Maybe it was the howl of a dog. Maybe she was hungry. Whatever it was, she couldn’t go back to sleep, hot, and awake. The full moon spread across the curtainless room. She got up, careful not to wake her husband. She looked back at him, his arms and legs tangled in the covers, his face softened in deep sleep. She longed to understand him, to be what he needed her to be—not constantly somewhere else in her thoughts. She brushed the back of her hand across his cheek and imagined what it would be like to not worry, to dream ordinary dreams—dreams of home and children, the excitement of holidays and the contentment of everyday routines.

She weaved between the moving boxes and crumpled newspapers of their new home. She opened the refrigerator door. The dull light washed the room as she crunched on the orange duck from an open Chinese take-out box; rolled the leg over and over to savor its sweet meat. The bone snapped between her teeth with a final crunch. She slipped out the back door, satisfied, wiping greasy fingers the hem of her gown.

The moon called and she lifted her head, searched between the smatterings of leaves and smiled at the fat globe with its craters as it broke free of clouds and illuminated the night. Her feet seemed to glide over the soft Florida sand that lined the riverbank of her backyard and gave way to massive water oaks that forced themselves to the sky draped in moss that dripped like stalactites from a cavernous dome.

“I’m home,” she whispered, and breathed in the warm air tinged with salt and sulphur

She stood at the edge; her toes free of earth and took in the expanse of the river as it wound through thick marsh, bordered by distant black trees and a wide sky. She looked over the fence and remembered meeting her neighbor for the first time.

“Got our fair share of gators,” the old man said, tucking a wad of tobacco into his stretched cheek. ”If you wanna see ‘em, just slip out after dark and shine your flashlight—they got red eyes.”

She gazed across the water, followed the swirls of marsh washed in a silver nightglow. She could almost feel the gators’ hard backs twist and turn along their familiar path, making their way to muddy nests fat with leathery eggs.

“Course we only ever caught one—” he said, pausing to wait for her reaction. “Twelve footer—least. Figured he was the one that ate our dog—they like small dogs.”

She waited.

“Took my john-boat and found that gator ‘round that turn, ” he pointed, “shot him in the head,”

She tensed as if she just heard the blast.

“Drug him back to the yard. He’d-a sunk if we’d-a left him.”

She stared at the water imagining the giant beast tied behind the small boat, his body forcing a wake, birds squawking along the bank.

“Neighbors down the way heard the shots and headed over. We decided to get us some gator tail.” He smiled, his voice excited in the telling.

“Well, I got me a big old knife and went to chop that tail, and I’ll have you know that darn thing reached round and snapped.” his hands clapped. She jumped. “Unloaded fifteen shots into that gator.”

The old neighbor nodded in pride.

She made it a point only to smile and wave to him since that day.

She slipped down the steps, her hand moving down the worn wood. The darkness accepted her. She sat silent on the floating dock with the river flowing underneath her, and the moon broke loose over the water. She closed her eyes and felt its sway, lifted her arms, pulled her gown off, balled it up and put it under her head. She lay back, wriggling on the thin coat of sand that covered the weathered boards pressing into the notches of her spine. Her eyes relaxed, and she found Orion with his arrow, poised.

She rolled over and dipped her fingers into the cool water, thinking of that gator and the fish—reds, puppy-drum, sheep-heads, and mullets, all being pulled out to sea. The hurry of the tide seized the eels and snapping turtles, and all the shrimp, luring them out to sea leaving mud and reeds exposed. She reached and could feel the bottom with its barnacles and roots, rocks and limbs, the muck pressed between fingers and toes. She looked back at the house, then at the river, caught between the two. She swirled her forefinger in the broken light, leaned over and let her hair float on the surface.

“H o w l.” The lonesome wail of a dog—the flutter of a bird—her fingers turned to claws and curled around the edge of the dock. She pulled her body closer, blinked. A second eyelid closed as her lips kissed the face of the deep. Her body slipped in the current and glided along the edge of the marsh—following the moonlight—hoping there were no neighbors with flashlights, searching for red eyes.