Nine Straw Hats at the First Port

The next morning we docked at Prince George Wharf in Nassau. The sun came up hot and white over the water, and the harbor was the clearest blue I have ever seen in my life.

Cyrus met us at the top of the gangway. He had on a ball cap and a fishing shirt, and he looked like he had not slept.

“Vicky’s staying aboard,” he said. “She said to tell y’all to go on and have a good day.”

“Is she all right?” Mom asked.

“She’s ashamed,” Cyrus said. “She ought to be.”

Mom did not say anything to that. She just squeezed his arm.

Olivia was standing behind her daddy with her hands in her pockets. Her eyes were red. I could tell she did not know whether to go ashore or stay with her mother.

“Come on, baby,” Mom said, and held out her hand. “You come with Grandma.”

Olivia came.

We all walked down the long pier together in the sun. Twelve of us, minus one. The men went ahead to find the boat for the afternoon snorkel trip Denny had booked.

The straw vendors are right there where the cruise passengers come off, in the open air under awnings, with tables and racks of bags and baskets and hats as far as you can see.

The smell hit me first. Dried straw in the sun, like a hayloft in August. I grew up in a hayloft. I nearly cried right there on the pier.

Mom walked slower and slower. She was looking at every stall.

“It was right about here,” she said. “Your daddy stood right about here.”

“Do you remember the lady?” Rae asked her.

“She had a gold tooth,” Mom said, and laughed. “And she called him sugar. He liked that. He talked her down from seven dollars to four, and then he felt so bad he gave her the other three anyway.”

Rae laughed so hard she had to stop walking.

That was the first time Mom had laughed since the river.

There was a stall near the end with more hats than any other. It was run by a tall woman about Mom’s age in a yellow dress, with reading glasses on a beaded chain. She introduced herself as Miss Viola.

She had a stack of wide straw brims on her table nearly as tall as my shoulder. They were the same shape as Mom’s hat. The same honey color, the same tight weave.

I picked one up and turned it over. It was good work. Tight, even, a clean edge on the brim, and a little cotton band sewn inside to keep it off your forehead.

“Twenty-five dollars,” Miss Viola said.

I have been haggling with seed salesmen and implement reps for nineteen years. I knew a starting price when I heard one.

“I need nine,” I said.