You drop the kids off at summer camp, kiss the tops of heads, the swirly place where the hair circles up on the crown of the head and softens. You slip a surprise into their school bags when they aren’t looking. A trinket to remind them of you when you’re out of sight: Mama. You head up Route 40, away from the city, and put the windows all the way down. You wait for the scent of the wind to change, for the buildings on the side of the road to change over from auto repair shops and snowball stands to crab shacks and tackle shops. You turn down the streets named for estuaries, and you inhale. You park your car at the boat yard, forget to lock the door. You wave to the dock hand and nod at the boat owners as you pass their vessels. Good morning. Good morning. You let your feet find the dock boards, weathered and splintering and slightly wobbly and you walk the length of the planks. You turn right, find your father at the fourth slip down, unzipping the canopy of his boat, motor already warming up. You toss your towel on the back of the captain’s mate’s chair, and you help him with the lines. He takes the wheel, and you sit at the stern, kick your sandals off. You watch the dock slip away from you, and the marina, and the shoreline. You watch the boat’s wake slowly churn up the brackish water until you pass that buoy at the edge of the bay. You pick up speed. You watch as the blue-gray water and the blue-gray sky melt into each other. You close your eyes.
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Annie Marhefka is a writer in Baltimore, Maryland, whose writing has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. She is the Executive Director at Yellow Arrow Publishing, a Baltimore-based nonprofit empowering women-identifying writers. She has a B.A. in creative writing from Washington College and an MBA.