Noah and I paddled toward the osprey nest, just offshore of the island. It was a manmade pole and basket, about twenty feet high, topped with a messy nest of sticks and pine boughs that the birds built. Standing on the top of the nest was the female osprey, regal and white with black wings and mask-like markings over her piercing eyes.
“Let’s get closer and see if there are babies!” I said.
“Okay.”
Our paddles were almost synchronized now, skimming over the choppy surface of the lake, closing the distance between us and the osprey nest. The wind blew in our faces, and my shoulder muscles started to burn.
As we paddled closer, the female raised her white-tipped black wings in a threatening way and gave a haunting cry.
“Whoa, I don’t think she likes us,” Noah said.
“I just want to get close enough to see!” I gave my paddle blades three or four more good pulls.
Pretty soon we could see the dark little beaks and heads of the chicks bobbing just above the edge of the nest.
“Look! There they are!” I paddled even closer, craning my neck upwards.
The female got more and more agitated. Then, suddenly, from a tall pine on the island, in swooped the male osprey, calling loudly, his anvil-shaped wings curved as if to attack. He flew right at us, with fierce cries. Started to dive at us.
“Look out!” Noah yelled. “He’s after us!”
The bird flew in a wide circle around the nest and then soared back in our direction, angling his body in a dive. Noah and I ducked as he flew within a few feet of our heads, still screeching. He passed close enough for us to feel the swish of the wind from his powerful wings.
“Come on, paddle backward!” In a scramble, we reversed our paddling like crazy, and got the kayak turned around heading away from the nest and back toward the side of the island. After circling the nest again, the osprey flew back to his tree, grasping a gnarled gray limb with his talons and fluffing his feathers triumphantly. The female, still at the edge of the nest, stretched her beautiful black and white wings wide and flapped them several times.
We sped for the shore of the island, then grounded the kayak and clambered off, pulling it up onto the coarse sand on the island’s shoreline.
“Whew, that bird was dive-bombing us!” Noah said, as I laid both of our paddles across the center of the kayak.
“Yeah, they’re really protective of their babies. Grandpa says the osprey mate for life, just like geese.” We took off our lifejackets, then sat on the sandy shore of the small island, letting the lake water lap at our toes and the sun beat down on our heads and sore shoulders. I started wondering why I’d worn the T-shirt. I took it off, squeezed the water out of it, and tossed it on the kayak. Then I felt immediately self-conscious about sitting there with him in my bathing suit.
“How long do osprey live?”
“I don’t know. These same birds have been building their nest here for at least the past five years, since I’ve been coming here.”
Behind us stood a cluster of pine and oak trees, some fallen. You could walk around this entire island in about five minutes. It was almost as long as a football field, but not as wide.
Noah’s hair was still slicked back from when he had jumped in the water earlier. “A bunch of guys spent the night on one of these islands once,” he said. “It was crazy.”
“Yeah?”
“Somebody brought an iPod dock and you know how music travels over the water? We were playing all this unbelievably loud music and we had a case of beer. It was wild.”
“Did anybody catch you?”
He shook his head. “We were afraid the lake patrol would come, but they never did. We lucked out.” He stretched out on the sand. “Zillions of bugs, though.”
Noah’s bare chest had a patch of golden fuzz right in the center. I hadn’t thought about us being alone on an island until just this minute. A tingle spread up the back of my neck into my hairline, and I shivered even though it was in the eighties out here.
Dr. Shrink and I had talked about a lot of situations but this was one we hadn’t talked about. Did Noah think anything about us being alone on an island?
Should I say something about it? We’d hung out tons of times, but not like this.
“My guitar’s in my car,” he said suddenly, raising up on one elbow. “I can serenade you and your grandparents when we get back.”
“Oh, cool! What songs have you learned?”
“ ‘Wish You Were Here’ by Pink Floyd.” He hummed the first four twanging notes of the opening, playing dramatic air guitar, and then sang the line about two lost souls in a fish bowl.
“Cool.” I laughed.
He dug up a handful of the reddish, coarse sand and let it sift through his fingers. “And I learned ‘Skinny Love’ by watching an online video.”
