Mary Kathryn

By Beau Johnson

On their last day together, Mary sets off on a short sail in her boat to begin a new chapter in her life. Mary, Leslie, and Glen remember the events over the last four years that have shaped their complex relationship. From a barrier island on the coast of Georgia to the nearby city, they have lived and loved in different ways.
This book contains adult content and is intended for mature audiences.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Beau Johnson
• Release date: Nov 10, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311892317

Beau Johnson

I’m the scion of two old Virginia families, raised in heaping helpings of the old south and moved north to escape. I’ve been a carpenter, clerk, cabinetmaker, Coast Guardsman, architect, commercial pilot, college instructor, and consultant. Next year I plan to decide what I want to do when I grow up.

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Mary Kathyrn

Beau Johnson

Mary Kathryn

By

Beau Johnson

Copyright 2014 Beau Johnson, all rights reserved

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ISBN: 9781311892317

For Katie, who challenged me to write this.

Many thanks to my editor, Holly M. Kothe who suffered through our technology battles and corrections that kept getting uncorrected, politically incorrect names for bags, and my ever changing schizophrenic points of view. You can find her website at www.espressoeditor.com

A special thank you to Michele Ayers for a final check of the format and stubborn typos that remained.

Mary

Mary walked the long dock to the end and boarded the small sloop tied there. She opened the door to the tiny cabin and put her bag, picnic basket, and thermos inside. After removing the sail covers, she looked up at the masthead telltale. The light wind was coming from the Southeast, and she would be able to sail out of the creek, into the small bay, and then into the ocean. She looked at the water going by the hull; the tide was falling just as predicted by the tables. There were only a few high clouds turning pink with the rising sun. It was going to be a glorious day.

Just south of where the small bay opened to the sea, she could see the barrier island that had become a big part of her life here. A private part, one she shared with almost no one, at least not voluntarily. But lately there had been interruptions to her tranquility there.

Mary on the Beach

Hard gray sand, nearly black in the darkness, cooled her back as she lay under the indigo blanket of the sky, watching the final twinkle of the Milky Way. Mary lay on the beach in the dampness just below the high tide line, waiting for the sun. Not so much for warmth—July needed no boost of heat even in the darkest of night before dawn—but for light to search for tracks. She felt the earth and sand tugging, drawing her to this beach in the solitary dawn, day after day, to seek the tracks of turtles in the sand.

A month after spending some nights and weekends in the small village on the island with him, Mary took one of the kayaks and discovered this barrier beach. It was solitary, guarding whatever might exist to the west. At the same time, she discovered the force of the tidal flow that twice a day, in time with the moon, drained and refilled the vast marsh which crept for miles inland. On her third or fourth trip to the island, she couldn’t remember which, she sought the cooling relief of the ocean. Seeing that she was alone in the middle of the day, she removed her shorts and top and left them on the beach. She let the water bathe her completely. Exposing her skin to the salt and sand in the warm water touched her mind with something primeval. This basic contact with epochs  past remained with her when she waded ashore from the water and lay down in the sand to feel the warmth slowly soak into her back.  She didn’t fully lose the feeling until she got back to the kayak to ride the incoming tide back to the village, carefully brushing most of the sand from her body before donning her civilization costume. Ever since then, Mary spent her time on the beach naked, to the delight of the occasional ranger  watching over the turtle nests.

On her first trip to the island, the paddle back had taken her hours and she arrived with aching shoulders. Glen explained charts and tides and currents to her in the evening over cold and umbrella-less rum drinks, and ever after she consulted the current charts and timed her trips with the ebb and flow of the