Nine Straw Hats at the First Port

“Nine,” he said.

“Nine,” I said.

He did not ask. He just took the stack from me and carried it the rest of the way down the pier, holding it out in front of him with both hands so the brims would not crush.

That is my brother.

We came back up the gangway a little after two. The sun was high and hot, and the top deck was quiet, just a few people strolling, because most folks were still ashore.

Vicky was there.

She was alone at the rail on the port side, looking out at the open water on the far side. She had on that turquoise dress she bought for the trip. Her dark hair is cut short, a pixie cut, and the wind could not do a thing with it.

She had not gone ashore. She had not even gone to the pool. Cyrus said later she had been sitting up there since nine o’clock, by herself, watching people come and go on the pier.

She heard us coming and turned around.

She saw the stack of hats in Cyrus’s arms, and her chin came up. She set her shoulders. I knew that look. It was the look of somebody who knows she has it coming and has decided to stand there and take it.

I took the stack from Cyrus. I told the others to go on down and get cleaned up for dinner. Rae gave me one long look and then took Blair and Olivia by the hand and went.

Mom stayed.

“I’m coming with you,” she said.

“Mama, you don’t have to.”

“I know I don’t,” she said.

So it was the three of us. Mom in her coral top in the middle. Me with my honey-brown hair blown every which way, in the white linen blouse I bought at the Belk in Waycross the week before. And Vicky by the rail in her turquoise dress.

I lifted the top hat off the stack and walked over to her.

Vicky looked at Mom, then at me. She smiled, the way you smile when you do not know what else to do.

“What is this,” she said. It was not a question. It sounded like she was bracing for something.

I held the hat out to her.

“This one’s yours,” I said. “You get the first one.”

She put both hands on the brim, but she did not take it from me.

“Why?” she said, and her voice cracked right in two.

I had been trying all morning to find the words. In the end I just said it the plainest way I could.

“Because you never had a mama to give you anything like this,” I said. “And I know you didn’t. You told me once, on Cyrus’s tailgate, and I never forgot it.”