“Cool.” Was “cool” all I could say? What a loser. I picked up one of the tiny black closed mussel shells that were scattered around, and tossed it into the shallow water at the edge.
One shell lay open on the sand, shaped like tiny black angel wings. Noah picked it up and dropped it onto my leg.
“Hey!” I found another shell. Dropped it into his belly button.
“Whoo!” He used his thumb and index finger to flip away the shell. Then he scooped up several more shells, jumped to his feet, and tossed them at me. Then, with a laugh, he started running.
“Okay! Watch out, buddy!”
I jumped up and raced after him, up the beach toward a place where the waves had eroded the sand. The water gently washed against a muddy cliff about two feet high, and Noah had to zigzag, splashing, through the water. I laughed as I ran, completely out of breath.
Noah clambered up the muddy cliff and ran barefoot through the small wooded area to cross to the other side of the island, yelling “Ow! Ow! Ow!” as he stepped on sticks and pine cones. Then he ran across the beach and into the water on the other side, the silvery water splashing around him. He dove and swam, then turned around and grinned, treading water.
I chased him, breathless and laughing, running out into the water, diving at him, swimming in his direction. The minute I got close, he clapped his hands on my head dunking me.
Gasping and sputtering, I surfaced and tried to dunk him, but he pulled away with one strong stroke. “Ha-ha-ha!”
“I’ll get you!”
Finally I lunged at him. I knew he was letting me catch him because I got my arms around his waist.
“Gotcha,” I said, pulling tight and hugging him, my ear against his chest.
And for an instant, there was his heartbeat, solid and steady, in my ear.
Then his hands were around my waist and our arms were around each other. I looked up and his face was inches from mine.
I closed my eyes. Held my breath. And then, like a bolt of electricity, like a wave breaking over our heads, his lips touched mine. They weren’t soft, but firm and determined.
My heart was thundering. Blood roared inside my head. What was this? We were just friends!
I let go of him and scrambled away, pushing water between us.
“What was that?” I yelled.
He threw his arms in the air and let his palms splash on the water. “I have no clue!”
“I didn’t do it!” I said.
“Neither did I!”
We stood in the waist-deep water glaring at each other. The sun had dropped toward the horizon and the shadows of the trees on the water were long. The wind had died and small ripples surrounded us, radiating outward on the smooth water.
“That was a mistake,” I said.
“Definitely. A mistake.”
“I need to check on Star.”
On the ride back, we didn’t talk. The only sounds were the wind at our backs and the dipping of the paddles and the slap of the waves against the kayak. I kept thinking about his lips when we touched. I’d thought lips would be soft and his weren’t. Every time I thought about it I had this squiggly feeling deep in my stomach.
Back at the dock, the two geese greeted us. The female sat on the eggs on the boat cover and the male swam nearby, honking at us as we pulled the kayak up onto the dock.
“We’re not going to hurt your wife or the eggs,” I told him. “Just chill.”
Noah and I kept our distance. We didn’t talk. Thoughts raced through my mind and I replayed that kiss, with a shiver. What had it meant? As he grabbed his wakeboard and we headed up for the house, blood kept pounding in my ears.
“So? How was the kayak ride?” Grandpa Roberts held the door open for us.
“Fine,” I mumbled.
“I have to get home,” Noah said.
“Don’t you want to wakeboard?” Grandpa asked.
“That’s okay.”
“So soon?” Grandma said from the kitchen. “I was just getting ready to invite you to dinner, Noah.”
“He’s got to go, Grandma,” I said.
“Maybe tomorrow?” Grandpa looked from one of us to the other with a puzzled expression.
“I don’t know. I better get going. Thanks anyway. Nice meeting you.”
Grandma and Grandpa chorused back with “Nice to meet you,” and “Come back.”
Noah nestled his wakeboard under his arm, and I followed him out onto the porch.
I felt short of breath. I tried not to look at his lips. “Well. Bye.”
“See ya.” He held the wakeboard over his chest like a shield. “All right, so … bye.”
He trotted across the yard, climbed into his beat-up olive green Jeep and drove away.
I stood on the porch, watching the road long after he had disappeared. So, if he hadn’t kissed me, and I hadn’t kissed him, how had we kissed?
