Stretches of Spain (Cont.)

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Stretches of Spain (Cont.)

MARGARET AND MARY WERE still singing when I untied the bow line from our beached kayak. Anna had swum across to get it, but I didn't want her to go back to the middle of the river. I told her to stay with her sisters, and then swam out across the current.

After grabbing the snag and working my way around the main log toward Rosalie, I saw something I hadn't noticed from shore: a decomposing goat tangled in the branches. Neither of us mentioned it.

Rosalie held on to the tilting kayak so it wouldn't wash downstream. I leaned over the trunk, the current pushing against my back, and tied my rope to the end of her bow line. Now we had a line long enough to let the kayak go. I leaned farther over the trunk and flipped the line off the tangle of branches, and then I squeezed over next to the dead goat.

On the 28th day, the wide turquoise river, smooth as glass, made a big bend westard and the blue Atlantic opened like a dream

Rosalie said go, and slid the kayak off the trunk as I pushed off, bow line in my hand. I paddled and kicked hard across the 15 feet of strong current, pulling the kayak to shore next to the other one. I hugged Anna, and we turned to watch Rosalie work her way across. While I helped her get her footing on the gravel, dripping, I felt awash in sunshine, in water, and in gratitude.

ON THE 28TH DAY, the wide turquoise river, smooth as glass, made a big bend westward and in the distance lay the port of Sanlœcar de Barrameda. White buildings spread along the south shore. Then, to the north and west, the blue Atlantic opened like a dream.

We were tired, so that's of course when the wind came up and the tide reversed. The last two miles across a broadening bay took an hour and a half and added a little drama to the already dramatic final two days through the estuary and tidelands: flamingos flying low in formation, a footlong fish leaping out of the water and smack into Rosalie's face. Another into Margaret's lap. We'd paddled for hours, it seemed, with a single tree on the horizon the only thing that wasn't liquid or airy blue—no distance or time, just stroke after stroke through a Dali painting.

We landed on a beach crowded with sunbathers, and we jumped into the water to celebrate. The past few days little Mary had been asking so many questions about the ocean and the tide and the river, so many questions that I simply could not answer to her satisfaction, that finally during one particularly grueling moment I had to tell her to stop asking me about that stuff because I'd said every word I knew, in every order I knew how, and still she couldn't get the picture of the river meeting the sea.

So it was with pleasure that I could stand on the beach and point, and say, "What's that way, Mary?"

"The river," she said.

"And that way?"

"The ocean."

For the next week we lay on the beach and camped close by. I kept my body as still as possible, happy not to have to move anymore. We watched big ships pass and little boats bob in the surf. The kids did handstands and searched for shells, and we all floated far out into the water.

Floating to Montana, we said. Then we turned and floated back to Spain.

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