Dolphin Magic

Chapter 5

It was his mother, holding him on her lap, her green eyes sparkling like the water, her raven colored hair a black pirate flag in the wind. They sat on a rock formation in the ocean, feet dangling in the sea. He was small, so small, but he felt so safe in her arms. His mother attempted to whistle with her thumb and forefinger, but ended up blowing a raspberry sound instead. She laughed, and he laughed. They were always laughing.

"Your father does this much better than I do," she had said. "You try."

He put his chubby fist to his mouth and blew, but faired no better than his mom.

"How about the old-fashioned way then?" his mother suggested and whistled through encircled lips. "Now your turn."

He blew through his lips, but only emitted a wet sound like a child blowing out birthday candles. His mom squeezed him. "You'll get it soon."

She whistled again. "Now we watch and wait," she whispered in his ear.

He remembered the excitement that trembled inside him, how he burrowed into his mother's warmth and held his breath. The waters parted in front of them as a bottlenose dolphin made its way toward them. The young boy squealed and pulled his feet quickly out of the water onto his mother's knees.

"It's okay," she reassured him. "You don't have to be afraid. She's friendly."

The dolphin poked its gregarious face out of the waves and cackled.

"This is Tammy," the mom told her son. "Your dad introduced her to me about a year before you were born. He's known her for a long time. He named her after his mother. I thought it was time she met you."

She took his small hand and placed it on the dolphin's nose. It wasn't a plastic thing like he'd imagined, but a warm skin quivering with life underneath.

"Mommy, what's that?" he asked, pointing to a crescent shaped notch on the dolphin's dorsal fin.

"That's a scar. Sometime after I met her, Tammy met up with a hungry shark who thought she'd make a nice meal, but she was too smart for that."

"He tried to eat her?" the wide-eyed boy asked in horror.

"That's how nature works," she had said. "It doesn't always seem fair, but some animals have to eat other animals to live. And if nobody ate animals, there would be too many animals, and not enough plants for them to eat, and they would starve. It's a delicate balance, but a necessary one.

"But Tammy was smart and strong, and she got away. She now has what they call a battle scar on her fin."

The little boy wiped tears from his eyes.

"What's wrong, sweetie? Tammy's fine, see? Dolphins heal very quickly."

The boy looked at his mom, his emerald eyes the same as hers, glistening with his tears. "But what about the shark? Now he can't eat and he'll starve."

The mother looked at her son with such pride. "You, my little man, have the biggest heart of anyone I've known, and I love you so much for that! You don't have to worry for that shark. I'm certain he found dinner. He probably found an old, sick fish that was in pain and suffering, and he put it out of its misery. Come here." She cradled the boy in her arms and kissed the top of his head, where the humid sea air made his sandy curls almost ringlets.

The picture in his head faded again to shadow, and he lost sight of the dolphin on the horizon.

The man guided his boat according to the charts and GPS, arriving at the Coral Bay Marina on Islamorada shortly after eight o'clock. Uncertain of what lie ahead, he made a quick sandwich of pickles and American cheese between two slices of whole wheat bread and devoured it in four bites, slugging down a bottle of lemon flavored water. He packed a backpack with another bottle of lemon water, some papers, a cereal bar. He tied his boat to the public dock and wheeled his bicycle to shore.