by Karen White
Maris bounced up and down in her seat, her beach bag rubbing against my arm. I didn’t pull away, happy to have a reminder that I was in South Carolina, crossing the Beaufort River, that the sun was shining and the water beneath was warm.
Fingers pressed against mine and I looked up to find Loralee watching me, her hand on mine. I was embarrassed and let my hand slip from hers as I sat back in my seat, prepared for free fall.
I stifled a sigh of relief as we reached the end of the bridge and headed away from the river, although I sensed its nearness. I was quickly learning that there was no escaping the water there, its presence as perennial as the sky. Gibbes’s gaze met mine again in the mirror and he gave me a quick nod and a smile, as if saying, Good job. I looked away, wondering how much Loralee had told him about my mother, and realized he probably knew everything. I wasn’t mad at her, merely relieved that I wouldn’t have to explain to one more person why there were things I could not do.
Gibbes’s house was down a dusty road with few neighbors, towering oaks on both sides, with swinging moss that hung lazily from knobby branches blocking the sun as we drove through. We passed a house with large, colored Christmas lights dangling from the porch right before he turned onto an unmarked driveway that led us far from the main road.
Gibbes’s house itself surprised me, although maybe it shouldn’t have. It was a midcentury modern with sparse landscaping and Christmas lights—these smaller and clear—still hanging from the gutter above the one-car garage. He gave us a brief tour inside, including a state-of-the-art kitchen and a family room with a television screen almost as wide as the wall. It was as different from the home he’d grown up in as it could have possibly been. Which, I supposed, was the point.
We stored the basket in the kitchen after deciding we’d have our picnic on the dock later, and followed Gibbes down toward the water, where a very decrepit-looking flat-bottomed boat waited.
“Is it safe?” I asked, eyeing it dubiously.
Gibbes looked offended. “I certainly hope so, since I’m planning on putting all of us in it. It’s an heirloom—used to belong to my grandfather, and then my father, and then Cal and I used it when we were boys.”
The mention of Cal’s name stole the fight from me, and I didn’t mention any other reservations I had about getting into such an old boat, instead surreptitiously checking for holes in the bottom and sides.
As Gibbes maneuvered the ancient boat closer to the dock, I slathered on even more sunscreen. I eyed Loralee’s perfect sun-kissed skin and how she didn’t seem to be sweating. Even her hair was unfazed by the humidity, falling around her shoulders in soft waves. My only consolation was the thought that if she were up in Maine, her teeth would be chattering once the sun set and the temperature dropped below sixty.
As promised, Gibbes had life jackets for all of us. He took over putting the ones on the children while Loralee assisted me with mine. She tightened the straps so that it wouldn’t slip off over my head if I managed to find my way into the water—which, Gibbes assured me, wasn’t going to happen while he was captain of the boat—then turned around so I could adjust hers.
I tugged on one of the side straps and she began to giggle.
“What’s wrong?”
“The front buckle doesn’t seem to want to stay buckled.”
I moved in front of her and figured out the problem immediately. Her bust was simply too large. We both looked down at the two straps that circled her waist and she giggled again. “I don’t think I need to worry about that top one—the other two won’t be able to slide past my chest anyway.”
I blushed, unable to think of a response that wouldn’t make me blush harder. Gibbes gently moved me aside and began adjusting Loralee’s straps so that all the buckles would work. His fingers were sure and steady and never paused even when they passed over her chest. He was a doctor, and though he just treated children now, I knew that during med school and his residency he’d probably seen lots of patients of both sexes and all ages in various stages of undress. Still, I couldn’t look, wondering at my irrational anger, and blaming it on Loralee, whose biggest success in life was apparently attracting men. I thought blaming her would make me feel better, but it didn’t.
I was relieved to see she’d at least changed into flat-soled sandals, so I didn’t have to worry about her top-heavy self tumbling into the water. Owen stepped into the boat first as Gibbes held it steady from the dock. Owen began scooting toward the rear seat when Maris, still standing on the dock, cleared her voice loudly while crossing her arms and looking at him expectantly through blue plastic sunglasses.
