day.
“Wanted to take you to a spot that Slater and I marked on the way up. Not many have ever seen it,” Dillon shouts over the roar of the engine.
Dillon slows the boat, the front lowers to run parallel with the surface. In front of us is a sandbar with something on it. As we get closer I can see birds. Tons of seagulls and some of them are standing on something. “Why is there a piano out here?” I ask Dillon.
“This is Disappearing Island. People come out here to party. Something about the waters here is special and my guess is that someone thought this would be a great place for music.” He shrugs his shoulders. “Seen weirder.”
Slater and Dillon then begin moving around the boat, dropping an anchor and preparing to stop.
“Thought that you would want to have a swim in magic waters.” Dillon opens the back of the boat and Deogi leaves my side to stand at the edge. After receiving permission he jumps in. With less grace I follow. Dillon doesn’t rush into the water this time, instead he waits before jumping in.
Slater shouts from the boat, “No racing fish. And Dillon, remember she’s fast.”
Swimming towards the island is a new experience. No coral beneath and schools of almost clear fish inhabiting this little sanctuary. Dillon trails me, staying close, not giving me a chance to make a run for it.
The birds scatter as we approach their island. The base of the piano has sunken into the island, while the formerly black top is blanketed white in seagull poo. For a magical place this island stinks.
“We have company.” Dillon points to the far side of the island at a pod of dolphins. A familiar notched fin swims with them. From our side we watch as the group rounds the corner of the island and moves between us and the boat. Sam stays in the water, no backward flips today. “Can you see the dolphin in the middle?” Dillon asks. Sam is the largest dolphin in the group and right next to him is another smaller dolphin moving slower. “They know this place is special.”
Swimming in a large circle the dolphins keep themselves between us and the dolphin in the middle. As they pass I try to count. At least twenty traveling together, all females except for Sam and some juvenile males that are no match for Sam’s size.
As they twirl, the dolphin in the center begins to dive down to the sandy bottom. Her tail slapping and stirring up clouds of seashell dust in the water.
“Do they do this often?” I ask.
“Never seen it before,” Dillon replies while pulling out his phone to record.
As the dolphin climbs for each breath Sam matches her strokes so that they rise and fall together. Something is wrong with this dolphin. An injury or something attached to her tail, the blemish noticeable when she gets closer to the surface. With another swoosh of her tail a smaller tail begins to emerge from the dolphin’s body, I recognize now that there is nothing wrong with her, just a baby trying to get out. Sam and the expectant mother continue their ballet in the water. With each repeat, more and more of the baby emerges. Minutes pass as we sit and watch. Then with a hard thrust of the mother’s tail and rush of excitement the newborn separates and starts her new life. Her mom explodes into action keeping herself below the newborn and helping it with its first breath of air at the surface.
From the boat I hear shouts as Nick and Slater celebrate the birth. When Dillon turns at the sound of the celebration I notice a tear forming at the corner of his eye. I don’t comment, not wanting to interrupt his appreciation, and together we continue to watch in silence.
Day 5 - Wednesday Night
During my afternoon of playing with Oscar, we spent our entire time tossing a beach ball. Wherever I tossed it in the pool he knocks it out right at me, but I kept missing and I have to stop. My arms are sore and my forehead hurts, tonight would be the perfect night to just curl up in bed at the hotel.
But no rest tonight and no ride on the Fish ‘n Ship, because tonight is the bar-b-que when family and friends come by the Island Dolphin Care for a sunset feast. There isn’t a direct view of the sun but the sky blushes pink and the burning tiki torches announce that we are not in Oklahoma.
Dillon, Slater and Nick arrive with my mom. They form my entourage. While Nick and Mom hang out with the old people, I get to introduce Oscar to Slater and Dillon. A trainer that I recognize, but don’t know, supervises our visit. She keeps staring at Dillon, asking him if he has any questions – giving him way too much attention.
Oscar already has three beach balls floating in his enclosure from other kids showing him off. While the trainer talks to Dillon, I toss Oscar some fish and let him do whatever he wants. Not going to make him work at a party. While getting the lid back on the barrel a fish slips out of my hand. The trainer notices the fish sliding over the pool deck and without looking at me, gives the fish a nudge with her foot to continue its slide the rest of the way to the pool.
