The Fishing Pond in the Back Pasture

The Bluegill

The Sunday I will tell you about was the third one in June. It was the prettiest afternoon of the whole summer, warm and still, with the pasture so green it almost hurt to look at.

Steve’s cows were grazing way off at the far fence. Steve had gone up to the house for a nap after dinner, the way he does in June, when there is nothing to do but watch the grass grow.

So it was just me and Ryan and the kids. I had on my old faded denim shirt and jeans. Addie was in a pink T-shirt with her blonde hair in two pigtails I had put in that morning before church.

Beau had on his green T-shirt. He was sitting at the end of the dock with Ryan, who had on his ball cap and a gray T-shirt.

I was on my knees on the dock beside Addie, helping her hold her pole steady. She had been fishing for about an hour without a single bite, and she was getting discouraged.

“Maybe there’s no fish over here,” she said.

“There’s fish,” I said. “They’re just thinking about it. Fish are slow thinkers.”

And right then, the bobber went under. Not a little dip. It went down and stayed down, and the tip of her pole bent toward the water.

“Grandma!” she shrieked. “Grandma, it’s pulling!”

“Reel, honey,” I said. “Slow. Keep the tip up. That’s it. Keep reeling.”

She reeled with her whole body. Her tongue came out the corner of her mouth. I kept my hands around hers, but I did not touch the reel, because I wanted this one to be all hers.

And up out of the water came a bluegill. It was no bigger than my palm. It flashed blue and orange in the sun and flopped on the end of her line like it was mad about something.

Addie held it up as high as she could. She held it up like she had caught a whale. Her pigtails were bouncing, and she was laughing so hard she could barely stand.

“I caught one! Daddy! I caught one!”

“You sure did, Addie girl,” Ryan said from the end of the dock. He was smiling. I had not seen him smile like that in a long time.

I got my phone out of my shirt pocket and took her picture, holding up that little fish with the pond behind her and the whole green pasture going on forever behind that.

I thought my heart would split right open, there on the dock.

That picture is on my refrigerator now. I printed it at the drugstore in town the next morning before my route, and I paid extra for the glossy, and Steve put it up with a magnet shaped like a cow.