The shadows lengthened and the setting sun drizzled liquid gold on the water. As a cooler breeze threaded through the oaks in the back yard, the father goose swam back and forth, back and forth, guarding the nest. Birds chattered in the trees before sunset.
And suddenly I remembered. Star!
I yelled to Grandma and Grandpa through the screen. “I’m going to look for Star!”
I took off running, up to the road. I hiked down until I was even with the tree with the missing bark, then plunged into the dark shadowed woods. My footsteps made faint crunching sounds as I stepped on the pine needle ground cover, and I swiped dogwood branches, with their heart-shaped leaves, out of my way.
Noah’s face flashed before me. The sound of his heart against my ear. I relived the kiss, then was glad there was no one in the woods to see me blush. Kissing didn’t feel as innocent as I’d thought. Did I have stronger feelings for Noah than I’d admitted to before? Everything was such a surprise.
I stopped beside a bramble of underbrush and gave my head a shake, trying to refocus on Star. Was this where I had left her? I knelt and peered underneath the overhanging branches. Nothing.
I walked a large circle around the area, checking every other patch of underbrush. I wanted to talk to Stephanie about the kiss. I’d text her when I got back.
After wandering for fifteen minutes, I finally decided to give up. I would never see Star again. I should be happy for her. The fact she wasn’t here meant her mother had come to get her. She was safe. It was good news.
I wandered back to the original spot. Once again knelt and crawled back to the far corner underneath.
And there she was. Lying as still as she could be, her large eyes staring at me.
“Star! You’re still here!”
I don’t know if the emotion of the afternoon was getting to me, but tears sprang to my eyes. Her mother hadn’t come back for her. She was probably dead. And maybe it was because of me. More than ever, I felt responsible for Star. I had to save her. I’d killed her mot her.
I reached inside the bush and gently wrapped my arms around her.
“Maa!” Her bleating was softer now. I most definitely needed to get her something to eat. I carried her back to the house. She didn’t struggle as much as before. Her skinny legs hung down, bumping against my stomach. I ran up the porch steps, calling to Grandpa.
“She was still there!”
In only a few minutes, we had her back on her towel bed on the sun porch. Grandpa sat in a lawn chair with his laptop.
“Goat’s milk. And baby bottles,” he announced within a few minutes. “They have a four-chamber stomach and they have to suck on the bottle to open the second chamber. You can’t let them lap from a dish. Unless it’s water. So we can give her water.”
I raced to the kitchen and brought back a plastic dish of water for Star. I set it down next to her.
“Where can we get goat’s milk?” I asked.
“I believe they have it in the grocery store,” said Grandma.
“Well, let me get my car keys,” Grandpa said.
I jumped to my feet.
“Are you going to leave me here with that little thing?” Grandma asked.
“We won’t be gone long, Grandma,” I said, heading for the door.
“That little thing is going to poop on my sun porch,” Grandma said, crossing her arms over her chest.
When we got back from the store, with three cartons of goat’s milk and a set of two plastic baby bottles, Grandma met us at the door.
“That little thing is very insistent,” she said. “It’s definitely hungry. It’s been crashing around bumping into the windows and making that bleating sound. It’s finally laid down.”
I began washing the baby bottles.
“Be sure to warm the milk,” said Grandpa. “And it says about four ounces every three hours. You’re going to be up all night.”
“That’s okay.” I warmed a bottle with goat’s milk in the microwave and shook it up, then headed out to the sun porch. Star was curled on her bed, but leaped to her feet bleating when she saw me.
Now, how to feed her. I knelt beside her and held the bottle up to her nose. Her nostrils flared as she sniffed and her eyes widened, but she didn’t take the nipple into her mouth. I squeezed a little milk out onto my finger and rubbed it on her round black nose, but she tossed her head away. I tried to push the nipple into her mouth and she jerked her head.
“It says to hold the bottle high, so she has to turn her head up like she’s nursing from her mother,” Grandpa said.
I tried it. “Hmm. She’s hungry, but she won’t take the bottle.”
“It seems as though she doesn’t know what to do,” Grandpa agreed.