Oscar, waiting and watching, snags the fish before it falls off the edge into the water. Dillon leans down and starts petting Oscar while Slater stays away from the pool. Although he’s a dolphin, Oscar acts just like Deogi, Thor or any other dog. He just happens to be a better swimmer.
“So they really let you play with dolphins here?” Dillon asks me, looking around the trainer.
“Part of it. Spend most of my time in their classes learning about the ocean, but this is the best part.”
Slater keeps looking at the canal and the low walls around Oscar’s pool, “Seems small. Doesn’t seem right.” Slater paces the edge of the deck by Oscar’s enclosure counting his footsteps. “Too small.”
I’ve spent three days here. Never thinking about Oscar as being captured. Treating him like a dog, a pet, not like a caged wild animal. Oscar repeats a set of clicks and whistles that he first said to me on the first day. Play? I know it means, “play”, he’s telling me that he wants to play. So is he happy here playing with beach balls, or does he want out, playing in the ocean? I roll back and throw a ball to Oscar.
“Kara, are you okay?” The voice sounds like Dillon, muffled, but I can’t see him. The wheelchair rolls off the deck, everything shifts, I feel myself sliding out. My head hits something and there is pain across my chest, inside me everything burns, and then it goes dark.
Day 6 – Thursday Morning
I wake up in a room, I immediately recognize it as a hospital room. They have tubes running into my arms providing me with fluids and extra oxygen running to my nose. Sunlight pours into the room but from this angle I can’t see out the window. I could be back in Oklahoma.
“What happened?”
“You fainted.”
“I want to go back.”
“We’re waiting until they discharge you. A doctor is scheduled to drop by this morning. They won’t let you go until a doctor signs off.”
I pulled the covers up, the sheets feel rough against my skin, little comfort to the cold around me. Something about hospitals, I need water, something to wash out this taste in my mouth.
It’s then that I know what is going to happen. I start to get out of the bed, but I’m tied to an IV drip. As I’m trying to figure out how to disconnect, or get the pole and me into the bathroom, the nausea increases. My mom jumps away faster than I’ve ever seen her move before, but she doesn’t escape the spray of vomit. My hospital gown, the sheets and floor below me are covered in dark green lumpy ooze that has also struck the bottom of mom’s pants and her shoes.
“Nurse,” Mom yells while searching the bed for a call button.
I collapse back on the bed, everything aches but I feel better. Nothing to do in here that I can’t do back home, this isn’t on my wish list. Lying in a hospital, surrounded by vomit, definitely not a top-ten vacation day.
After being here for hours with nobody really doing anything to me, they let me out of the hospital. The doctor says that I have the flu, nothing meriting taking up a bed. Wants me to rest for the next couple of days. No swimming with dolphins, just resting my body.
Outside the air feels dry. “Where are we?”
&n
bsp; “Homestead, nearest major hospital for your condition.”
“We’re not in the Keys?”
“Close, but back on the mainland.”
Nick pulls up in his van. If anybody deserves a medal for this vacation it’s Nick. We have him driving us up and down the Keys, and now he’s here.
“How are you doing Kara?”
“I’ll be all right,” I say, but I know I won’t. Everyday on this vacation it’s worse; I’m a step closer to the disease winning. Whatever happened it wasn’t the flu. I know my body. Everything has been inching me closer.
Day 6 – Thursday Night
I can smell the ocean as I exit the van at the hotel. The doctor’s prescription is rest, so I’m to go straight to bed. I’ll spend my final day tomorrow at dolphin camp watching the other kids playing with the dolphins. Nick walks up to the room with me. Mom says that she is hungry, didn’t eat anything while I was in the hospital, and leaves us to pick up some food from the downstairs restaurant. She offers to bring back something to our hotel room, but I’m not hungry. I’m on a toast and bland food diet while my stomach recovers.
In the room Nick unlocks the sliding glass door, opening up the balcony while the sun begins to set. It’s a real balcony with enough room for me to roll out and Nick follows.
“I always enjoy sunsets in the Keys. Some of the best,” he announces as he sits in one of the chairs.
“There are better?”
“I’ve