Jed couldn’t explain the spring in his own step. His plan had been to crash on the cot as soon as he got to the cottage, sleep until lunchtime, then get up and take a sledgehammer to the two shoe-box bedrooms in the back of the house, which he aimed to turn into one large master by the end of the month. After a day of sleep followed by manual labor, he thought he’d do what he always did at sundown on Edisto Island: wet a line on the dock, open a Coca-Cola, and pray for a flounder for supper. If he was unlucky, he’d pull something out of the freezer, eat on the picnic table watching the moon on the water, and then crash on the cot for another eight hours until it was time to head back to the hospital.
But here he had spent his morning at King’s Market selecting greens, ripe tomatoes, peppers, and lemons for a meal, then wiping down the plates and glasses and votives and setting his outdoor picnic table. After that he started his stone-ground grits, which he would simmer all day, adding a little whipping cream every hour or so to make them rich and fluffy.
It was midday now, and he only needed one more item for his meal, and that was a couple of pounds of local shrimp. He changed from his scrubs into a T-shirt and shorts, slid on his old, chewed flip-flops, and, with Rascal at his side, hopped in his little whaler and set out for the bay where the shrimp trawlers would be pulling in this time of day with their fresh catch.
He loved the feel of winding down Store Creek and hanging a left onto St. Pierre and then another left onto the South Edisto River toward Bay Point. Each turn led him to a wider passageway with a stronger breeze and a broader view of the horizon where the water met the sky. Rascal loved it too. He would stand on the edge of the bow, letting the air lift his floppy black ears, barking at the porpoises and the occasional heron taking flight from a mud bank. The wildlife on this side of the island never ceased to amaze Jed, and on this short journey out to the shrimp boats, he spotted an osprey guarding her nest at the top of a dead oak tree, two groups of porpoises, schools of mullet skittering along the creek’s edge, and what may very well have been an alligator tail swishing at the entrance of Fishing Creek.
Shortly after his turn toward Bay Point, he spotted a small trawler from Cottageville, covered in seagulls, and he held up his wallet as the boat approached and put its engine in neutral. Rascal barked as Jed drove toward the trawler’s stern where a toothless crew member, his skin baked red from a day out at sea, spat over the side of the boat. “How much ya want?”
“Three pounds,” said Jed as Rascal ran over to him for reassurance. He petted his scruff and looked up at the toothless man who was scooping shrimp into a grocery bag. “I really appreciate you stopping.”
“No problem.” The man nodded as he tied the bag in a knot and tossed it to Jed.
“How much do I owe you?”
The fellow looked back at the captain, who put up two fingers.
Twenty was a bargain for fresh shrimp like that. Jed handed the man thirty dollars and said, “Buy yourself some lunch.” The man smiled, revealing his pink gums, as Rascal barked approvingly before taking his place back at the bow where he wagged his tail as Jed made a U-turn, pointing them toward home.
When Jed turned back onto Store Creek, he noticed the moon waxing gibbous and hanging low above the live oak trees on the far left bank, and as he gazed at it—a large moon in broad daylight—he was blindsided by the memory of the night he took Julia for a moonlit boat ride all those years ago.
Jed was fifteen at the time and Julia was sixteen, beautiful and talented, with several sixteen- and seventeen-year-old boys from Charleston dropping by to say hello and use her dock for fishing or to tie up their boats. He knew they were there to gain her attention, and he thought he’d never have a chance. But one day after a weeklong family vs. family gin rummy marathon that left him and her duking it out for the winner’s title, he got his courage up and asked her to go for a boat ride. It was a hot August evening just days before they had to head home to Atlanta before packing for their new life in Texas. The moon was low and bright. He had no intention of kissing her. He knew he didn’t have the nerve, and he had never actually kissed a girl before.
But as she was stepping from the floating dock into his little aluminum boat, her toe caught on the edge and he caught her and held her tight for whole seconds until the boat stopped rocking. She had turned and looked into his eyes at that moment with the moon lighting up the creek and he had bent down, as if impelled by some force far beyond his control, and pecked her right on the lips.
She had stepped back and blushed—he could see that even in the darkness, and his throat became so tight and the fear of rejection became so strong that he immediately sat down and started fiddling with his engine as if nothing had happened, and then he turned back as she was fastening her life jacket and said, “Ready?”
“Sure,” she had said. She was grinning and confident, and he knew that she knew that she held his heart in the palm of her hand at that moment. They took the boat ride and headed back, and he said good-bye and never had the joy of laying eyes on her again.
NOW, AS JED PARKED AND TIED UP HIS BOAT AT THE END of his floating dock, he wondered how in the heck Julia had been talked into coming back here to look after these kids. He wondered what in the world the story of her life was. He did notice the hefty sapphire on her left hand. How could he not look?
Well, at least he’d been able to lay eyes on her again, he thought as he headed back to the cottage to clean and boil the shrimp. And he would be able to cook for her tonight. It was as if an apparition had become flesh and blood. As if a daydream had become real life. It was just for today as he had to head back to work tomorrow and wouldn’t be back out until after Julia’s departure on Saturday. But he had a feeling he would enjoy the next several hours, flea bombs, furniture moving, and all. And he would store this moment up in his mind and in his heart in hopes that it might revive—if but for a few hours—the young boy soul still inside of him, the one the world had not yet frayed and starved with its constant onslaught of disease, grief, and, most acutely felt, loneliness.