A scatter of crabs and creatures in shells scampered on the muddy sand.
A gull cried in the distant, clear blue skies.
The cicadas kept up their shrill chirp.
Ashton lifted the motor out of the water, rolled up his pants and jumped from the boat, hauling it toward land. He locked the motor then offered me his hand as I stood balancing on the bow. I jumped out, my feet meeting an oozy squelch of muddy sand, which seeped thickly between my toes. I wouldn’t want to be marooned out here alone, I thought.
Ashton said, “My dad and I used to camp here when I was a boy.”
“I’m amazed you remembered how to get here. It’s a maze of estuaries and possible dead ends.”
“It was our secret,” he said. “Not many folks know about this place.”
“You were telling me about your dad before the dolphins so rudely interrupted us,” I joked, the experience of seeing them one of the highlights of my life so far, and something I knew I’d never forget. I inhaled the air. Imbibed the scene around me. The brackish odor smelled as ancient as time, and in that moment, the dolphins, this boat trip, everything infused itself into my soul, latched onto my memory cells—or so I prayed—to be picked up and savored another time, another place, somewhere in the future. Whether Ashton chose to trust me or not and open up about his father wouldn’t matter. This day would still be forever perfect, either way.
He attached the boat to a dead tree stump, tying an expert sailor’s knot in the rope. I needed to learn how to tie knots like that. He looked around then back at me. Linking his long fingers behind his neck, he stared up into the blue as if he couldn’t decide what to do next, or what to say. I waited patiently, fixated on those fingers that did the most complicated stomach-churning medical procedures.
What kind of a person cuts into someone’s brain and skull?
Finally, Ashton lowered his gaze and spoke to me in his baritone woodwind voice. “My dad wasn’t out shrimping that day,” he began, “but had taken his other boat, a small motorboat, to drop off fuel for a friend in downtown Beaufort. Instead of getting around by car, Pa preferred to go by boat. I happened to be home for the weekend. I’d heard a storm was brewing, so I told him to go another day. But he wouldn’t hear of it. Told me old Mr. Briggs had waited long enough and he’d be quick. So, I figured I’d accompany him. Didn’t want him going alone. The storm came in earlier than we thought it would, whipped up out of nowhere like a bat outta hell. My dad had forgotten his cell phone, and mine wound up going overboard, so we couldn’t call for help. The boat capsized. There was so much wind, boy, the two-hundred-something-mile-an-hour wind and hammering waves were mean, out of control. By that point we were in a narrow estuary quite a way from home. Guess Papa’s feet got tangled in weed. Or he got knocked out by a piece of flying driftwood. He was a pretty strong swimmer. But I lost him. Swallowing water, trying to keep afloat, I couldn’t see more than a foot in front of my face. Eventually I…” Ashton paused, took a breath and gathered his composure. I thought he’d cut his story to an end. He turned still and quiet. I watched his every gesture, wondering how he felt inside.
After a long while, he continued, “By the time I saw Pa, he was face down in the water floating out to sea. I dragged him to shore—I’d done some lifeguard training years before—gave him the kiss of life but… but it was too darn late.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said, almost wishing I hadn’t forced Ashton to share this tragic incident with me. I’d been so pushy for information; I felt callous. “How awful. How traumatic for you.” I stood in the sand awkwardly, the water lapping softly at my calves.
Ashton shrugged. “Worse for him.”
“Yeah, but I feel for you, honey. There’s nothing worse than losing a parent.”
“Especially when you could have saved—”
“It’s not your fault,” I broke in. “You did everything you could. It was your dad’s choice, he insisted on going out that day.”
“I could’ve stopped him.”
“We can’t live our lives with woulda shoulda coulda mantras stuck in our heads.” Woulda shoulda coulda. There were plenty of woulda shoulda couldas competing for space in my head, too. “Honey, I’m so, so sorry,” I added.
He pressed his fist to his mouth. “Life’s a bitch sometimes.”
“And your mom? Is that when she deteriorated and needed to go to a care facility?”
“Exactly,” he said, offering no more details.
“So you were all alone after that?”
“Yep, being an only child, I felt the brunt of it.”
“I sure can identify with that. What was your dad like?”
An almost imperceptible flicker of Ashton’s brow told me he did not like my question.
“He was a wonderful man. Let me show you around this miniscule Treasure Island.”
We meandered around. There were some old, broken down, rotten planks with rusty nails peeking out from behind the grove of palmettos. The breeze idled through the leaves.
“Your camp?” I asked. I took out some sunscreen from my cloth bag, where I had some mosquito repellent, hat, water and my camera. I smeared some cream on my face.
“Yep, this was our hidey-hole. We’d fish. Catch crabs. Play cards. Then barbecue the fish we caught that day and cook it with grits. Seabass usually, or shrimp. Tell jokes. First time I ever drank Wild Turkey was right here. On my fifteenth birthday. My inauguration. Pa told me I was ready to be a man.”
“Your mom didn’t join you?”
“Hell, no. Mama had no place here. This was boys’ alone time.”
“Were they very happy, your parents? Did they have a good marriage?”
Ashton’s gaze fixed on mine and he held it there for a beat, his face enkindled by the late morning sun, the light catching his hair. I caught a flash—just a fleeting flash—of what I could only describe as a covert look in his eye.
He said with a smile, “Let’s have lunch. We got chilled champagne and all kinds of sandwiches. And pecan pie for dessert. Come on, I’m starving.”
Again, I persevered, but dressed the question more prettily. “They were very in love then, huh? Your parents?”
Ashton strode off toward the boat, grabbed his baseball cap, and while he was busy bringing out the cooler, with his back to me, he mumbled, “Uh-huh.”
“They were really happy?” I was determined to get a straight answer.
He turned, smiled, and said decisively, “The envy of every married couple this side of Beaufort County.”
Those were his mother’s words, weren’t they?
Like mother like son. Both were lying. Not that I cared. Those lies didn’t affect me, personally. But other lies might. Case in point, because later, after Ashton and I got back home—after this perfect day out on the water—and I’d fixed a simple salad for dinner, the phone rang. The caller a total surprise, a ghost popping up from the past. Ashton’s ghost. Ashton’s past. My nemesis. Which also made it my past.
And my future.
It was then my marriage deviated along a new road, setting a whole new set of wheels in motion.