“Here,” Mary said, taking Hannah’s hand and placing it where hers had been. “Put your hands here.”
The town nearest the campsite was a small grid of streets that housed churches and shops and offices in small two-and three-story buildings. Mary found a small restaurant, and she and Hannah parked down the street, then silently took a seat at the counter while the locals gave them inquisitive glances over their menus and newspapers. They were accustomed to tourists visiting the swamp, but not two girls alone, not at this time of year.
“Do they have waffles?” whispered Hannah.
Mary looked over the menu. “Yeah,” she answered back.
And when the waitress approached and asked the girls what they would like, Mary gave her the most charming of smiles, and with the languid drawl she had first heard on that trip with her mother so many years ago, she said, “I’d like two eggs over hard with bacon and hash browns, please. My sister here will have the waffles with a side of ham.” Then she set her menu down, and as the waitress began writing the order, Mary gave Hannah a wink.
After breakfast, the girls went to the grocery store, filling their cart with cereal and donuts and oranges, with bread and milk and ice for their cooler. And as they drove back to camp, Mary felt content and warmed, knowing that Hannah was fed. Knowing that they had enough money to ensure she would be so again. Back at the campground, in front of site 21, Mary put the truck in park and turned to her sister. “Whaddaya say we go see this swamp?”
It would begin that way each day. They’d start their mornings in winter coats and hats, their bodies still stiff from the ground and the temperature. But as they walked, the sun making its way up in the sky, their muscles would become warm and loose, and the hair under their hats would grow damp. They’d stay gone all day, eating lunch on the trail and not starting back until the afternoon light began to turn golden. It was during those days that Mary began to feel restored, that the past few months began to fall away like a husk. And so it was that the wounds left by Diane’s death started to heal over.
Their first excursions were limited by dry land and what could be seen on foot as they traveled over boardwalks and paths. And each day, they ventured farther, dared to go deeper, until, after nearly a week, the girls found their way into the swamp’s damp heart.
The man who rented them the canoe operated out of a small shack inside the park’s borders. He chewed gum and wore windshieldlike sunglasses that hid his eyes.
“You know there’s gators in them waters,” he said, watching Mary help Hannah into their vessel, his hands on his hips.
Hannah, who you might not have thought was paying much attention, suddenly looked up. “Do they ever bite people?” she asked.
The man’s tongue darted from his lips, and the corner of his mouth lifted in a smile. “Not if you don’t fall in.”
Hannah’s eyes widened, and Mary tilted her head to find her sister’s eyes. “Bunny, if you fell in, I’d dive in right after you.”
The man looked to the side and laughed, not knowing the truth of it. As he gave the canoe a push from the dock, he called, “Watch out for water moccasins, too! Those sons a bitches will chase ya!” Hannah looked back at him while Mary took strong, solid strokes, guiding their little canoe away.
The girls made their way through lily-blanketed channels and waterways lined with cypress, the trunks of which looked like the slender legs of some towering ancient beasts. Mary consulted the compass but she didn’t need to. The swamp had seeped inside her. She knew its direction, its nearly indiscernible flow. She paid attention to the way the vegetation gathered or spread, to where the waters were choked or clear. And as the canoe rounded a cluster of trees, there, staring at them from behind a tangled clump of greenbrier, was a cat.
IT WAS THE COLOR OF COAL and stood with its massive head hung low. Its enormous paw splayed out over the soft earth, and its yellow eyes didn’t leave Mary’s even as its long tail flicked like a blade of switchgrass.
Mary pulled in a rush of breath, a stomach-punch gasp that made Hannah stiffen.
“What?” whispered Hannah, but Mary couldn’t say a word.
The cat took a soundless step forward, and its mouth opened so that Mary could see the pink of its tongue, the white of its teeth. She felt her breath become shallow. Suddenly, Hannah shouted, “Look!”
Hannah’s was the only voice that could have pulled Mary away. Hannah was pointing toward a fallen log. “An alligator!” she said.
And it was only a second that Mary took her eyes off the cat, but when she looked back, it was gone. “Do you see him, Mary?” asked Hannah.
Mary searched the swamp, lifting her chin to see past trunks and through tangled branches and ferns, searching for his black snakelike tail.
“He’s right there!” said Hannah, turning back to tug on the leg of her sister’s jeans.
Mary’s eyes lingered on the spot where her cat had stood before looking in the direction of Hannah’s pointing. Her gaze arrived just as a large alligator pushed off a log into the water, his body entering with a dull splash, like a stone statue come to life.
“Did you see that?” asked Hannah, looking back at Mary, beaming.
Mary nodded, her words stuck in her throat. “That was cool,” she finally said.
“Yeah,” agreed Hannah. “We saw an alligator.”
“Good eyes, Bunny,” said Mary, feeling a loss enormous and unexplained.
MARY AND HANNAH SPENT TWO WEEKS in the swamp before they packed their Blazer and left. “Good-bye, Tammahuskee!” called Mary, as she made a quick right onto the main road. “We’ll miss you!”
“Yeah, bye, swamp!” echoed Hannah, having seemingly aged years during those two weeks. “We’ll come back someday!”
After several miles, Mary looked over at Hannah. “Do you know where we’re going now?”
“Where?” asked Hannah, home no longer on her mind. Home no longer a place that was even real.
“To the beach.”
Instead of heading north, Mary cut back and traveled west. They drove through farmland and smalls towns that held only churches and jails until turning south again and crossing the state line. Once again in Florida, Mary drove Hannah to the white sand beach on the Gulf of Mexico where she was born.