Free Water Dogs by Lewis Robinson

him, and the family watched her click across the pavement in the direction of the ocean, then bound through the brush to the rocks. They got out and followed her. Catching that first look at the huge view of ocean, Bennie felt heroic, a ship captain exploring new territory, but quickly enough he looked down at all the brittle, wind-beaten brush, like the frayed ends of nylon rope, and the endless shale, common in their part of the state, rocks that looked bored by the repetition of it all. He kept a tennis ball in the pocket of his coat to throw for Nixon.
    Already Gwen was pointing to spots along the water’s edge in the distance and asking, “Is that one?”
    Coach squinted and said, “Nope.”
    They were looking for light blue herons, a rare bird—though Coach claimed to have seen one on several occasions. He said they were smaller than great blue herons, bulkier and craftier, better fishermen. Gwen didn’t know what they looked like, but she was vigilant whenever they went to Cape Fred—even in wintertime, when she knew they wouldn’t be there and looked for them only out of habit. In private Littlefield told Gwen and Bennie that he suspected Coach was bullshitting them, that there was no such bird.
    Eleanor kept her arms folded on her chest and her knitted purple hat pulled down just above her eyes. She was still annoyed by the conversation in the car. On most of these excursions to Cape Fred she brought her bulky black camera, which hung around her neck. She almost never took pictures.
    Bennie had always wanted to shadow his mother at the hospitalwhen she went in to do her rounds, but she claimed it wouldn’t be appropriate. He found ways to be privy to her work by other means. If one of them got hurt at home, she would patch them up; she sewed stitches in Littlefield’s knee once, and she always knew which injuries were serious and which were not. She was a therapist and a school counselor, but she’d gone to medical school. She hadn’t gotten her medical degree, not quite—instead of a psychiatry residency, she got a social work degree. Whenever Bennie was in town with his mother and they’d cross paths with someone she wouldn’t introduce to him, he knew the person was a regular client, or someone she’d treated in the hospital. This was an unmistakable tipoff; she was too polite to forgo introductions. When she wasn’t counseling at Musquacook Academy she worked on the psychiatric wing at the hospital, and most of these patients looked like normal people, but occasionally Bennie and she would come across someone with sharp, clear eyes who would mutter a few words about the leaves in their yard, and Bennie would be electrified by what was being hidden from him.
    Coach looked out at the water and said, “Now,
that
is one hell of an ocean.” Eleanor exhaled. Then she said, “It’s too cold today.” Bennie was throwing the ball for Nixon but the others were just standing and staring at the water, like hunters waiting for a moose to rise from the bog.
    This memory came back to Bennie so often in dreams that it arrived in a kind of shorthand: his mother’s weary expression, Gwen’s pink wrists sticking out from the cuffs of her jacket, Coach and Littlefield standing side by side in their spectator parkas (the kind that covers your ass and encourages you to stuff your hands in the front pockets).
    There were thin wisps of sea smoke on the water and a layer of mist just above the dark blue expanse, but otherwise the view was as sharp as it usually was in winter—no islands on the horizon. Cape Frederick curled out to the south, and though its tip was five miles away, Bennie could see snow on the rocks there, and the crisp outline of trees. Otherwise, water dominated the view—a dark blue blanket, nearly black.
    They all called Nixon a “prize dog,” their euphemism for a dog blessed with enthusiasm but lacking intelligence. Coach had gone north to buy her from a breeder in Millinocket who