I wrapped my arm around her neck and tried shoving the nipple into her mouth. She jerked her head away and then tried to run away from me, her long legs stumbling over ski vests and ski ropes. Then she came back and licked my arm, bleating again.
“Look how confused she is,” I said.
Grandpa was on the computer again. “It says that sometimes they don’t take to the bottle right away. Sometimes it’s a struggle.”
“No kidding.” I wrapped my arm around her neck again and this time tried forcing the bottle into her mouth with both hands. She pulled her head out from under my arm and backed away, tripping over a pile of pillows. She made a funny sound like a kazoo.
“Once she figures out it’s something to eat, she’ll start to suck, don’t you think?” I asked. Then I stood over her, practically sitting on her, and tried to shove the bottle into her mouth that way, so she couldn’t back away. She turned her head and struggled to get away from me, kicking up a storm with her tiny hooves. She had gotten me on the shin once and it was throbbing and I was getting out of breath.
Star stumbled to the corner of the room, staring at me.
“Let her take a break for a little while,” suggested Grandpa.
“How am I going to feed her if she keeps acting like this?”
“I don’t know.” Grandpa kept reading. “It says to move the bottle back and forth to imitate the way it nurses from its mother.”
“If I can ever get her to take the bottle.” I went and looked at the page Grandpa was reading. The fawn in the picture had its head turned up and it was drinking greedily from the bottle. I growled with frustration. Why couldn’t I get Star to do that?
Grandpa and Grandma and I stood on the sun porch, with dusk setting in, watching Star, who had decided she didn’t like the bed I’d made for her now, either, and had curled up almost inside a ski vest.
“That little thing has a mind of its own,” Grandma said.
“It says sometimes it helps to stick your finger in the side of their mouth,” Grandpa said, glancing up from the computer. “And then ease the nipple in.”
Star stood up and began licking my arm. I tried again.
I cradled Star’s head under my arm and held the bottle above her mouth. I squeezed a little milk out and let her sniff it. She licked my finger. I slid my finger into the side of her mouth, then took the opportunity to shove the bottle between her lips. She started to toss her head and then, somehow tasting the milk, she opened her big eyes wide. Eagerly, she grasped for the nipple of the bottle. I pushed the bottle farther into her mouth and the muscles in her throat began to contract as she began to drink. Now she was practically pulling the bottle out of my hand.
“She’s drinking it! She’s drinking it!”
Suddenly enthusiastic, Star scrambled to her feet. I stood and held the bottle above her head. I pushed and pulled, the way the articles Grandpa had read said to do.
Star was now making a racket, loud sucking sounds and panting while she tried to suck down the contents of the entire bottle in a few seconds.
“She seems like she’s starving,” Grandpa said.
“Just look at that little thing,” Grandma said, sounding affectionate toward Star for the first time. “It was hungry.”
Within a few seconds, the bottle was empty. She kept pulling on the empty bottle, gasping, with her eyes wide and enthused. She started licking my arm again.
“Do you think I should give her another one?”
Grandpa checked the laptop. “It just says four ounces every three hours. So I guess we ought to wait before feeding her again.”
I knelt beside Star as she nuzzled my arm and the bottle. She was so cute I could barely stand it. “That’s enough for now, little girl.”
“Come on now, you two, I’ve been holding dinner for an hour now waiting for you to take care of that fawn,” said Grandma. “Let’s wash your hands and eat!”
I gave Star a quick pat on the head and went back through the living room to the kitchen. When I turned, I saw Star heading after me. “Can she come in the house, Grandma?”
“Absolutely not! She’ll poop on my carpet. At least the floor of the sun porch can be cleaned.”
Star, of course, paid no attention to what Grandma said and scampered right into the living room. She walked past the couch, looking curiously around, her little hooves sinking into the carpet. Then she plodded past the dining room table and onto the linoleum floor of the kitchen.
“She seems so funny walking around the house!”
“Back out on the porch, Diana!”
“Okay.” I put the baby bottle into the sink and then picked Star up and carried her back out to the porch. I settled her in her bed. A quiet, nagging thought kept repeating in the back of my mind.
Mom and Norm would be back tomorrow. I knew they weren’t going to let me bring her home.