“Owen,” Loralee said, lowering her chin and sending him a meaningful glance.
With a heavy sigh, he braced himself before reaching his hand out to the little girl. Maris was strong and agile despite being so petite, and it was obvious to anyone other than the blind that she could get into the boat without any help. I turned my head so he wouldn’t see me smile, only to find that Loralee and Gibbes were doing the same thing.
Loralee got in next, with help from both Owen and Gibbes. She seemed unsteady, which surprised me, since I knew she was used to boats. Gibbes held on to her forearm with a tight grip, not letting go until she’d sat down.
“Thank you,” she said to Gibbes, flashing him a brilliant smile.
He turned to me and paused, as if unsure how to handle me.
“I’m sure I can do it myself,” I said, not agreeing at all but wanting to somehow separate myself from Loralee. As if he couldn’t tell we were completely different just by looking at us.
I moved forward but, as if he hadn’t heard me, he held out his hand. “Humor me, okay? We’ve already gone to all this trouble to get this far, and it would be a sad thing to end our outing before we’ve even left the dock.”
“Why would we end our . . . ?” I stopped, understanding dawning on me. Holding back a choice word or two in deference to the two children, I put my hand in his and was surprised to find Owen taking my other in a firm grip.
The boat rocked gently, my equilibrium thrown completely off balance, my feet seeming suspended in air for a long, nauseating moment. Gibbes held on tightly until I sat down.
“You okay?” he asked.
I nodded, trying to look confident, and not speaking so he wouldn’t hear how out of my league I really was.
He sat at the rear of the boat, near the tiller, and paused a moment until we were all settled. After my heart had stopped its irregular thudding, I could hear the sounds of the marsh, the odd snapping and clicking noises from dozens of unseen creatures. I thought of Owen’s terrarium, and how fun it would be to capture a few specimens for us to look at, but knew it would be a while before I would gladly release my hands from the side of the boat to trawl the waters for unusual plants and insects.
“Maybe we’ll see a dolphin!” Owen shouted.
I prayed that we wouldn’t, but I kept my thoughts to myself, grasping the sides of the boat just in case one decided to jump up out of the water and tip over the boat.
“Or an alligator!” Maris shouted, just as loud.
I jerked my hands into the boat. “An alligator?”
“Don’t worry, Merritt,” Gibbes said. “If we don’t bother them, then they won’t bother us.” His voice was low and calm, like the one I imagined he used before giving a shot to a small patient.
“But if you see babies, stay away,” said Maris, her face serious. “Because where there are babies, there are mommies.”
I looked at the dock, wondering whether I could jump out of the boat safely. But I thought of Cal, and when I met Gibbes’s eyes I straightened my shoulders.
“Everybody ready?” Gibbes asked, waiting for all of us to nod before starting the motor, the sound abrupt and jarring. After the initial jolt, the motor settled into a steady, low thrum that I grew accustomed to, and didn’t completely override the marsh music.
The first thing I noticed was the smell, the same one I remembered from
standing in the front yard with Mr. Williams. Pluff mud. That was what he’d called it. It was a peculiar odor that was green and earthy, part salt and part sea. It was alien and exotic, almost unpleasant, but completely intoxicating and unlike anything that I’d experienced at home.
We’d meandered into a widening creek, the tall grasses that had at first brushed the boat now farther away as we skirted through the marsh on a watery path. Gibbes was true to his word and kept out of open water, always within easy reach of the sandy hammocks that protruded from the marsh like underwater serpents, their salty-soil backs exposed to the relentless sun as the tides ebbed and flowed around them every six hours and six minutes.
I’d never seen a place of such contradictions, barren yet lush, monochromatic yet teeming with unexpected shades of color. It was a constantly changing landscape where nothing was the same, yet nothing was truly altered except for the rise and fall of the tides.
“This is my favorite place in the world,” said Maris. “I don’t think I’ll ever want to leave it.” She kept her voice quiet, an unspoken agreement between all of us that this was a place as sacred as a church, where hushed voices were required.
