Page 40 of Dreams of Falling
I wanted to give him some sharp remark, but when I finally looked up at him to speak, I’d completely forgotten what I was about to say. He was staring at me. Not exactly atme, but at the part of me below my neck that was wearing only skimpy shorts and a ratty running bra.
“I thought we were only going on the boat—if we’re going someplace fancy, I can go change.”
He opened his mouth, but when no words emerged, he just shook his head, then grabbed my hand tighter as I stepped into the johnboat and stood on the bottom of the boat instead of on one of the seats like a beginner would.
He set the Thermos inside the boat, before untethering it from the dock and settling into the seat behind me. I heard him clear his throat before speaking. “I, uh, it’s a little chilly out on the water. You might want a T-shirt.”
I turned around to see him rustling through a duffel bag and pulling out a red cotton T-shirt. “Sorry if it smells like fish—I keep it on the boat just in case I need a clean shirt, and then it sort of absorbs the smell of the boat.”
I reached for it, noticing he wasn’t meeting my gaze. “Yeah, you’re probably right. It’s been a while since I’ve done this.” I slid the shirt over my head; it had a logo of a fish silhouette on the front, the wordsI have to hold mine with both handswritten beneath it. “Nice shirt,” I said, laughing.
For what was probably the first time in my life, I saw Bennett blush. He averted his head and began to dig into the bag again. “Mabry gave it to me.” He pulled out a USC baseball hat and a matching visor. “Once the sun comes up, you’re going to need it. I’ve got sunscreen, too.”
“Thanks,” I said, accepting the visor. “Remember how we used to get burned to a crisp when we’d go out fishing? I cringe, thinkingabout all that skin damage.” I turned around to face him and pulled up the shirt to reveal my abdomen. “I have a tiny mole here that I get checked by a dermatologist once a year because of that horrible burn I got that time we went to North Island and I fell asleep lying on the beach.”
When he didn’t say anything, I looked up to see an odd expression on his face. “Are you all right?”
He nodded. “Fine. Just fine.” He fiddled with the motor for a minute, and when it hummed to life, he headed out into the water without another word, looking more normal as he steered the boat away from the dock. I glanced back toward the marina and the hulking shapes of shrimp boats and sailboats and fishing boats, all bobbing sleepily on the gentle waves of the Sampit, unaware of the sun beginning its laborious rise behind them.
“Where are we going?” I asked as he headed toward the smaller creeks and waterways that couldn’t be navigated by larger boats.
“I thought we’d go to one of the old flooded rice plantations. I spotted an osprey nest last time I was there. It’s on a man-made platform right on the edge of the marsh, and I saw a single adult there. Probably the male, since he’s the one who prepares the nest so it’s all perfect for his mate when she returns from their winter retreat.”
“Nice,” I said. I’d never paid much attention to the shorebirds of my home, knowing I’d never be tested on my knowledge, or be expected to know anything about them except maybe for a bar trivia contest. Besides, Bennett and I had made a long-ago pact that if we ever did a trivia contest, we’d do it together so I could answer all the music questions, and he could answer all the bird trivia. Mabry would fill in on all the general stuff she knew from reading every magazine and newspaper.
Holding on to my visor, I tipped my face up toward the brightening sky, filling my lungs with the tangy salt air and feeling my ponytail tease my cheeks and the back of my neck. A large slender bird with a white chest and underwings, and a dark brown stripe at the edges, soared above us. “Look,” I said, pointing at the familiar bird.
“An osprey,” Bennett said. “When I saw that nest, I did a littleresearch and came to the conclusion that Mabry should be thankful we’re not ospreys.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Without knowing much about ospreys, I could probably fill a page with reasons as to why she’d be thankful, but which one in particular are you thinking of?”
I could tell he was trying very hard not to smile, forcing a bored know-it-all expression to freeze his face. It was so familiar, and so “Bennett,” that I could only feel enormously grateful that things weren’t feeling odd between us anymore.
“Well, since you asked, osprey babies don’t all hatch at the same time. There’s usually about a five-day span between the oldest one hatching and the youngest. The oldest hatchling then pretty much lords it over his or her younger siblings. If there’s plenty of food, it’s not a problem, since there’s enough to go around. But if there isn’t, the oldest one will make sure that he gets the lion’s share, and sometimes the younger ones will starve to death.”
“Nice,” I said. “Because you’re what—five minutes older than Mabry?”
“Seven.” He grinned at me, his familiar Bennett grin, and I relaxed. “And she’d better not forget it.”
We grew silent as he made his way upriver, steering through small creeks and tributaries. I’d once known these waterways like the veins on my wrists, the curves and intersections altering only with the oncoming tide and returning when the water trickled back to the ocean. It had been so long, I wasn’t sure I could navigate without losing my way, and I wondered how it had happened that I’d lost that important part of my childhood. I sat up, trying to pay attention to where Bennett was going as we passed through the black needlerush and spartina grass that rustled against the sides of the boat. We sped by tupelo trees and wide-hipped cypress draped with Spanish moss, cormorants preening on the dead branches, and it was as if I were traveling back in time to the Larkin I’d once been. A sharp twist of grief pulled at my heart. I sucked in a deep breath of marsh air, briny and moist, trying to clear my head.
I loved who I’d become. I did. Almost as much as I hated the oldme. But not, I suddenly realized, all of the old me. I missed the girl who’d known these secret alleyways into the marshes and who could recognize the sounds of the different birds and open an oyster faster than anyone she knew. But I’d gotten rid of her along with the rest of me, and the grief I felt was raw and open.
“You okay?” Bennett asked as he slowed the boat, bringing it close to the edge of the creek, then turning off the engine.
“I’m fine. Just not used to this humidity, I think.” I reached for the Thermos. “I’m going to have some coffee. Like some?”
“Please.” He reached into his duffel and took out two Styrofoam cups. “Still drink it black?”
I nodded, pleased he remembered, and poured strong black coffee into each cup. He waited until I’d screwed on the lid before handing me mine. “See the nest?” he asked, indicating a tall platform on top of what looked a lot like a telephone pole. A pile of sticks, twigs, and grass covered the top, the panorama of the sky bleeding orange and purple into the marsh beyond it and making me wish I could paint it. To take it back with me and hang in my empty cubicle at work. It would be something of home.
“Yep, I see it. Should I go up and see if it meets with female approval?”
“You could. But if Daddy Osprey comes back while you’re up there, I’m outta here.”
“So much for Southern chivalry,” I said, taking a sip of the hot coffee as he laughed.
“Aren’t you going to start singing?” he asked. “You always used to sing that song ‘Oh, What a Beautiful Morning’ when we came out to watch a sunrise. It’s hardly worth coming out all this way without the sound effects.”
