But a very strange thing just happened. A huge seagull had been flying alongside the ferry ever since we left the dock. The seagull was escorting us, or really, escorting me, flying as fast as it had to, in order to stay right beside me, just beyond the railing. If I moved down the deck, it moved. The morning was damp and misty, unusually cold for June. There were only a few passengers on deck, and they were wearing rain slickers with hoods that hid their faces and screened out this weird … relationship I was having with this bird. It was so close I could have touched it, but I knew I wouldn’t, and the bird knew it, too. I watched it for a few minutes, swooping on the updrafts and circling down again. Then I turned and watched the shoreline disappear, until I could no longer see my dad waving or my dad’s truck. I looked out at the sea, into the chilly wet fog through which I kept trying to glimpse the islands, even though I knew they were too far away. It was just at that moment that the bird turned its head and screamed.
