May 25, 2024

Secret Messages

I woke up on Saturday morning lying next to my best friend. I couldn’t believe she was back home for good. We enjoyed a cup of coffee sitting together on the couch. After feeding the dogs, my wife prepared oatmeal, but later threw it away, opting for a bowl of cereal instead. I sat at the breakfast table with her, sipping on a second cup of coffee.

After we completed our morning chores, my wife changed clothes and got ready to go shopping for groceries. This was something that she looked forward to because it brought a sense of normalcy to everyday living. She was happy at the thought of being home and being able to cook, eat, and sleep in her own place. Life in hotels and Airbnbs was not for her.

A few minutes after my wife left, I changed clothes and then went to the shed where I dug out twenty fat earthworms from my bins. Spring was here, and the bins were crawling with fishing bait. I made the drive to the Buckhorn Reservoir, excited to be outdoors. I had vivid memories of fishing at the reservoir while my wife was out shopping. This was a routine we started before her schooling began.

At the entrance to the lake, there was a small pond on the east side of the road. This morning, green algae completely covered the pond’s surface. It was kind of cool and disgusting all at the same time. I made a loop around the lot while I found a parking space. My favorite fishing spot was open, and there were only a few people out.

The weather was perfect. There was a consistent breeze coming off the water, and the air felt balmy. The sky was bright, but it wasn’t overpoweringly hot like it was during the summer. It was a great day to be on the water.

While walking out on the pier, I saw a large boat. The man in the boat told me that his carburetor had failed while he and his friend were out and they had made it back using only his small trolling motor. It took him two hours to get back to the boat ramp, but he made it. I told him it sounded like he had some bad luck and some good luck, and that it had all evened out. He nodded in agreement, wishing me good luck with my fishing as he loaded the boat onto his trailer.

A little later, a family with two children started fishing next to me. The father was being a little curt with his wife and kids, ordering everyone around. After I reeled in my sixth fish, he approached me to ask about my fishing rig.

The man was from Delaware, and he was visiting his relatives in Bailey. He told me he had been watching videos on rigging fishing lines because he was trying to learn how to fish, showing me his Carolina and Texas rigs. He was using a bobber, which allowed him to see if the line was being bitten.

It was only a few years ago that I was on this same pier, fishing those same rigs and not catching anything. I explained to the man how, in spring, the fish were closer to the bottom of the reservoir and that the bobber held his bait too high. I showed him a rig I learned by trial and error, which held two small crimp on weights on the bottom, with a hook above it. This allowed me to keep a taught line which would hold my bait about a foot and a half off the lake’s bottom.

The man listened intently, and I unclipped one of my rigs and tied it onto the end of his line. Then I went back to catching fish while he reeled in some of his own. I wasn’t sure if my helpfulness made a difference, but I heard him mimicking my milder tone to his family, suddenly being more helpful and less rigid. That made me happy.

As time went on, the sun came out and the breeze disappeared. The one bad thing about fishing on a pier was that there was no shade. I was overheating, and I felt the back of my ears getting sunburned. My wife texted me she was on her way home and I figured it was a good time to go back to the house, drink some water, and cool off. The morning netted me about nine smallmouth bass and six bream. We all made it back to our respective homes safely.

I helped my wife unload an SUV full of groceries and assorted items. The girl had done some serious shopping. After we put everything away, a refrigerator full of food fascinated me. We had new cushions for the garden furniture, a new holder for the Nespresso coffee capsules, and my wife even bought a kite because she had never flown one.

When my wife was gone for extended periods, my brain switched into solitary mode. When she came home, in some weird way, it always felt like I was meeting her again for the first time. I was a little shy toward her and I had this feeling of finding a really pretty woman in my presence and a desire to talk to her and get to know her. I tried to explain this to my wife, and she just laughed, pulled me close, and gave me a big long kiss, the kind that wasn’t a first kiss at all.

After I dozed off on the couch, my wife and I had a coffee and snack together. We made another trash run and then drove into Bailey to pick up some chicken from the Piggly Wiggly. I also grabbed a bag of bacon jerky. When we got back home, my wife put out the new cushions in the garden while I rinsed off the fishing grime in a hot shower.

Even though it began raining, we still grilled the chicken that my wife used to make an amazing salad. She made the best ranch dressing that I had ever tasted in my life. After we had eaten, the rain slowed, so I wiped off the chairs and built a fire in the pit. We sat outside talking, laughing, hanging out with the dogs, and watching the sunset.

Once the sky went dark, we stared off into the distance, watching the fireflies. Tonight, certain fireflies would double blink at each other. As we sat there, mesmerized by nature, secret messages pulsed across the sky.