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 becoming 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?”