“Do you have beaches or is it all this grassy stuff?” Owen asked.
Gibbes glanced at me and then over to Owen. “We have beaches, but we’ll save that for another day. Remind me to take you to Hunting Island someday. I spent a lot of summer days and nights there with my friends as a teenager. They have a lighthouse, and you’re allowed to climb to the top.”
A secret smile lit Gibbes’s face, and I wondered at his memories. I imagined they involved beer and music and girls. I could see him doing all those things I imagined teenage boys did: saw him tossing a football with a friend or diving into the ocean headfirst. It was easy to picture Gibbes as the carefree kid raised by the water who took for granted suntanned skin and bleached hair and shirtless nights. But I couldn’t see Cal doing any of those things, no matter how hard I tried.
“I like this,” Owen said slowly. “It’s just . . . different from Lake Lanier at home. Like all the plants out here haven’t had a chance to grow very tall.”
Gibbes slowed the boat, the engine just a low murmur. “In a way that’s true. To survive out here as a plant you have to be tough. They’ve adapted to take all they need from nature while at the same time fight it back. It’s not easy to be covered with water for half the day, and then baked in the broiling sun for the other half. They couldn’t survive if they behaved like ordinary plants.”
Owen frowned for a moment, his mouth twisted as he thought. “Actually, they’re really just ordinary plants. But they’ve learned to survive unordinary events, which makes them like the strongest plants in the world. That’s pretty cool.”
“Pretty cool,” Gibbes agreed, speeding up the boat again. “You see examples of that all over the plant and animal kingdoms.”
He kept his focus in front of him, but I felt that his words had been meant for me. I thought of Cal again, and how two brothers raised in the same place could be so different. How one could survive and thrive and the other not.
I soon forgot the sounds of the marsh creatures and the thrum of the motor as we entered the river. I was transfixed by how easily the land gave way to the water, the marsh a wide transition separating closely related cousins. It was hard to reconcile this place with the Maine shoreline of my memory, the large granite boulders that defied each frothy wave that crashed against them. The Atlantic coast of Maine had been chiseled by the relentless forces of wind, ice, and water, its craggy face the result of sheets of ice for thousands of years gouging the reluctant granite. But this place of marsh grasses and long-legged birds seemed to have been placed on the Earth by gentle hands, a remedy for the rest of the world.
A shift in the light drew my eyes upward and an involuntary sigh seeped from my mouth. The blue sky sparkled, the sun hanging perfectly above us, its yellow heat making me more languid than hot. I tried to put my thoughts into words, to order them into sentences that would make sense. Several times I opened my mouth, only to have my tongue trip me.
“The sky is different here,” I said, but that was all wrong. It wasn’t what I’d meant to say at all. I tried again. “I wanted to say that the sky is so big, but that isn’t quite it.” I contemplated the view from the boat as our wake trickled back toward the marsh and the grass, moving it gently, as if an unseen hand were brushing the tops. The horizon grew in front of us as we slowly made our way forward, the sky and water melting together.
“It’s that the water is wide,” Gibbes said softly.
“Yes,” I said before I could think. Before I realized it was Gibbes who spoke the words that were still dancing in my brain and I hadn’t wanted him to know.
Owen slapped his arm, lifting his hand to reveal a squashed mosquito. He dangled his hand in the water to rinse it off. I’d seen Loralee douse him and Maris with bug repellent, but apparently, like me, he was too much of a mosquito magnet for it to make any difference. I slapped one on my ankle, where a telltale pink bump had already made its mark.
“Do you have mosquitoes in Maine?” Owen asked.
“Oh, yes. The mosquito is the unofficial state bird of Maine, I think.”
He grinned. “Daddy used to say that about Georgia.”
“Well, South Carolina’s is the palmetto bug, just in case you were wondering.” Gibbes moved the tiller on the boat, turning us sharply to the left. A bubbly spray shot up over the side while my hands searched for something to grasp as my heart wedged itself somewhere between my chest and my throat.
