” He waggled a finger in front of my face. “That’s not very polite.”

My pulse hammered in my ears.

“You had three children, not two. Your third died young.”

I jumped to my feet. “How the hell did you know that?”

“The same way I knew you’d be visiting me,” he replied. “The same way I proved the afterlife exists. Not in a manner I could demonstrate to a skeptical scientific community, but more importantly, to myself. And that, I’ve come to accept, is all that matters.”

My brain swam in a sea of confusion. “Why––”

“I interviewed hundreds of kids, Mr. Reporter, and they presented a unique insight, one unclouded by learned adult behavior. They described the experience like entering a room, and as you said, they always made a beeline for something that attracted their attention.”

My hand, unbidden, reached into my pocket. “Like what?”

His eyes twinkled. He was dragging me somewhere I didn’t want to go. “Sometimes it was a shiny toy, sometimes a television show.”

“A . . . show?”

“I’m sorry. That’s the best way I can explain it. They saw events, Mr. Reporter, events that hadn’t happened yet.”

I scoffed. “Are you trying to tell me dead kids saw the future?”

“No.” He stifled another cough with his hand. “Nothing that grandiose. But they did return with snippets that gave me pause. Like the four-year-old who wanted his dog to sleep with him the night lightning knocked over a telephone pole and crushed the doghouse. Or the five-year-old who warned her parents not to fly. They ignored her pleas and died in the subsequent crash. Of course, none of these anecdotal reports can be scientifically proven.”

“But you believe.”

His gaze froze me. “I do.”

“Professor, you’ve been trained as a scientist. You need reproducible evidence.”

He studied me for a long moment. “Two weeks ago, I interviewed, Ryan, a six-year-old who had been in a horrific bus accident and lost both legs. Fortunately, Ryan’s young heart survived the blood loss and they brought him back. He told me that, while away, he played with two other children. He described colorful swings and nearby picnic tables filled with cookies and cakes.”

“Sounds like a typical six-year-old.”

The professor nodded. “Yes, but when I asked him about his playmates he recalled having strange conversations, conversations he promptly forgot the next day when I returned.”

“Like a dream.” 

“Indeed. He told me one of the kids was named Jack and that Jack somehow knew Ryan would be revived. Jack told Ryan he still missed his firetruck and he wanted to know if I could bring it when I came.”

I hesitated. “The boy didn’t know you?”

“Did I mention Ryan was from Dublin?”

I shook my head. “Coincidence.”

“Maybe.” He sucked on his pipe. “Let me tell you the rest of the story. After Jack left, a second child approached Ryan and asked him to pass along a message. This child told Ryan a man with red hair that worked for the newspaper would be visiting me.”

“What?” I could barely get the words out. “What was her name?”

The professor stared at me. “I never said it was a girl.” Then, “Emily. She said her name was Emily. The same name that’s on your keychain.”

My heart surged into my throat. This was crazy. Dead was dead. “What was the message?” I asked hoarsely.

 “She’s worried about her mom getting sick again.”

“Oh God!”

He gave me a look that conveyed both empathy and confusion.

“My wife,” I whispered. “She had cancer before Emily was born. It’s in remission.”

“I see.”

We sat in silence, the professor puffing on his pipe, me staring into the darkening sky as the wind howled around us. Finally, I got up and put the warm beer on the dock.

“I have to leave.”

“I know.” He stood. “It’s tough. Faith is not for the faint of heart.”

I extended my hand and this time he took it. “Good luck, Professor. I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

He nodded silently and I retreated up the dock. At the top of the ladder, I stopped and pulled out the keychain. It all made sense. Jack wanted his favorite toy because the Professor was dying. Lung cancer. Not that the details mattered. The fight for his pseudo-science was over. This voyage would be his last.

I slipped out my cellphone and dialed my wife’s doctor. She needed an appointment first thing in the morning. Tonight, I would take her out to dinner at her favorite restaurant. 

As I walked toward the car, I caught a glimpse of the sailboat’s stern. Emblazoned in bright, bold letters was the name, SS Firetruck.

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