By Land, By Sea by Kathleen Gerard

My sister was coming off a very tumultuous love affair, and I was coming off anesthesia from surgery. Both of our stories were long and complicated. Hers started with a married man; mine, with cancer. Other than both our lives seeming to be in limbo, the only things we really had in common were that we shared the same heritage, and we were fast approaching middle-age.

“Now that you’re out of the woods, come to Florida,” my sister suggested, knowing I adored where she lived, her condo in Palm Beach. “I’ve always wanted to visit The Keys. Let’s go together.”

Before I could answer, she upped the ante with, “I understand there’s a Dolphin Research Center in Grassy Key. If you take a class, you can swim with dolphins they’ve rescued from the wild.”

“My passion only grew stronger with age”.

She didn’t need to say another word. Even though I was on a pauper’s budget, it was settled. I’d sell my gold jewelry, the fillings in my teeth; I’d take a second job if I had to. Since I was a kid, I’d loved the water and all things therein – from swimming to fish tanks to rabbit-ear adjustments whenever a Jacques Cousteau special aired on TV. My passion only grew stronger with age. Normally, I was cautious and frugal, but the precarious state of my body and spirit since my cancer surgery – and the on-going treatment – made my decision effortless. An opportunity like this might never pass this way again.

That left my sister and me to set off together a few weeks later. It was all arranged. We’d spend time exploring the tiny chain of islands that made up The Florida Keys, and on the way back to her place in Palm Beach, I’d take that class and have my dolphin encounter. The prospect was exciting and exhilarating, but as my sister’s car glided across the hundred miles of causeways and bridges that loomed over crystal blue seas, my belly roiled with anxiety. The reality of our road trip made me second guess if I really had the nerve to splash around with wild creatures with 250 teeth and weighing upwards of 600 pounds. To dream of swimming with dolphins is one thing, but having one actually surface alongside of you from the depths was another. And I also wondered if I’d have the wherewithal to spend an entire week with my big sister – a woman whom I’d loved and shared my childhood, but also a woman who lived her adult life in a completely opposing plane to the way I lived mine. Both loomed as ominous challenges.

The minute we pulled up to our ocean-front resort and my sister handed the car key to the valet, I learned that her idea of a vacation was to lazy poolside at the Tiki bar – her skin glistening beneath the sun in varying degrees of S.P.F. I favored the grit of the ocean and sipping lemonade beneath the shade of a palm tree.

Compromise – I learned it quickly. While I visited Ernest Hemingway’s house, my sister indulged in a facial and a massage. I feasted on take-out Key Lime Pie, while she indulged in cracked conch served on a china plate. The only things we really shared were the bathroom and the bill for an over-priced hotel that claimed sunset views. The term became something of an oxymoron – at least from our room – as our view was blocked by a multi-storied cruise ship docked in port directly outside our balcony. I looked forward to our taking in the sunset in Mallory Square instead, but asking my sister to watch a mango-colored sun slip into the horizon was like forcing her to sit through a double-feature, foreign film. It took some cajoling, but we joined the crowd gathered at the dock, facing west. I took aim with my camera at the colorful, local fare that consisted of fire eaters and jugglers and folks walking tight-ropes. But by the time showers of applause rained out to celebrate the end of another day, I realized my sister was gone. When I heard the sound of Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville spilling out into the square, I turned and spied her. Dressed to the nines, my sister, and her amply-endowed cleavage, were perched atop a bar stool. She tossed back her hair amid a flock of attentive, admiring men sporting wild, tropical-colored shirts.

Our two, rather separate vacations co-existed until our last day in Key West. I’d made my appointment for the dolphin encounter weeks before we left on our trip. But on the big morning, it proved nearly impossible to rouse my sister from her post happy-hour sleep.

“You’re not really serious about all this dolphin stuff, are you?” she groused, not lifting her head from the pillow.

“Of course, I am.”

She buffeted the bed sheet up to her chin. “You really want to willingly put your life in jeopardy all over again?”

Was my sister being lazy and hung-over, or was she the voice of reason? 250 teeth, 600 pounds . . . I swallowed a brick of fear and finally told her, “My mind’s made up. Are you coming or not?”

While I packed our things, my sister offered to gas up the car for our ride to the dolphin rescue center. But when her trip to the filling station turned epic, I grew concerned.

I finally found her pacing the hotel parking lot. The hood of her car was flung open and two men were fiddling with the engine. At the sight of me, my sister threw up her arms. She screamed, her voice cracking with, “Trixie’s dead!”

“She screamed, her voice cracking with, “Trixie’s dead!”

I didn’t know who Trixie was anymore than I knew what to say or do for my sister. “I’m sorry,” I said, offering my condolences.

“Don’t be sorry for me. If it’s Trixie’s alternator, then you can kiss your dolphin encounter goodbye.”

Epiphany washed over me. I had forgotten my sister’s habit of always naming her cars – Trixie was a perfect name for her sporty, red Toyota Matrix. And when I glanced at my watch, time was slipping away. One part of me felt anchored with disappointment that I probably wouldn’t make my dolphin encounter, while another felt unmoored with relief. Swimming with dolphins? Who are you kidding? You’ve never really been the thrill-seeking type.

Trixie was jump-started—again and again. On the umpteenth time, the mechanics swung their heads low. But my sister shook her fists and laced into them with, “C’mon, keep trying. You can’t quit. We have to be somewhere.”

My sister was making such a scene that folks loitering outside the hotel stopped and stared. I finally grabbed her by the shoulders and through clenched teeth said, “If we get there, we get there. If we don’t, we don’t. It’s not cancer.”

“I wish I could be as brave as you.”

Her eyes suddenly spewed tears. “That’s all the more reason why I really want this for you,” she cried. “I wish I could be as brave as you.”

My sister’s sudden outpouring caught me completely off-guard. Throughout my illness, she had offered companionship, but when it came to the details of her life and mine, we spoke in circles around the facts. I guess it was the safest means of our dealing with ugly, painful truths. Overwhelmed by what her feelings revealed to me, I threw my arms around her. Inhaling her hairspray and perfume, the air between us suddenly ripened with understanding. That’s when Trixie spit. She roared and purred. With her resurrection, we hopped inside and set off, high-tailing it all the way to the dolphin rescue center.

When I finally slid into the lagoon hours later, my teeth chattered and my body shivered with anticipation. But when the gray face of my dolphin emerged beside me and greeted me with a series of clicking sounds that seemed to signal hello, my heart swelled with awe and joy. A sleek beautiful creature named Calusa loomed deep below, then leapt high above me. With perfect trust, we splashed and played until I completely lost sight of those 250 teeth and 600 pounds. It wasn’t until my fingers latched on to her sandpaper-like dorsal fin and a rushing sweep of water hauled me swiftly away from the shoreline, that I caught a glimpse of my sister. She was standing on the dock – waving her arms, rooting me on. Both of us giddy with excitement, I realized that even though she was on land and I was at sea, together, we were dreaming our own versions of the same dream.

Kathleen Gerard’s fiction and nonfiction have been widely-anthologized and published in literary journals such as Calyx, Writers’ Forum (University of Colorado), The Crescent Review, Primo, Christianity and the Arts, Italian Americana (University of Providence-RI) and Storyteller magazine. Her writing was awarded The Perillo Prize for Italian American Literature and nominated for Best New American Voices, a national prize in literature. In edition, several of her essays have been broadcast on National Public Radio (NPR). She is currently at work on a novel.