Free Swimming Lessons by Mary Alice Monroe Page A

the shrimp boat, surprised by how high off the dock it rose. The deck of the Miss Peggy stretched long before her. At first, it was confusing, there was so much going on. There were winches, chains, cables and ropes. Nets hung full from the riggers.
    The wiry man she’d seen before stood at the nets and was busy cleaning out the small fish and crabs. He turned his head when she passed and asked in a gravely voice, “You here for the turtle?”
    “I am. Or,” she nodded toward Ethan, “we are.”
    “Come and git her, then. She ain’t lookin’ so good. Don’t wanna be blamed for killin’ no endangered turtle.”
    “Where is she?”
    He pointed a heavily tattooed arm toward the rear of the deck. Bigger led them there and lifted a canvas tarp. Under it, a juvenile loggerhead lay motionless.
    Toy hitched her breath, stunned at the serious crack that ran across the length of its shell. All business now, she swung her backpack off her shoulders and knelt beside it. The good news was the turtle was alive. The bad news was the gorgeous reddish brown shell was split near in two.
    “That’s a nasty crack,” she said in a flat tone.
    “Propeller slash?” Ethan asked.
    Toy measured the shell at three feet, noted it and a few other observations, then rose. “That’s no propeller slash.” She turned to Bigger. “What happened?”
    Bigger cast a wary glance at his daughter. “We werepulling in the big nets, same as we always do. Damned if this turtle didn’t fall right out of the net.”
    “You dropped the turtle?” Toy asked, shocked.
    “Hell, no. I didn’t drop it. It fell.”
    “Daddy, you would never hurt a sea turtle, would you?” Lily asked.
    Bigger’s face flushed and he shuffled his white boots. “No, I wouldn’t. You know I wouldn’t hurt no turtle. But folks like you,” he said to Toy “just can’t believe we care.”
    Toy felt tongue-tied.
    “She’s not saying that,” Ethan interjected.
    Bigger shook his head. “I got a turtle shooter on every net. But hey, it happened. And here she is. I could’ve just chucked her back in the sea. That’s what some others might’ve done. But I brought her in. I called Ethan, didn’t I?”
    Ethan slapped Bigger’s back. “You sure did. And I thank you for it. You did the right thing. We appreciate it. Don’t we Toy?”
    “Yes. Absolutely,” she blurted out. “Thank you, Bigger. This turtle owes you its life. Any time you see a sick turtle out there, we’ll come out here to fetch it and thank you each time.”
    Mollified, Bigger hoisted his son higher in his arms and smiled at his daughter. “Go get your pictures for your project. These folks have to move the turtle and I’ve got work to do. We’re wasting daylight.”
    It was no easy task to maneuver the injured sea turtle from the shrimp boat into the crate in the back of the truck. With every move, Toy worried more damage would be done to the badly cracked shell. Ethan’s family went out of their way to help in any way they could, and beforeleaving, Bigger had promised her a ride on The Miss Peggy, and Lily was beaming that Toy had named the sea turtle Cherry Point.
    On the way back to the Aquarium, Ethan was quiet, seemingly lost in his own thoughts. Toy wondered about the family man that she’d seen at Cherry Point, a man in sharp contrast to the loner. With his family, Ethan had opened a window to himself she’d never seen at the Aquarium. There, Ethan seemed as mysterious as the twelve foot shark he swam with every day in the Great Ocean tank.
    Toy cast a slanted glance at Ethan, eager to learn more about him before he shut the window completely.
    “Your family seems very nice.”
    He nodded, eyes on the road. “They’re good people.”
    “It sounds like you haven’t been home in a while?”
    “Never often enough to suit my mom.”
    “But you’re a genuine local.”
    “Yep. Born and raised. You can’t go anywhere near Wadmalaw without bumping into a Legare. The whole of Johns