Pelican

From the back porch, they swore, young parents, they had nothing to fear. The moment they’d thought they’d been waiting for: summer stars, sleeping toddler, river slapping the seawall at the bottom of the yard. Case numbers statewide dropping for weeks, an e-mail from the cottage’s owner detailing disinfection protocols between each set of guests. A getaway, they’d called it: getting away from the world. Still came this giddy sense of exposure, nearly naughtiness. Only natural, both agreed. There wasn’t a time that wouldn’t have felt like too soon. But they had nothing to fear.

—

He sat up in a strange bed, panicked. “What is it?” his wife asked, still drowsing. Out the window, early light twitched off the crimped and sliding river. Their daughter stood poised at the edge of the pier.

—

He went over the back porch railing. He wouldn’t remember the drop to the grass; his wife would have to tell him, later. To him, it seemed he simply appeared in the yard, not sprinting but clawing his way to the pier, the way one moves in dreams, never in time to prevent the worst. Their daughter would do it, he knew: pour herself in with hardly a splash. He’d awakened with the thought.

—

Pelican. Along the length of the pier, they faced one another. Larger than he’d have guessed, almost precisely the size of a toddler. With colorless eyes, it regarded him; briefly, he registered its majesty, stupidity, and contempt. The white wings unfurled. With crabbing steps, it turned, launching from the pier, feet splatting the surface until it lifted into a glide, crossing a hundred yards of river in seconds and swooping up into the oaks on the opposite shore.

—

A story they’d tell: how skittish they were, how ready for disaster to curl back and strike. “Daddy thought you were a bird,” his wife said, lowering the girl to his lap in the cottage kitchen while coffee brewed. Still, he was proud of himself. He thought she was, too. The way she caught his eye, saying this: a test they’d passed, their vigilance affirmed.

—

“Bird!” the girl whispered, secretly, naughtily, to the heat of the afternoon, to the white flocks winging overhead. With her head tipped back in the backyard and her arms thrown wide, spinning circles, she rose to her toes to fly.