Page 26 of Every Beautiful Mile

I stay quiet. This man with a wiry beard in overalls at some insane hour of the morning has cracked me open with the wisdom he has in him that he somehow knows I need. I suspect he’s lost someone in his life and sees something familiar in me. A twin flame that burns in a way that only someone with a hole in their heart does. I sit silently, staring into the same darkness as him, knowing he doesn’t need me to say anything.

Marin, Finn, and a few other folks from campers start to join us on the porch, along with cars filling the small lot. My eyebrows raise, and Dickey sees my surprise.

“When der’s a jubilee, friends don’t let friends fish alone.”

He squints as he waves to people he recognizes through the bright headlights.

Regardless of the insane hour, the excitement is palpable in the dark, muggy morning air.

We make our way back down to the bay, Dickey guiding us through everything as dozens of people cover the beach, bright lights shining into the water. This jubilee, it seems, is bringing mostly mullet and blue crabs, but there are some shrimp mixed in as well.

With metal washtubs tied around our waists with a rope that tugs them along the top of the water behind us, we slowly wade out into the bay.

Finn takes right to gigging the mullet with a forked spear. He’s completely in his element with a headlamp, knee deep in the dark water as he effortlessly jabs the fish and then drops them into the bucket that floats behind him.

When Marin screams and runs maniacally from the water more than once—everyone laughs, even Dickey.

I scoop with a net and wade only in the shallowest parts, where I drop blue crabs into my own washtub tethered to my body.

Sometime around 5AM, someone brings out the ingredients for a Bloody Mary bar and invites everyone in earshot to make one. While vodka before daybreak isn’t usually my norm, neither is wading in water with a bucket of crabs tied to me, so I have one for the sake of authenticity.

Then I have one more, just because.

The locals swear by their homemade mix of homegrown horseradish and a secret variety of hot peppers. We all raise a glass and laugh as they share stories of jubilees gone by. Even Dickey has one as he sits in a chair on the shore, coaching Finn and Marin as they wade around the water.

Eventually, the tide changes. The fish start heading back out to the deeper parts of the bay and our focus shifts from catching to cleaning. The sun barely peaks over the horizon but brings enough light to show the happy faces of strangers down the beach as they look in buckets and coolers.

“I woke up too damn early not to have blue crab for breakfast!” a man yells down the shore. Everyone cheers in agreement.

Portable gas burners fire up, and the smell of fresh seafood cooking wafts in every direction at the same time the sun fully pops up into the sky.

Emotions swirl in my chest as I try to process the beauty of what we’ve just experienced. A local tradition most people won’t encounter in a lifetime, yet here we are, with washtubs and bellies full of the freshest seafood I’ve ever had.

After nearly a year and a half of living my days trapped in a rerun of memories, this is my first best new one.

I don’t look for Travis—I don’t say his name once—but I can’t help but think about how much he would have loved this kind of crazy. He would have been right beside Finn, gigging mullet, making obnoxious sound effects, and mocking the fish as he tossed them in his bucket.

He would have waded beside Marin and me, plucking blue crabs out of nets, making jokes about having crabs that I would have rolled my eyes at but secretly loved.

Dickey would have somehow told him every secret from the east coast of Mobile Bay.

“Well, Nel,” he would have said, “Guess if all it takes to get you out fishing at two in the morning is a Bloody Mary, we’re going to have to get their recipe.”

The idea of it all makes me smile, but even more, it doesn’t make me cry. I figure sometimes, that’s what life after him will be—celebrating the moments I somehow stay intact.

By lunch, I’m tired, stuffed, and riding a Bloody Mary buzz so fierce, I wonder if the real secret ingredient was simply extra vodka.

We give Dickey a group hug, and his kind old face fills with happiness as we smother him in a tangle of arms.

“Ol’ Dickey nevah had a hug like dat before,” he says with a grin.

The next morning, we are up early once again to hit the road, all wearing t-shirts that say Jubilee with Me above a picture of a dancing mullet.

***

Somewhere east of Houston, I drop in a camp chair and call my dad to make sure the bar is still standing. His “Ye have little faith!” is followed by, “What have you found out about the local ingredients from the man in Maine?” which makes my eyes roll. Instead of crawling into bed and sleeping for a month like I want to, when we get off the phone, I scroll my inbox—finding the latest email from Ethan sitting unread.

Penelope,

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