The Jon Boat in My Driveway

She tipped her head toward the back of the shop. “Playing dominoes with the Haskins boys. I don’t sell beer and I never have. He brought his own.” She took a breath.

“I was about to call the sheriff. Kim said wait, you were coming.”

Kim was standing at the water’s edge in her church slacks with her purse still on her arm.

She grabbed my hand when I got there and squeezed it hard, and she did not say anything, which was the kindest thing she could have done.

I called out to Eli. My voice came out higher than I meant it to. “Hey, buddy. Mama’s here.”

He turned around on the seat and his whole face changed. He had been brave for three hours, I found out later, and the second he saw me he was not brave anymore.

His chin went. But he did not stand up, because his uncle had told him not to stand up in the boat, and he was minding.

“Stay sitting down,” I called. “I’m coming to get you. You just stay right there.”

He was not wearing a life jacket. I could see that plain. He had on his blue jacket with the hood, and the little rod across his knees, and his white bucket between his feet.

That was all.

The Water

I did not call Corey. He was asleep with his phone on silent eleven miles away, and he could not have gotten there any faster than I already had.

I did not call the sheriff either. The nearest deputy on a Saturday afternoon was a half hour off, and I was standing right there.

I kicked off my shoes. I left my phone and my keys with Kim. Then I walked out on the gravel bar, and when the gravel ran out, I kept walking.

I want to tell you about the cold of that water, because people who do not live here do not believe it.

The White River below the dams runs out of the bottom of the lakes, and it stays in the fifties all year long. In October, with the sun going down, it felt like it had teeth.

It came up over my knees and then my thighs. By the time I was halfway down the sycamore it was at my waist and pulling at my jeans.

I kept one hand on the trunk the whole way. I am not a strong swimmer, and I knew better than to let go.

Eli was talking the whole time I came. “Mama, I caught one. Mama, I caught a catfish. He’s in my bucket. I kept him alive. Mama, the water’s moving, I didn’t stand up.”

“I know you didn’t, baby,” I said. “You did everything right. Keep sitting.”

The boat was tied off at the very end of the trunk with a yellow nylon rope. Rusty had used a decent knot, I will give him that.

My fingers were so cold by then I could barely work it, and I had to stand there in the current picking at it while my son watched me.

When it came loose, I did not try to get in. A jon boat is flat and steady, but I was soaked and shaking, and I was afraid I would tip it.

I held the bow rope and walked the boat back along the sycamore the way I had come, with Eli sitting in it like a little king on a barge.

Halfway back he said, very quietly, “Are you mad at me?”

I had to stop and hold the trunk for a second. “No, baby. I am not one bit mad at you. You hear me? Not one bit.”

“Uncle Rusty said he’d be right back,” he said. “He said to sit tight and watch my pole.”

“I know,” I said. “You did.”