“I’ve never seen a shark in real life.”
I reached over and ruffled his hair. “Well, we’ll have to remedy that real soon.”
That evening, after we’d returned to the island, we sat by the firepit and snacked on fresh pineapple, while I pretended to play guitar. I wasn’t particularly good—my fingers were too fat for the strings. But I’d been trying for a few years. Lately, I’d been learning some songs by female artists. Simple ballads, like most I knew. Savannah had a beautiful singing voice, whereas I sounded more like a cat and a bufo toad fighting.
I set the guitar down and looked at Alberto, licking his fingers. We grew several dozen pineapple plants on the little island nearly connected to our main one.
We also had two large solar units on that part of our property. In the morning, the panels opened up like flowers, tracked the sun across the sky all day, charging the battery shack, then folded themselves up at night.
The dogs lay with their backs to the fire and their heads away from it. I often thought they did it to maintain night vision, but it was probably just to keep their sensitive noses away from the heat and smoke.
“This is good,” Alberto said. “What is it?”
Savannah gave him a shocked look. “You’ve never had pineapple before?”
“I like apples. But this doesn’t taste anything like an apple.”
“Europeans weren’t the best at naming things,” I offered. “Apples were common in Europe, and the pineapple has a tough, gnarly hide.” I showed him the top, which I’d saved to replant. “Kinda like the bark of a pine tree. So maybe that’s how they got the idea to name it. Columbus, or more likely, one of his crewmen, was the first European to see a pineapple. By the time he arrived, they’d been farmed by Indians across South and Central America and the Caribbean.”
Alberto yawned.
“Are you ready for bed?” Savannah asked. “Or are Jesse’s drawn-out stories that boring?”
“They’re not boring,” he said. “I guess I’m sleepy. But I don’t know what time it is.”
I laughed and he gave me a curious look.
“Out here, there’s no need for a clock,” I told him. “We sleep when we’re tired and eat when we’re hungry.”
“What do you do the rest of the time?”
“We work, little man,” I replied. “But work here is fun. Tomorrow, me and you will go pick up Tank and catch some fish. The freezer is running low.”
“That’s fishing, not work.”
“Didn’t I say that work here is fun?”
He yawned again.
“Come on,” Savannah said, rising from her chair. “Let’s get you to bed.”
“What time will we wake up?”
“When the sun comes up,” I told him. “That’s our clock. Maybe a little before if you want to catch the sunrise.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Will it be like the sunset?”
“Different,” I replied. “But just as magical. Sunset is a time to look back on your day, what you accomplished, and what steps you might have taken to do better. Sunrise is a new beginning. You wipe the slate clean and have the opportunity to fix anything from the previous day.”
I started to get up too, but Savannah patted my shoulder and smiled down at me. “Stay put, Socrates. Contemplate the stars. I’ll be back in a few minutes. I’m going to get a glass of wine. Would you like a beer?”
“Thanks, but make it two fingers of rum, please.”
They left, with Woden trotting ahead.
Finn rose and came over to me, sniffing around on the ground, looking for a place to sit. He finally plopped down on my left foot and leaned against my leg, watching them go.
“You like Alberto?” I asked him, while gently stroking his head.
He whined and licked his chops.
“It’s gonna be a lot different having a little boy around full-time. I hope you and Woden can keep up with him.”
Savannah returned, carrying a wine glass and a pewter mug with the Gaspar’s Revenge Fishing Charter logo on it. She handed my grog ration to me, then pulled her chair closer and sat down.
I sniffed the rum. The mixture of Caribbean spices and a slight scent of orange peel told me what it was.
“I thought we were saving the Appleton Estate for a special occasion.”
“Nothing wrong with your nose,” she said, clinking her glass to my pewter. “This is a big step in our lives. We’re going to be parents again. Together.”
“Maybe,” I cautioned her, taking a sip. “Just because he didn’t know of any other family doesn’t mean there aren’t any.”
“Have faith, Jesse. God put us on that bridge for a reason.”
I wasn’t about to argue theism with her. I believed in God, but they took things to a whole different level in South Carolina, where she was from. The fact that we were entered in the Seven Mile Bridge Run was because of her desire to be more social in the community. Had we run up in the front with the leaders, we might never have even seen the boat.
“We’ll do the best we can,” I assured her.
“I know. You never do anything halfway.”
“Where’s Woden?”
“Sleeping beside Alberto’s bed,” she replied. “They were both very tired.”
“Yeah, this one’s making my foot go to sleep,” I said, looking down at Finn, now snoozing with his rump still on my foot.
She was silent for a moment. Then she looked me squarely in the eye. “Are you going to tell me what happened last night?”
I knew that she already knew.
“Chyrel’s laptop was still open when I came to bed this morning,” I said by way of a reply.
“Is that all there is to it?”
“You know everything that happened. What more is there for me to tell you?”
She looked down at her glass, swirled the wine a moment, then took a sip before replying. “I knew what you did when I married you, Jesse. I knew the kind of man
