Every Pontoon on the Cove Flew One

The Fourth

It was a hot, clear morning, the kind where the lake goes flat as a skillet before the boats churn it up.

By eight thirty the pontoons were coming out of every slip on the cove and idling toward the mouth, and every one of them had a flag clamped to the back rail.

I had not thought about how it would look. I had only thought about the flags one at a time, each one in a hand on a dock.

I had not pictured thirty-four of them together on the water, all moving at once, all catching the same little wind off the main channel.

People on the docks came out to see. Folks I did not know drove down from the ridge road and stood on the rocks.

Mr. Kessler sat in a lawn chair at the end of his dock with a blanket on his knees in July, and his grandson took his pontoon out with the flag snapping on the back, just like he promised.

Willa had done her bunting again, but only on her own boat this year, and she had asked everyone else to decorate however they liked.

The line was a mess of color: crepe paper, pool noodles, a blow up eagle on the Blue Springs couple’s boat, a girl’s swim team banner.

It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen on that water.

I wore my white sundress again, and my coral cardigan over it for the morning chill on the water. Evan had clamped Brady’s flag to my back rail himself before we left the dock, checking the mount twice and then a third time, saying nothing.

The new hem stood out sharp and straight in the breeze.

Drew rode with Willa. He stood at her front gate in his life jacket with the horn cord in his hand. Carter had let him have the horn again.

Willa kept one hand on his shoulder the whole time we idled, and every so often she leaned down and said something to him, and he nodded.

At nine sharp the horn went off at the point, and Willa looked across at me from her helm, and I nodded, and we pushed our throttles up together, two boats side by side, slow, out the mouth of the cove with thirty-two more strung out behind us.

The Point

When we came around the point, the people on the rocks there started clapping. I did not expect that either.

I had my eyes on Willa’s boat to keep us even, and when I looked up there were maybe a hundred people on the rocks and the docks, clapping and whistling, and a man in a VFW cap standing with his hand over his heart.

Evan was on his own dock with his binoculars. As we passed, he set the binoculars down on the rail and stood up straight in that way Navy men never lose, and he saluted.

Not at me. At the flag on the back of my boat. He held it until we were past.

I looked over at Willa’s boat. Drew was waving at his grandpa with both arms. Willa was not waving.

She was standing at her helm with her hand over her heart, looking at Evan, and her face was wet, and she did not wipe it.

The lake paper’s photographer was on the point again. This time the picture they ran was not a wide shot. It was close, two pontoons side by side at the front, a woman at each helm, a boy at a front gate with his arm up, and behind them a long line of flags going all the way back around the bend.

There was no gap in it anywhere. Somebody cut that one out too and put it on the bulletin board at the bait shop by the bridge.

I did not ask them to take that one down.