“Sorry,” Gibbes said, actually sounding contrite. “I thought it was time to head back to the dock and eat.”
I nodded, embarrassed to find my hand pressed against my heart. I turned my head, my gaze captured by the alabaster poise of a white bird with black legs standing in the water. Her head didn’t move, and she didn’t appear to be looking at us, but I sensed she was aware of us the way a person sees in the dark. Long, dainty white feathers extended from her tail, and I held my breath, not wanting her to fly away.
She was such a thing of beauty and grace and strength, and I was glad that I’d been forced to come out on the boat Gibbes called a “stump-knocker” to see her, to see even a fragment of the natural wonders of this place. Each golden-tipped strand of marsh grass, every slim-throated bird and wide-watered vista, were like gossamer threads tugging at my wounded heart. I watched as the bird’s orange beak drilled with perfect precision into the water, extracting a small fish. The boat glided past her as she ate her meal, and I wanted to applaud her cleverness.
“That’s a great egret,” Gibbes explained. “Their eggs usually hatch in June, so there’s most likely a nest nearby. We’ll come back in a month so you can hear the babies ask for food. It sounds like they’re saying, ‘Me first.’”
“No way!” said Owen, tilting his head back as the giant bird stretched her wings and flew over us, her feathers rippling like ribbons of smoke, more elegant and regal than any man-made flying machine could ever hope to be.
“It’s true,” Maris said. “I’ve heard it. I’ll come back with you and we can listen for it together.”
“Sure,” Owen mumbled. His ears pinkened but I didn’t think it was from the sun. My eyes met Loralee’s and we shared an insider’s smile before I remembered who she was and looked away.
Gibbes docked the boat and we all managed to disembark without incident. Gibbes took my hand, and I held on tightly as I tried not to look down at the small space between the dock and the edge of the boat. I stretched my legs wide, holding back a shout of victory when my foot found purchase on the wood of the dock.
“Mrs. Heyward? Look—I have one, too.”
I turned to Maris, who was pulling up the edge of her cover-up and displaying an impressive scar on her knee. I looked down at my own leg, where my shorts had ridden up on my thigh, displaying a six-inch line of puckered skin. Every year it faded just a little, the skin becom
ing smoother, the pink tint of it lightening. But it would never go away completely, and I was glad. There were some offenses where a brief punishment wasn’t enough.
“I was jumping with my horse and I fell off. How did you get yours?”
Her question was so innocent, the inflicted hurt so unintentional, that I knew I shouldn’t be angry. But I was—suddenly angry at the reminder of why I hated the water and hadn’t wanted to come out in the first place. Angry that the memory outshone anything I’d just seen.
She continued to stare up at me, her eyes hidden behind her blue sunglasses, and I struggled to find a calm voice. “It was an accident. When I was twelve. But that was a long time ago.”
I felt Gibbes’s eyes on me but I didn’t look up, instead pretending to focus on unbuckling my life jacket, and then helping the children with theirs as Gibbes and Loralee left to retrieve the picnic basket from the kitchen.
When Loralee first spread the red and white checked tablecloth on top of the deck so near the water, I almost asked for my life jacket back, but when nobody else seemed concerned I remained silent. I wondered to myself whether alligators could jump, but kept that thought to myself, too.
We all helped Loralee remove the plastic-wrapped and Tupperware-covered items from the basket, setting them on the cloth. I was busy taking off lids and wrappings when Loralee bumped into me. We were on our knees, so I wasn’t taken off balance, but I instinctively reached out to steady her. Her face was pale under her makeup and her skin clammy.
“Are you all right?” I asked, realizing that I was the only thing preventing Loralee from toppling into the water.
Gibbes moved quickly to her side, his fingers finding her pulse. We were silent for a moment as he counted. “I think she needs to get out of the sun. I’m going to bring her inside where it’s cooler and get her some water before I make her lie down on the sofa for a bit.” He turned to Owen. “She’ll be fine,” he said, and I felt absurdly grateful that he’d thought to reassure Loralee’s son.
